Spotted Among the Poppies

Winnettle the ladybug cared for a garden wide and wondrous. In the northeast corner, her poppies grew, always neat, always tidy. She liked things just so: each seed tucked into its cozy bed, each splash of water given right on time, as steady as a ticking clock. In her home, Everkin Glen, flowers stretched tall as trees, and Winnettle dreamed her poppies would too. She pictured a forest of scarlet blooms, a dancing sea of red petals freckled with dark dots. A garden to act as a living mirror of her own bright spotted wings, and of her mother’s wings before her.