The griffin shifted restlessly but made no move to leave her perch.
“Minuet, would you like to hear a story about a girl who got lost far away from her family?” Sara asked softly. “Kind of like you, I guess. It has a happy ending, I promise.
“The girl’s name was…um…Mary, and one day she disappeared, and none of her friends or family knew where she’d gone. They all thought she was lost to them forever. But what they didn’t know was that Mary was very sick, so sick she almost died, and some good faeries had taken Mary home with them to heal her.
“For a long time, Mary lay in a deep sleep while the faeries worked their magic on her. And then one day, she woke up and found herself in the most amazing place she had ever seen.
“Mary was lying in the softest bed you could ever imagine, surrou
