Primrose decided to investigate. She put on her mud boots—the ones with the frog on the toe—and stepped outside. The world was noisy in a way it hadn’t been for months. Bees the size of grapes fumbled out of a hollow log, drunk on their first pollen of the year. A robin argued with a squirrel over a twig that would become a nest. Even the fence posts seemed straighter, as if the earth had stretched its back.
In the small valley town of Everbell, spring didn’t arrive gradually. It arrived with a pop . seasons in spring
Primrose looked at the shoots, then at the chattering creek, then at the sky that was now fully, brilliantly blue. She understood something then—something too big for words but just the right size for a nine-year-old’s heart. Spring wasn’t just a season. It was the world keeping its word. Primrose decided to investigate
She’s here. Spring is here.
“What promises?”
Primrose looked up. An old woman was sitting on a mossy log, her lap full of wild onion sprouts. She wore a coat made of stitched-together burlap sacks, and her hair was the color of last autumn’s leaves. Bees the size of grapes fumbled out of