The little girl lives in a house with her Mamma and her uncle Réné. They have a big garden full of flowers and beetles. She likes the big black ones with glossy shells that crawl onto the back of your hand. The black they are is actually a lot of colours when you look at it closely: blue, purple, green, gold, and they’re all shiny and hard, but then they split open and wings come out, as fragile as a butterfly’s, and they fly off into the summer sky.

Her favourite flowers are foxgloves.

Uncle Réné is teaching them to read and write, her and Mamma together. They sit in the drawing room side by side and practice their letters. Sometimes it’s hard, and her Mamma sighs.

She says, “Your Mamma is very stupid, I’m sorry,” and kisses her on the head.

“Let’s finish the lesson,” Uncle Réné will say, but her Mamma only laughs and says,

“Later, later. Let’s go and look at the flowers in the garden first. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, my love?”

And her Mamma takes her hand, and they go to look at the flowers.

Her Mamma’s favourite flowers are daisies.

Her Mamma tells her stories. Sometimes neither of them can sleep, and they sit up together looking at the moon.

“You’re happy, aren’t you?” her Mamma asks her, holding her tight as they gaze together out of the window.

She nods and snuggles closer. Her Mamma smells of lavender.

“We do all right, don’t we?” she says. “You and me and Monsieur Marthe.”

That’s what she calls Uncle Réné: Monsieur Marthe.

“Yes,” says the little girl. “We do all right.”

Today is a hard day. Uncle Réné is sad, and Mamma has a headache.

“So many silent letters!” she keps saying during the morning lesson. “Why should that be? Are they too ashamed to speak?”

Then they try to make jam, but it won’t set. And one of the roses has got the black-fly.

But then when evening comes they sit together under the big tree, eating runny jam with a spoon and listening to the birds singing good-night.

They do all right.

“It’s dark,” says Mamma, at last. “Bed time.”

“I want to stay up all night,” says the little girl.

Uncle Réné smiles. “One day,” he says, “Maybe. But not tonight.”

So they go inside, and she washes and gets into her nightie and says her prayers.

“But tell me a story,” she begs, “before I sleep. Just one story!”

“All right,” says her Mamma. “Which one should I tell you?”

“You know which one! My favourite!”

Her Mamma tells her lots of stories, but the little girl’s favourite is the one about Forget-me-not and the apple tree child.

Mamma sits on the bed, and the little girl curls into her side, laying her cheek against her Mamma’s arm. The calico is soft against her skin. Uncle Réné is sitting across the room on the big old chair. His eyes are still sad - he’s been sad all day - but he is smiling.

Mamma begins.

Once upon a time there was a woman who made a wish. In the village where she lived, she was known as Forget-me-not, because her eyes were blue, like forget-me-nots. One day she was walking through her garden, and she looked at the apple tree and said ‘I wish I could have a daughter with hair as brown as the bare winter apple-branches, a mouth like a spring bud, a smile as sweet as apple-blossom in summer, and cheeks as round and red as autumn’s ripe fruit.’

When she made this wish, a fairy came walking out from behind the tree. He was a horrible little man with a wizened face and a cruel mouth, but Forget-me-not had no mother, so she did not know that fairies should never be trusted.

“I can grant your wish,” said the fairy. “But when she is two years old, I will come to see you again, and you must promise to give me whatever is on the branches of the apple tree.”

Forget-me-not gladly agreed; she loved the apples from that tree, but she wanted a little baby more than anything in the world.

Her daughter was born, and she was everything Forget-me-not had dreamed of. Her hair was as brown as the bare winter apple-branches, her mouth was like a spring bud, her smile was as sweet as apple-blossom in summer, and her cheeks were as round and red as autumn’s ripe fruit.

The two of them could not have been happier, and the little girl grew strong and lively. She loved to run and jump and climb.

Then, on her second birthday, the fairy came back. He said to Forget-me-not, ‘I have come to fulfil our bargain. You must give me whatever is on the branches of the old apple tree.’

“I would give you anything,” said Forget-me-not. “Nothing in the world is dearer to me than my little girl.”

Then she looked back at the old apple tree, and she saw that her daughter was climbing in the branches.

She ran across to the apple tree, to pull her down as quickly as she could. But the fairy ran after her, screeching, “You promised me! You promised! You can’t break the promise now!”

Forget-me-not wasn’t clever, but she loved her daughter more than anything in the world, and that made her think quickly. She threw an old dead branch in the path of the fairy, and it tripped him; while he was on the ground she took hold of her daughter and ran as fast as she could, into the deep forest.

She ran and ran for days without stopping. Whenever she slowed down, she seemed to hear the hateful voice of the fairy echoing behind her.

Then at last she stopped hearing it. She was deep inside the forest now. It was dark, and she was tired. Her little daughter was shivering in the cold and damp. She walked and walked until she saw a cosy little cottage, with roses growing up the gate.

She rapped three times on the door, and a kind old woman answered it.

“You poor thing,” she said. “You look exhausted.”

“Please,” said Forget-me-not. “Can we sleep here tonight?”

“Of course,” said the old woman. “Why! Your little child is freezing. Give her to me, and I’ll wrap her in a blanket to keep warm.”

“Thank you so much,” said Forget-me-not. She had no mother, you see, and so she did not know that old women living in the middle of the woods are never to be trusted.

She handed her daughter over to the old woman with a blessing, but as soon as the child was in her arms the old woman began to laugh horribly. Then she changed right then and there, into the wizened, cruel little fairy, holding her beloved daughter in his arms.

“She is mine,” he said, with a hateful screech of a laugh, “and always was. Now you will never take her back from me.”

In the blink of an eye he vanished, and so did the cottage, and so did the little girl. The woman was left quite alone in the dark forest.

She walked for a long time until she found her way out, into a little village at the foot of a mountain. Just beyond the village was a great palace, glistening against the sky.

She knocked on all the doors in the town.

“A fairy has taken my little girl,” she said each time. “Do you know how I can get her back?”

But each time the villagers shook their heads and said “No. Your girl is gone. Best to forget her.”

By the time she got to the very last door, tears were flowing freely over her cheeks. The very last villager said,

“If you really want to find your little girl, you’d better go and talk to the witch who lives over there.”

He pointed to a little hut on the at the edge of the village.

Now, Forget-me-not had no mother, and so she did not know that witches are never to be trusted. She climbed up to the little hut and knocked on the door. The witch answered it.

“A fairy has taken my little girl,” said Forget-me-not. “Do you know how I can get her back?”

“Your girl is gone,” said the witch. “Best to forget her.”

“I will never forget her,” said Forget-me-not. “She is my child always, and I am her Mamma. I will not stop looking for her until I die.”

“Very well,” said the witch. “You will have to go into fairyland to fetch her, but it is very difficult for men and women to enter. I can cast a spell to let you in, but you will have to find the items I will need first.”

“I will do anything,” said Forget-me-not.

The witch smiled.

“Bring me ten rubies before the next full moon,” she said.

Forget-me-not’s heart sank.

“How will I ever find one ruby, let alone ten?” she asked.

“It’s easy,” said the witch. “In the palace gardens, rubies grow on the trees like ripe fruit. You must get a job at the palace, and then you can pick all the rubies you need.”

So Forget-me-not went to the palace, and asked them for work. They gave her a job washing the palace floors, and she worked hard from morning to night. Her fingers and knees were red and raw from scrubbing, but she was happy to think that she might see her daughter again soon.

And just before the next full moon, late in the evening after she had finished work for the day, she secretly crept into the garden.

She passed beds of flowers that seemed to have butterfly wings instead of petals, and roses that whispered to one another in a language she didn’t understand. At last she found the orchard. Trees had been planted in straight rows, and on the trees jewels were indeed growing, like ripe fruit which sparkled in the moonlight. One tree was laden with sapphires, and another with diamonds, and still another with rubies. Forget-me-not picked ten beautiful ones and put them in the pocket of her apron.

She took them to the witch.

The witch looked at them very closely. At last she said, “I think they’ll do. The next thing I need is nine skeins of spun gold. Bring them to me by the next full moon.”

Forget-me-not’s heart sank.

“How will I ever find one skein of spun gold, let alone nine?” she asked.

“It’s easy,” said the witch. “In the palace there is a room with an enchanted spinning-wheel. It spins gold into thread, morning and night. Find the room and you can take as many skeins as you need.”

So every day while she worked at the palace, Forget-me-not tried to figure out where the room might be. She noticed that there was one room whose floors she was never asked to wash. The door was always closed, and nobody entered or left.

“What’s in there?” she asked.

But all she was ever told was, “That room is not for you. We don’t go in there.”

One day, when nobody was looking, Forget-me-not crept up to the door and opened it.

She blinked when she looked inside. It was so bright, glimmering with spun gold everywhere, that she could barely see. In the middle of the room sat a spinning-wheel from which a thread of gold stretched onto a fat spindle. The spinning wheel spun constantly, and the spindle grew fatter and fatter.

At last Forget-me-not tore her eyes away. She took seven skeins and put them in the pocket of her apron.

But when she turned to leave, she saw that there were figures in the doorway. She had been followed.

The palace guards seized Forget-me-not and took her before the king. He looked down at her from his high throne.

“Please,” said Forget-me-not, sobbing with shame and fear. “I didn’t steal your gold for myself, but for my little girl. A fairy has taken her away, and I need it for a spell to get her back.”

“Nonsense,” said the king. “Fairies stealing children! Whoever heard of such a thing!”

They took the skeins out of her pockets, and threw her out of the palace, and told her never to set foot there again.

It was nearly the full moon. She went to the witch, empty-handed, her eyes full of tears.

“They have cast me out,” she said. “I don’t have any gold.”

“That’s a shame,” said the witch. “I suppose your girl is gone forever.”

She was wearing a very beautiful necklace studded with rubies.

“Please,” begged Forget-me-not. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

“Your hair is like spun gold,” said the witch. “Give me that and  perhaps I can perform the next part of the spell.”

Forget-me-not swallowed. She reminded herself that she had agreed to do anything for her daughter.

“If it gets her back to me, what do I care?” she asked herself.  “My hair will grow again.”

She allowed the witch to cut off all of her lovely hair.

“Now,” said the witch. “For the next part of the spell, I need eight pearls.”

Forget-me-not’s heart sank.

“How will I ever find one pearl, let alone eight?” she asked.

“It’s easy,” said the witch. “In the central courtyard of the palace is a fountain overgrown with moss and ferns. Pearls grow in its damp basins like mushrooms. If you find the courtyard, you can take as many pearls as you need.”

“But I have been cast out of the palace,” said Forget-me-not. “I am forbidden to set foot there again.”

“So much the worse,” said the witch. “I suppose you will have to hunt for pearls on the river bed.”

Forget-me-not went down to the riverbed, and searched day and night for pearls. She combed through the mud with her fingers but she found nothing. The villagers took to calling her Worm.

When it was almost the full moon, she went back to the witch, almost bald and covered in mud.

“I have nothing,” she said. “Please help me, I am begging you.”

The witch smiled. A lock of golden hair had slipped out from under her kerchief.

“Your teeth are like pearls,” she said. “Give me those and perhaps I can do the next part of the spell.”

So she pulled out Forget-me-not’s teeth, one by one.

“What next?” asked Forget-me-not.

The witch looked her up and down.

“It’s a shame,” she said. “I thought you would have more to give me, but it’s no matter. Come to me at the next full moon, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Forget-me-not waited and waited for the next full moon. While she waited she sat in the mud next to the river, singing:

Apple tree child
Apple tree daughter
Your mamma is waiting
Down by the water

The king heard her singing from his window.

“Who is that woman?” he asked.

“That’s only Worm,” his courtiers replied.

At the full moon, Forget-me-not went to see the witch again.

“I am ready,” she said. “I want to find my daughter.”

The witch smiled, showing her beautiful pearl-white teeth.

“Nobody with a soul can enter fairyland,” she said. “If you want to go looking for your daughter, I will have to cut your soul out of you.”

Forget-me-not shuddered, but she thought of her beloved daughter, scared and alone.

“Do it,” she said, and closed her eyes tight.

The witch took out a sharp little knife, and swish-swish-swish, she sliced at Forget-me-not’s soul. She cut away the greater part, but a little stump still remained, like a pruned tree, for it takes more than a witch’s knife to cut a person’s soul away.

“This is not much, but I think it’ll do,” said the witch.

“Can I go to fetch my daughter now?” asked Forget-me-not.

“Fool!” said the witch. “You still have a soul, even if it’s a small one, and nobody who has a soul can enter fairyland. Your daughter is gone forever.”

“Please,” said Forget-me-not. “I beg you. You’ve taken so much already. Surely there’s something you can do to help me find my child?”

“Didn’t I tell you,” said the witch, “that it would be better for you to forget her?”

“I will never forget her,” said Forget-me-not. “She is my child always, and I am her Mamma. I will not stop looking for her until I die.”

The witch laughed, and walked away, casting Forget-me-not’s soul around her like a mantle.

Forget-me-not went back to the riverbed, weeping. She sat in the mud and sang,

Apple tree child
Apple tree baby
Remember your Mamma
When you’re a grown lady

The king heard her from his window.

“That woman sounds like her soul is dying,” he said.

“That’s only Worm,” his courtiers replied.

Day and night she sat by the river, singing. The king could hear her from his bedchamber, and could not sleep.

“I’m going for a walk down to the river,” he told his courtiers. He walked out of his palace and down to the riverbank.

“What happened to your soul, little Worm?” he asked. “What sorrow tramples you under its heavy feet?”

Forget-me-not spat at him.

“Have you come to laugh at me?” she asked. “Well, don’t bother. A fairy took my child, and a witch took my hair and my teeth, and more than half my soul as well. What can you do that would be worse than that?”

Then the king realised that she was the woman he had sent away for stealing the nine skeins of gold.

“What happened to you?” he asked, as gently as he could.

“Oh, what do you care?” said Forget-me-not. “I hadn’t any gold to give her, so she took my hair; and I hadn’t any pearls to give her, so she took my teeth; and I was no more use to her, so she took my soul as well. Now she is gone, and I don’t know how I will ever find my daughter again.”

The king’s heart grew heavy as he realised what he had done.

“Come with me,” he said. “There’s a fairy circle just next to the palace wall, and tonight the moon is full. Perhaps we can find a way through to get your daughter back.”

He took Forget-me-not by the hand, and lifted her up from the mud. They walked together to a bank of grass next to the palace wall, where a circle of mushrooms was growing. As every child knows, these are all gateways to fairyland.

“Come,” said the king, but at that moment the horrid little fairy stepped out of the circle towards them.

“You!” he said to the king. He grinned and wagged his finger. “Why, I hardly thought we would see you again, after so many years.”

“You won’t take him,” said Forget-me-not. “I won’t allow it.” She suddenly felt very strong.

But the fairy only laughed.

“I would hardly need to take him,” he said. “This is no man, but a changeling child. We placed him in the palace cradle many-a-year ago, and look how well he has done for it. To think! To think! A fairy on the throne. Whatever will they come up with next?”

Then he turned to Forget-me-not.

“Your daughter grows big,” he said. “So long, so long since she has seen you. Do you really think that she will know you again?”

He grinned, with a mouth full of perfect teeth, as white as pearls. Then, in a flash like the crack of a whip, he disappeared.

The king’s face was white. He looked up and saw that standing behind Forget-me-not were all of his courtiers, who had followed him there, and all of the villagers, who had come to find out the source of the commotion.

“Is it true?” asked Forget-me-not.

And all the courtiers and all the villagers echoed,

“Is it true? Do you deny it?”

“I can’t deny it,” said the changeling king. “It’s perfectly true.”

And he walked away from all of them, into the fairy circle, and disappeared.

Forget-me-not tried to run after him, but she still had that little stump of a soul, and so she could not feel anything even the slightest bit like a door. There was nothing but the circle of mushrooms and the dead grass, and behind that the palace wall made from hard stone. She cried and spat and screamed, and she cursed the king’s name and all of fairyland.

She wept until the grass beneath her feet died from the salt water, and the earth turned to mud.

She sang,

Apple tree child
Child of my sorrow
Forget your Mamma
She won’t come tomorrow

Then she thought about the king, and how he’d tried to help her.

“He isn’t a bad sort,” she said to herself, “even if he is a fairy. He doesn’t have a soul, I suppose. Ah! Well, I barely have one. But I swear, if he were here, I’d give him half of mine, small as it is. He was kind to me when nobody was kind. That counts for a good deal.”

Then she said to herself,

“I don’t think my daughter would have known me, even if I had found her, such a wretched Worm as I am. Perhaps it truly is best that she forget me.”

Then she lay down in the dead grass.

She wept every day for a week, and the birds called to her from the wide sky.

"Little Worm, little Worm," they said. "You must eat, you must drink."

They dropped food into her mouth as they did their own babies. Forget-me-not did not stop weeping, but she ate, and she grew stronger.

She wept every day for another week, and the foxes came out from their holes and called to her.

"Little Worm, little Worm," they said. "You are filthy with river-mud."

They licked her clean, as they did their own babies. Forget-me-not did not stop weeping, but she let them wash her, and she grew stronger.

She wept every day for another week, and the Moon cried out to her.

"Little Worm, little Worm," she said, "You must sleep, you are tired"

She wrapped Forget-me-not in darkness. Forget-me-not continued to weep, but she allowed herself to be lulled to sleep, and she grew stronger.

She wept every day for a fourth week, and the flowers in the fields cried out to her.

"Little Worm, little Worm," they said. "You cannot always be weeping. Look at our faces."

Forget-me-not looked at the bobbing heads of the daffodils, and the foxgloves, each one a pink thimble, and the cheery faces of the daisies, and she could not help but smile. There was an ache in her heart for her daughter, but she dried her tears.

She smiled when she looked up to see the birds in the sky, and she smiled when the light grew low and the foxes came out from their holes. And when night fell, she smiled to see that her friend, the Moon, was showing her full face.

And when the light of the full moon fell on the fairy circle, the changeling king stepped out of it.

He looked worn and old, and his hair was white. He was carrying a child asleep in his arms. Holding his hand was another man who looked just like him, except that the other man was dressed in rags, and was blinking at the light of the sun.

“This is your king, whose place I took unjustly,” said the changeling. He took off his crown and gave it to the other.

The rightful king left them by the fairy circle, and walked away, to take his place in the world.

Then the changeling laid the little sleeping child in Forget-me-not’s arms.

“And this is your daughter,” he said. “She will wake very soon.”

Forget-me-not saw how sad he looked, and how alone, and without a second thought she reached into her chest and tore her soul into two pieces.

“Take this,” she said. “it feels cold, I know, having only a small piece of a soul, but it must feel so much colder without one.”

Then the little girl began to stir, and Forget-me-not’s heart sank, for she knew her daughter could not possibly recognise her. She was bald, and toothless, and her face was still red with weeping; so far from the happy, pretty Mamma that she had been before.

The girl blinked awake. She opened her eyes wide, and her pink cheeks grew pale.

"She doesn't know me," thought Forget-me-not.

But the girl was smiling, and reaching out her hands.

“Mamma, oh Mamma,” she cried. “I knew you’d come for me.”

“Do you know me, then?” asked Forget-me-not.

“Of course,” said the little girl. “You have my Mamma’s eyes.”

And she fell back asleep in her mother's arms, smiling contentedly.

Then Forget-me-not felt a strange thing in her chest, a sort of swelling and pushing. For what water is to a tree, a child’s smiles are to a soul. Even the most broken stump will put out green shoots, if it is watered in this way.

The changeling was watching them both. He felt a curious prickling inside him as Forget-me-not’s soul began to sprout, like a cutting that is placed in rich earth and well watered.

“Come with me,” he said to both of them, mother and child. “I think we’ll do all right.”

And they did.

The little girl is sleeping, has been asleep for some time, but her Mamma always tells this story right through to the end. The ending is the most important part of it.

She kisses her child once more, and lowers her gently onto the pillow. Across the room, the old man is sleeping too, his head resting on one of the wings of the old chair. She contemplates waking him up, but settles in the end for loosening his cravat and laying a blanket over him.

She thinks about going downstairs, or to her own bed, but she’s not ready to sleep yet and she doesn’t want to leave this room, this tangible guarantee that it’s all real and safe and here. So she picks up a book from the bedside table and by the candlelight begins, slowly, to sound out the letters. Practice is important, that’s what M. Marthe is always telling her. That children learn quickly but adults have the advantage of persistence, of going over things again and again. So she mouths the words silently. J-e. Je. S-u-i-s. The 's' is silent but it’s still there in the background, working, supporting the others. Je suis. Je suis. I am.