Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Sleepy Stories. I'm your host, Lucy,
and my friends and I will be reading you a
sleepy bedtime story every week to relax you and to
help you to drift off into a RESTful sleep. From
time to time, we will also read you a relaxing,
peaceful meditation that will take you somewhere beautiful and calming.
Once we have read the stories, we will then read
them a second time, but this time they will be
ready even slower. This will help you to relax even more.
Before we begin, I would like you to close your
eyes and breathe in and out nice and deeply. Take
a few seconds to inhale, and then hold your breath
for a few seconds more, and then release and breathe out.
Do this a few times if you need to. While
you listen to the music and you listen to my voice,
give yourself time to let your body relax and your
mind settle. It's important that we allow time for us
to feel safe, cozy, and completely at ease. And now
it's time for this week's story.
Speaker 2: At the far edge of a farm so wide that
even the cows sometimes forgot where they had started, and
the chickens behaved as though fences were only polite suggestions.
There stood a cottage that had very clearly been built
for two people, and then, through either optimism or a
clerical error, inherited a third. The fields rolled outward in
lazy green waves, broken by hedge barns that leaned companionably
toward one another, windmills that creaked only when someone was
trying to nap, and ponds full of ducks who had
opinions about everything. Somewhere near the middle of it all
squatted the cottage tucked beneath a crooked apple tree, whose
branches leaned against the roof like an old friend who
had arrived for tea and quietly decided to stay forever.
The roof dipped, the chimney leaned, the door frame slanted
just enough that visitors entered with a faint bow, whether
they intended to or not. The cottage accepted this graciously.
Inside lived three sisters who loved one another fiercely and
argued with athletic commitments. The elder was Marabelle, who believed
that most problems in life could be solved with shelves, lists,
straight lines, and mornings that began with a sensible plan
written in tidy handwriting. The middle sister was Tansy, who
believed that most problems could be solved by experimentation, sudden inspiration,
rearranging furniture, repainting something that had not asked to be repainted,
or starting a new plan halfway through Marabelle's old one.
The youngest was Clover, who believed firmly that most problems
could be solved by petting them, collecting them, feeding them crumbs,
or sitting on them until they stopped being problems. Sometimes
she combined all four. The cottage itself contained one table
that had once been square and now leaned toward roundness,
two chairs that disagreed about height, and a stool that
wobbled in a way that suggested it had tried very
hard to be furniture and nearly succeeded. There was one
cupboard that opened only when complimented, one stove that ran
at two temperatures lukewarm, regret or heroic inferno, and a
sink that dripped thoughtfully even when no one was using it.
There were two beds. There were three sisters. This mathematical
imbalance powered most of their daily conversations. Mornings began with
negotiations that somehow always involved sacks. I slept on the
floor yesterday, Marabelle announced one dawn, while extracting her sleeve
from the kettle. That wasn't the floor. Tansy replied, that
was the sack of grain. I thought the sack of
grain was the one with feathers. No, that's the other sack.
Clover blinked awake from beneath the table. I used the feathers.
They escaped. Marabelle closed her eyes for a long, quiet
moment and inhaled, as though practicing for mountain climbing. Breakfast
brought new challenges. Someone always wanted the pans someone else
was already using. Someone always stood up just as someone
else leaned over. Someone always knocked over the mysterious jar
of buttons that nobody remembered buying, but nobody dared to
throw away. A chicken frequently wandered inside through the open
window and inspected the situation with visible disappointment. On one
particularly crowded morning, Marabelle tried to introduce a one person
at a time policy for moving between the table and
the sink. Tansy attempted to prove that this was unnecessary
by demonstrating a dance like spinning maneuver that ended with
three overturned cups and one extremely offended loaf of bread.
Clover applauded and then tried to feed crumbs to the bread.
Later that same day, Tansy decided the table would function
better rotated ninety degrees. Marabelle rotated it back, Tansy rotated
it again. Clover climbed underneath and pretended to be a
mole until someone tripped over her. By noon, someone had
spilled flour, someone had sat on a chicken, someone had
misplaced the kettle, and someone had put the kettle inside
the bread box without remembering why. The cottage itself seemed
a tense in resportons, the walls creaking while the ceiling sighed,
and the apple tree dropped a fruit onto the roof,
as though attempting to file a formal complaint. That was
when the knock came. It was not loud or demanding,
but cautious, the sort of knock that suggested whoever was
standing outside had once knocked too hard somewhere else and
learned a valuable lesson. Marabelle opened the door, a careful
inch on the doorstep, sat a dog, not a neat dog,
not a small dog, A round, fluffy dog, the color
of warm bread, with ears that drooped thoughtfully and eyes
that gleamed like polished buttons. Its tail wagged in slow,
confident sweeps, as though it had already decided the visit
would go well. It was holding a stick. Good morning,
said the dog. The sisters screamed, the chickens screamed. The
cupboard dropped another spoon. When the noise faded, the dog
politely asked whether it might come in. Marabelle refused, Clover agreed.
Tansy said it was obvious. The dog blinked, remarked that
the doorway was drafty, and stepped inside anyway, immediately filling
most of the remaining floor. It introduced itself as Bramble,
and added casually that it was magical. Tansy demanded proof.
Bramble sneezed, the stool stopped wabbling. Clover demanded the cupboard
be fixed. Bramble sniffed, causing the cupboard door to glide open,
produce the missing kettle, and shut again with offended dignity.
The sisters stared for a very long time. They then
began speaking at once producing a torrent of complaints so
dense that even the dog had trouble following them. Bramble
raised a paw and insisted on tea first. Ten minutes later,
everyone was sitting somewhere, including two sisters on sacks of oats,
and Bramble using the third chair. With heroic confidence, he
listened carefully, head tilting father and father to one side,
before announcing that they were suffering from what he called
a proximity problem. He explained that he could make the
cottage larger. They leaned forward. He explained that he would not.
They leaned back. Instead, he planned to take them somewhere.
One bark later, the gate outside swung open, and a
wooden cart rolled into view, pulled by nothing at all.
After an argument about seating arrangements that lasted longer than
the actual loading process, they climbed aboard the cart lifted
into the air. Chickens applauded. They screamed again, though with
slightly more awe this time. They soared over fields, fences, ponds, barns,
startled cows orchards, streams, and one scarecrow that fainted dramatically.
The cart eventually set them down in a valley so
vast that Maraba Well forgot about shelving for nearly fifteen
whole seconds, Trees rows like towers, mushrooms grew taller than doors,
rivers curved lazily through fields of wildflowers. Bramble told them
that this was what space felt like. Their first task
was simply to walk in different directions for ten minutes
and then come back. They made it three. Their second
task involved crossing a wide stream without touching. They all
stepped on the same rock. The third involved climbing a
hill by three separate routes. They argued about which route
belonged to whom and ended up on the same goat path. Later,
they were asked to gather firewood without competing for the
same stick, hate shade, without selecting the same patch of grass,
and sit quietly without adjusting one another's posture. They failed magnificently.
They slipped, they splashed, they laughed, they argued, they apologized.
They tried again. In the afternoon. Bramble took them farther still,
into a meadow where the grass hummed, into a canyon
that echoed their voices until they burst into giggles and
beside a lake so still that even Marabelle hesitated before
rearranging anything. At dusk, they shared berries, watching the light fade,
and slowly realized that nobody had counted who took more.
Clover admitted that they bunched. Tansy admitted that they carried
chaos with them. Marabelle admitted that perhaps shelves alone could
not fix every human problem. Bramble wagged. They returned home
at last, tired in the good way. The cottage still
leaned and dipped and sighed. Bramble sneezed. A third bed
slid from the wall. Shelves appeared, hooks sprouted, the ceiling lifted,
the table stretched. He told them they had done the
real work themselves. When they turned to thank him, he
was gone. Only muddy, poor prints and a stick remained.
They framed the stick. The chicken approved, and from that
day forward the cottage was still small, still cozy, still full,
but fre finally big enough. The sisters still argued, of course,
but mostly now about who was responsible for keeping a
bowl of water by the door in case a certain
magical dog ever decided to visit again. At the far
edge of a farm so wide that even the cows
sometimes forgot where they had started, and the chickens behaved
as though fences were only polite suggestions. There stood a
cottage that had very clearly been built for two people,
and then, through either optimism or a clerical error, inherited
a third. The fields rolled outward in lazy green waves,
broken by hedgerowss that leaned companionably toward one another, windmills
that creaked only when someone was trying to nap, and
ponds full of ducks who had opinions about everything. Somewhere
near the middle of it all squatted. The cottage tucked
beneath a crooked apple tree, whose branches leaned against the
roof like an old friend who had arrived for tea
and quietly decided to stay forever. The roof dipped, the
chimney leaned, the door frame slanted just enough that visitors
entered with a faint bow, whether they intended to or not.
The cottage accepted this graciously. Inside lived three sisters who
loved one another fiercely and argued with athletic commitments. The
eldest was Marabelle, who believed that most problems in life
could be solved with shelves lists straight lines and mornings
that began with a sensible plan written in tidy handwriting.
The middle sister was Tansy, who believed that most problems
could be solved by experimentation, sudden inspiration, rearranging furniture, repainting
something that had not asked to be repainted, or starting
a new plan halfway through Marabelle's old one. The youngest
was Clover, who believed firmly that most problems could be
solved by petting them, collecting them, feeding them crumbs, or
sitting on them until they stopped being problems. Sometimes she
combined all four. The cottage itself contained one table that
had once been square and now leaned toward roundness, two
chairs that disagreed about height, and a stool that wobbled
in a way that suggested it had tried very hard
to be furniture and nearly succeeded. There was one cupboard
that opened only when complimented, one stove that ran at
two temperatures lukewarm, regret or heroic inferno, and a sink
that dripped thoughtfully even when no one was using it.
There were two beds. There were three sisters. This mathematical
imbalance powered most of their daily conversations. Mornings began with
negotiations that somehow always involved sacks. I slept on the
floor yesterday, Marabelle announced one dawn, while extracting her sleeve
from the kettle. That wasn't the floor. Tansy replied, that
was the sack of grain. I thought the sack of
grain was the one with feathers. No, that's the other sack.
Clover blinked awake from beneath the table. I used the feathers.
They escaped. Marabelle closed her eyes for a long, quiet
moment and inhaled, as though practicing for mountain climbing. Breakfast
brought new challenges. Someone always wanted the pans someone else
was already using. Someone always stood up just as someone
else leaned over. Someone always knocked over the mysterious jar
of buttons that nobody remembered buying, but nobody dared to
throw away. A chicken frequently wandered inside through the open
window and inspected the situation with visible disappointment. On one
particularly crowded morning, Marabelle tried to introduce a one per
person at a time policy for moving between the table
and the sink. Tansy attempted to prove that this was
unnecessary by demonstrating a dance like spinning maneuver that ended
with three overturned cups and one extremely offended loaf of bread.
Clover applauded and then tried to feed crumbs to the bread.
Later that same day, Tansy decided the table would function
better rotated ninety degrees. Marabelle rotated it back, Tansy rotated
it again. Clover climbed underneath and pretended to be a
mole until someone tripped over her. By noon, someone had
spilled flour, someone had sat on a chicken, someone had
misplaced the kettle, and someone had put the kettle inside
the bread box without remembering why. The cottage itself seemed
a tense. In response, the wall falls creaking, while the
ceiling sighed, and the apple tree dropped a fruit onto
the roof, as though attempting to file a formal complaint.
That was when the knock came. It was not loud
or demanding, but cautious, the sort of knock that suggested
whoever was standing outside had once knocked too hard somewhere
else and learned a valuable lesson. Marabelle opened the door,
a careful inch. On the doorstep sat a dog, Not
a neat dog, not a small dog, a round, fluffy dog,
the color of warm bread, with ears that drooped thoughtfully
and eyes that gleamed like polished buttons. Its tail wagged
in slow, confident sweeps, as though it had already decided
the visit would go well. It was holding a stick.
Good morning, said the dog. The sisters screamed, the chickens screamed.
The cupboard dropped another spoon. When the noise faded, the
dog politely asked whether it might come in. Marabelle refused,
Clover agreed. Tansy said it was obvious. The dog blinked,
remarked that the doorway was drafty, and stepped inside anyway,
immediately filling most of the remaining floor. It introduced itself
as Bramble, and added casually that it was magical. Tansy
demanded proof. Bramble sneezed, the stool stopped wabbling. Clover demanded
the cupboard be fixed. Bramble sniffed, causing the cupboard door
to glide open, produced the missing kettle, and shot again
with offended dignity. The sisters stared for a very long time.
They then began speaking at once, producing a torrent of
complaints so dense that even the dog had trouble following them.
Bramble raised a paw and insisted on tea first. Ten
minutes later, everyone was sitting somewhere, including two sisters on
sacks of oats, and Bramble using the third chair. With
heroic confidence, he listened carefully, head tilting father and father
to one side, before announcing that they were suffering from
what he called a proximity problem. He explained that he
could make the cottage larger. They leaned forward. He explained
that he would not. They leaned back. Instead, he planned
to take them somewhere. One bark later, the gate outside
swung open, and a wooden cart rolled into view, pulled
by nothing at all. After an argument about seating arrangements
that lasted longer than the actual loading process, they climbed
aboard the cart lifted into the air. Chickens applauded. They
screamed again, though with slightly more awe this time. They
soared over fields, fences, ponds, barns, startled cows orchards, streams,
and one scarecrow that fainted dramatically. The cart eventually set
them down in a valley so vast that Marabelle forgot
about sh shelving for nearly fifteen hole seconds, trees rows
like towers, mushrooms grew taller than doors, rivers curved lazily
through fields of wildflowers. Bramble told them that this was
what space felt like. Their first task was simply to
walk in different directions for ten minutes and then come back.
They made it three. Their second task involved crossing a
wide stream without touching. They all stepped on the same rock.
The third involved climbing a hill by three separate routes.
They argued about which route belonged to whom and ended
up on the same goat path. Later, they were asked
to gather firewood without competing for the same stick, locate
shade without selecting the same patch of grass, and sit
quietly without adjusting one another's posture. They failed magnificently. They slipped,
they splashed, they laughed, they argued, they apologized. They tried again.
In the afternoon. Bramble took them farther still into a
meadow where the grass hummed into a canyon that echoed
their voices until they burst into giggles and beside a
lake so still that even Marabelle hesitated before rearranging anything.
At dusk, they shared berries, watching the light fade, and
slowly realized that nobody had counted who took more. Clover
admitted that they bunched. Tansy admitted that they carried chaos
with them. Marabelle admitted that perhaps shelves alone could not
fix every human problem. Bramble wagged. They returned home at last,
tired in the good way. The cottage still leaned and
dipped and sighed. Bramble sneezed. A third bed slid from
the wall. Shelves appeared, hooks sprouted, the ceiling lifted, the
table stretched. He told them they had done the real
work themselves. When they turned to thank him, he was gone.
Only muddy, poor prints and a stick remained. They framed
the stick. The chicken approved, and from that day forward
the cottage was still small, still cozy, still full, but
finally big enough. The sisters still argued, of course, but
mostly now about who was responsible for keeping a bowl
of water by the door in case a certain magical
dog ever decided to visit again at the far edge
of a farm, so wide that even the cows sometimes
forgot where they had started, and the chickens behaved as
though fences were only polite suggestions. There stood a cottage
that had very clearly been built for two people, and then,
through either optimism or a clerical error, inherited a third.
The fields rolled outward in lazy green waves, broken by hedgerows,
barns that leaned companionably toward one another, windmills that creaked
only when someone was trying to nap, and ponds full
of ducks who had opinions about everything. Somewhere near the
middle of it all squatted the cottage tucked beneath a
crooked apple tree, whose branches leaned against the roof like
an old friend who had arrived for tea and quietly
decided to stay forever. The roof dipped, the chimney leaned,
the doorframe slanted just enough that visitors entered with a
faint bow, whether they intended to or not. The cottage
accepted this graciously. Inside lived three sisters who loved one
another fiercely and argued with athletic commitments. The eldest was Marabelle,
who believed that most problems in life could be solved
with shelves, lists, straight lines, and mornings that began with
a sensible plan written in tidy handwriting. The middle sister
was Tansy, who believed that most problems could be solved
by experimentation, sudden inspiration, rearranging furniture, repainting something that had
not asked to be repainted, or starting a new plan
halfway through Marabell's old one. The youngest was Clover, who
believed firmly that most problems could be solved by petting them,
collecting them, feeding them crumbs, or sitting on them until
they stopped being problems. Sometimes she combined all four. The
cottage itself contained one table that had once been square
and now leaned toward roundness, two chairs that disagreed about height,
and a stool that wabbled in a way that suggested
it had tried very hard to be furniture and nearly succeeded.
There was one cupboard that opened only when complimented, one
stove that ran at two temperatures lukewarm regret or heroic inferno,
and a sink that dripped thoughtfully even when no one
was using it. There were two beds. There were three sisters.
This mathematical imbalance powered most of their daily conversations. Mornings
began with negotiations that somehow always involved sacks. I slept
on the floor yesterday, Marabelle announced one dawn, while extracting
her sleeve from the kettle. That wasn't the floor. Tansy replied,
that was the sack of grain. I thought the sack
of grain was the one with feather No, that's the
other sack. Clover blinked awake from beneath the table. I
used the feathers. They escaped. Marabelle closed her eyes for
a long, quiet moment and inhaled, as though practicing for
mountain climbing. Breakfast brought new challenges. Someone always wanted the
pans someone else was already using. Someone always stood up
just as someone else leaned over. Someone always knocked over
the mysterious jar of buttons that nobody remembered buying, but
nobody dared to throw away. A chicken frequently wandered inside
through the open window and inspected the situation with visible disappointment.
On one particularly crowded morning, Marabelle tried to introduce a
one person at a time policy for moving between the
table and the sink. Tansy attempted to prove that this
was unnecessary by demonstrating a dance like spinning maneuver that
ended with three overturned cups and one extremely offended loaf
of bread. Clover applauded and then tried to feed crumbs
to the bread. Later that same day, Tansy decided the
table would function better rotated ninety degrees. Marabelle rotated it back,
Tansy rotated it again. Clover climbed underneath and pretended to
be a mole until someone tripped over her. By noon,
someone had spilled flour, someone had sat on a chicken,
someone had misplaced the kettle, and someone had put the
kettle inside the bread box without remembering why. The cottage
itself seemed to tense in response, the walls creaking while
the ceiling sighed, and the apple tree dropped a fruit
onto the roof, as though attempting to file a formal complaint.
That was when the knock came. It was not loud
or demanding, but cautious, the sort of knock that suggested
whoever was standing outside had once knocked too hard somewhere
else and learned a valuable lesson. Marabelle opened the door
a careful inch. On the doorstep sat a dog, Not
a neat dog, not a small dog, a round, fluffy dog,
the color of warm bread, with ears that drooped thoughtfully
and eyes that gleamed like polished buttons. Its tail wagged
in slow, confident sweeps, as though it had already decided
the visit would go well. Holding a stick. Good morning,
said the dog. The sisters screamed, the chicken screamed. The
cupboard dropped another spoon. When the noise faded, the dog
politely asked whether it might come in. Marabelle refused, Clover agreed.
Tansy said it was obvious. The dog blinked, remarked that
the doorway was drafty, and stepped inside anyway, immediately filling
most of the remaining floor. It introduced itself as Bramble,
and added casually that it was magical. Tansy demanded proof.
Bramble sneezed, the stool stopped wabbling. Clover demanded the cupboard
be fixed. Bramble sniffed, causing the cupboard door to to
glide open, produce the missing kettle, and shot again with
offended dignity. The sisters stared for a very long time.
They then began speaking at once, producing a torrent of
complaints so dense that even the dog had trouble following them.
Bramble raised a poor and insisted on tea first. Ten
minutes later, everyone was sitting somewhere, including two sisters on
sacks of oats, and Bramble using the third chair. With
heroic confidence, he listened carefully, head tilting father and father
to one side, before announcing that they were suffering from
what he called a proximity problem. He explained that he
could make the cottage larger. They leaned forward. He explained
that he would not. They leaned back. Instead, he planned
to take them somewhere. One bark later, the gate outside
swung open, and a wooden cart rolled into view, pulled
by nothing at all. After an argument about seating arrangements
that lasted longer than the actual loading process, they climbed
aboard the cart lifted into the air. Chickens applauded. They
screamed again, though with slightly more awe this time. They
soared over fields, fences, ponds, barns, startled cows orchards, streams,
and one scarecrow that fainted dramatically. The cart eventually set
them down in a valley so vast that Marabelle forgot
about shelving For nearly fifteen whole seconds, trees, rows like towers,
mushrooms grew taller than doors, Rivers curved lazily through fields
of wildflowers. Bramble told them that this was what space
felt like. Their first task was simply to walk in
different directions for ten minutes and then come back. They
made it three. Their second task involved crossing a wide
stream without touching. They all stepped on the same rock.
The third involved climbing a hill by three separate routes.
They argued about which route belonged to whom and ended
up on the same goat path. Later, they were asked
to gather firewood without competing for the same stick, locate
shade without selecting the same patch of grass, and sit
quietly without adjusting one another's posture. They failed magnificently. They slipped,
they splashed, they laughed, they argued, they apologized. They tried again.
In the afternoon. Bramble took them farther still into a
meadow where the grass hummed into a canyon that echoed
their voices until they burst into giggles and beside a
lake so still that even Marabelle hesitated before rearranging anything.
At dusk, they shared berries, watching the light fade, and
slowly realized that nobody had counted. Who took more. Clover
admitted that they bunched. Tansy admitted that they carried chaos
with them. Marabelle admitted that perhaps shelves alone could not
fix every human problem. Bramble wagged. They returned home at last,
tired in the good way. The cottage still leaned and
dipped and sighed. Bramble sneezed. A third bed slid from
the wall, shelves appeared, hooks sprouted, the ceiling lifted, the
table stretched. He told them they had done the real
work themselves. When they turned to thank him, he was gone.
Only muddy, poor prints and a stick remained. They framed
the stick. The chicken approved, and from that day forward
the cottage was still small, still cozy, still full, but
finally big enough. The sisters still argued, of course, but
mostly now about who was responsible for keeping a bowl
of water by the door in case a certain magical
dog ever decided to visit again. Name Si