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“But if you’re not, I’m here.” She tucked a stray lock behind my ear. “I’m sorry I wasn’t before—let me finish,” she said when I started shaking my head. “I might be lost sometimes, but I’ll always look at you and know who you are. I’ll always know you.” Her eyes shimmered. “I won’t forget again.”

So many reactions. A sore throat. Eyes that stung.

She had been there when I was little.

She had been there as her mind began to slip.

She would be there as it continued to happen.

The moment I thought she’d smash me to bits like her other work had been real. But the moment she stopped herself had been real, too. It gave us hope and the will to face whatever came.

The trees still spooked her. She still crafted with reluctance at times, still felt urges to destroy whatever she’d made. Other days, she pushed through, gaining strength from her work, rekindling her old passion. It was a constant back-and-forth.

She wasn’t getting better, but not worse, either. She was learning to live with her condition, to manage it. We were learning to own it and to rise above it, our differences, our similarities, with each other and everyone else.

In the throne room, with my flesh skin and my hands bound, she’d still known me. She hadn’t been relieved over the loss of my woodskin, because she’d always loved me that way. She loved me, no matter what skin I wore.

And maybe it took seeing me stripped of wood and chained in irons for everything to click. Maybe losing me, losing who I’d been, reminded her of how she once saw me. Maybe.

One thing was certain. I hadn’t been just a creation. I had always been her daughter.

I exhaled. “I’ve made a new draft of that crossbow. You want to see?”

She grinned, jitters and joy wrapped together. “I’d love to.”

Too soon after, the hour shifted, time to go home. I packed my tools, drafts, and axes while Mother refolded the tornado of clothing that I’d tossed into the chest. After fixing my sloppy efforts, she snatched my hat and set it on my head, then fussed with my cape until I whined at her to stop.

At the bungalow’s front door, her chin trembled. I grabbed her in a suffocating hug. Since coming back to her, we’d taken care of each other, more equally than before. When she couldn’t labor out of anxiety and fear, I did the chores, I made supper, I polished the final stages of her projects.

When my heart broke, when I sobbed, she held me until it stopped, until tears ceased, until I moved on.

She clung to me and whispered, “My timber girl.”

Yes, I was.

The walk through the treehouse colony wasn’t as heartrending as it had been when I’d first returned. Back then, memories had drained me, making my face burn and my chest ache.

Now wistfulness brushed my mouth into a half smile. I watched the children on the swing terrace, a group of boys and girls wrestling in the glade, couples strolling across open bridges and covered walkways, residents jogging down staircases, builders hammering.

The clomping of shoes on wood planks. Wheels creaking as someone filled a bucket from the well. Critters flitting into the trees.

Maples, tupelos, and oaks flared with color. Someone lit the fire pit, seared wood wafting into the crisp air. Smoke unfurled from logs, the crackling sounds skipping through the area.

It was the same but different here. Repaired, reinforced. Plants and root vegetables sprouted from gardens. Chatter all around me.

Residents had returned to the colony. Old and new faces, based on the stories they’d told me when I met them.

The final acorn had blessed this woodland, or so I liked to believe. It had made the ground more fertile and breathed life into the bungalows, sweeping them of dust and filling the landscape with a hopeful aura. The place had shed itself like a second skin, luring inhabitants back.

A happy life, a new life, a restored life.

It turned out that a visionary knight hadn’t been the only one who could make a prediction. I’d been flabbergasted, but not really flabbergasted, when nature and the Season proved my suspicion correct. I’d informed the jester and princess this might happen.

But the fairytale couldn’t get all the credit. It was a joint effort.

The cottagers who’d returned had made their own colony, adding their own contributions to it. They made their own honest fate.

Fantasy and reality had worked together.