Nova Quickwit is a fox with a voice like starlight. Her healing songs can mend hearts, give courage to weary travelers, and bring comfort to creatures in pain. She lives in a magical clearing with ancient stone circles and her wise owl companion Whisper, where she helps those in need with her gift—and her perfectly-timed jokes that can do almost as much healing as any song.

But when a pale deer named Maple arrives in the clearing with a mysterious crescent-shaped scar, Nova's bright confidence crumbles. She recognizes that wound. The exact shape. The exact color. Because seven winters ago, a younger Nova—foolish and gleaming with arrogance—created it.

Maple had asked for help with something beyond ordinary healing. Nova, desperate to prove her voice could do anything, pushed her magic further than she understood. The song worked. Almost. But something broke in the breaking, and Nova ran instead of staying to fix it. She convinced herself that forgetting was the same as it never happening.

Now Maple has traveled to seventeen clearings seeking help, and no healer's magic can touch the scar. There's only one place powerful enough to undo it: the first stone circle, beyond the dangerous Forgetting Thicket—a three-day journey that means Nova will miss the Healing Moon Festival, when all the creatures who depend on her songs need her most.

Nova faces an impossible choice: stay and help the many who need her tonight, or leave and fix the one mistake she's been running from for seven years.

With Whisper's patient wisdom reminding her that "mistakes are just stories you haven't finished writing yet," and Maple's quiet readiness to finally put down a burden she's carried too long, Nova must decide what true healing really means.

The journey to the Forgetting Thicket will require believing in things she can't see. And when it's done, Nova promises herself something harder than the journey itself: she'll tell the whole story—the real version, with all the parts she got wrong.

Perfect for ages 9-12

This story explores:

• Taking real responsibility for mistakes instead of just feeling bad about them
• The difference between performing goodness and actually being good
• Choosing the difficult right thing over the easier but less honest path
• Understanding that forgiveness requires action, not just apology
• The courage it takes to tell the truth about what you did wrong
• Meaningful amends vs. running away and hoping people forget

A thoughtful, emotionally honest fantasy adventure about a healer learning that sometimes the bravest magic isn't fixing what's broken in others—it's facing what you broke yourself and doing the hard work of making it right.

Runtime: 11:44

Part of the Fables Adventures collection - stories for young listeners learning that mistakes aren't the end of your story. They're just the middle. And the bravest thing you can do is go back and finish what you started, even when it's been seven years and you're terrified of what you'll find.

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