Saffron’s Lantern-Maker Secret — Under the potting-bench, where dry soil smelled like pepper and rain, Saffron pressed a bent tin loop flat with both paws. Read the full story →
Under the potting-bench, where dry soil smelled like pepper and rain, Saffron pressed a bent tin loop flat with both paws. She needed berry-red dye for the tiny lantern tag she was making, the one that would say THIS WAY in letters only fireflies could read. The loop looked like junk, but hush: it was the first handle she had ever twisted by herself, and she was not leaving it plain.
So Saffron slipped out along the walled garden path. Wet leaves brushed her whiskers, and the candle lantern on its hook clicked softly in the breeze. The best berries grew beyond the daisies, past the place where the path puddled silver. She reached, slipped, and plopped one paw into cold mud. “Worth it,” she whispered, though her tail had collected three burrs and one very surprised snail.
Back under the bench, Saffron mashed the berries in a bottle cap, stained the tag red, and tied it to her tin loop with a grass stem. The letters wobbled. The knot leaned. But when the fireflies found it, they blinked around her handmade sign like sparks around a secret door. Next time you spot the berry bush and the lantern, see if you can guess which glow began under the potting-bench.
