The protagonist, Anodos, wakes on the morning after his 21st birthday and remembers something that happened the night before: He received the key to an old desk inherited from his late father many years earlier. Upon opening the desk, he releases a tiny fairy woman who grows to human size. Struck by her beauty, he reaches for her, but she warns him off. She is so powerful that to touch her would hurt him, not to mention she is his 237-year-old grandmother. Looking into her eyes, he feels a longing for the mother who died when he was an infant. Looking further, he sees the fairy country in her eyes and longs to see it himself. The fairy promises that he will see Fairy Land tomorrow.

As he remembers these events, he becomes aware that his bedroom is gradually transforming into a field of grass and flowers. His carpet blooms, and the ivy carved on his desk begins to twine and curl. A stream of icy water spills over the edge of his washbasin. He sees that the tree under which he seems to have slept is on the outskirts of a dense forest.