The Clockmaker's Grove

In Whispering Pines, time is a tangible thing, woven into the very fabric of life.  But when clockmaker Juniper Allwright’s latest creation—a moonstone pocket watch powered by a firefly’s luminescent heart—begins to tick, the valley’s delicate temporal harmony unravels. Days vanish from memory, lives are subtly altered, and the ancient Time Tree at the heart of Whispering Pines begins to fade.
Haunted by the whispers of lost moments, Juniper embarks on a desperate quest to mend what she has broken.  Accompanying her are a trio of unlikely companions, each drawn by their own personal losses: Bramble, a fox spirit whose family stories are slipping away; Wisp, a luminous mushroom spirit interwoven with the Time Tree’s fading light; and Marigold, the village baker, whose family recipes, the heart of her heritage, are threatened with oblivion.
Their journey leads them through moonlit forests and forgotten grottos, where they seek rare ingredients to heal the Time Tree. But their path is fraught with peril.  Ethereal Night-Owls, hoarders of stolen moments, lurk in the shadows, and a hidden prophecy reveals Juniper's role in the valley's fate is far greater than she ever imagined.
As the valley’s timelines fracture further, the companions uncover a hidden history and confront a powerful entity known as the Whisperer, a being of immense sorrow that seeks to rewrite the past and create a world free from the pain of loss.  Juniper must choose: harness the Time Tree’s power to rewrite time, or find another way, a path of empathy, one that weaves the pain of the past into a new, more resilient future.
In this enchanting tale of time, memory, and the power of shared experience, Juniper and her companions will discover that true healing comes not from erasing the past, but from embracing its complexities, weaving its sorrows and joys into a symphony of now.