A 4-year-old made a garden. A neighbor pretended to be a fairy. It was the start of a beautiful friendship

A broken year led photographer Kelly Kenney and a 4-year-old neighbor to create some real magic.

Kenney, who works for Pandora Music and SiriusXM, was going through an ugly breakup when stay-home orders first went into effect. She had taken to late-night walks in her Culver City neighborhood of Los Angeles.

One night, at the start of the pandemic, a bed of color and sparkle caught her eye. Miniature ceramic doors sat at the base of a tree, which was wrapped in twinkle lights. Small plants, man-made flowers and butterflies came together in a tiny engineered garden.

"Someone had set up a few little objects in a tree planter and upon closer inspection I realized it was a fairy garden with a little note about the 4-year-old girl who felt lonely in quarantine and wanted to spread some cheer," Kenney tweeted on Friday.

Amid the turquoise rocks, painted stones and garden gnomes was a laminated note from the child's parents, written in verse. "Our 4-year-old girl made this to brighten your day. Please add to the magic, but don't take away. These days can be hard, but we're in this together. So enjoy our fairy garden and some nicer weather."

This garden moved Kenney, who lost one of her best friends to suicide when she was a teenager.

"The thought of someone I loved feeling that lost, that broken, is something that still stays with me," she wrote in an email to The Washington Post. "I've made it a personal goal of mine to make sure to be someone for the rest of my life that others feel they can reach out to. As someone who has also experienced a lot of depression and dark feelings myself, I know the best way to pull myself out is to help bring happiness to others. That thought is behind a lot of the things I do."

She tucked the introductory note and instructions into a glitter-filled glass bottle and left it at the base of the tree.

The note and gift did not come from Kenney. It came from a Norwegian fairy named Sapphire who admired how nicely Eliana had set up the garden and had decided to live in the tree.

She did not expect anything to come from it. But the next night, Kenney found a note tucked into the same glass jar.

It was from Eliana, telling the fairy that she had completed all of the tasks.

"I was hoping to just encourage her or whoever found the note to do something nice for others while still staying safe," Kenney said.

"Doing this every night gave me purpose in a horribly painful and lonely time. I looked forward to my days again and I started ordering art supplies and little trinkets to leave her," Kenney wrote on Twitter.

After the first few exchanges, Kenney left a note for Eliana's parents, explaining who she was and making sure it was OK that she continued the correspondence. They went back and forth to figure out when messages should be left so Kenney could personalize what Sapphire would leave. Eliana dictated her notes to her mother, Emily Pauls, before she signed them.

As Eliana's parents kept her home from preschool this year, her friendship with Sapphire became pivotal.

"The hardest part about this pandemic for us has been seeing how it affects her. She's really such a trooper," Pauls said. Eliana is "old enough to understand, but young enough to not necessarily have the same ability to cope or maybe not get things fully. But she knows what she's missing."

As quarantine life continued, Eliana and Sapphire's friendship had a profound effect on both of them.

Kenney said she could see through their correspondence that Eliana was growing up.

"Watching even just her letters and handwriting improve over these months has meant a lot to me," Kenney said.

Eventually, Eliana grew curious and wanted to meet Sapphire. That desire became more intense as her parents started looking for a new house.

Pauls told Kenney that Eliana was having a tough time with the idea of an upcoming move. So Sapphire wrote and told her that she also is moving. Eliana was not alone - Sapphire was also going through a big change.

On Wednesday, Eliana's family moved to a house in another Los Angeles neighborhood. But her parents arranged to go back to their apartment for a final walk-through on Friday, coordinating with Kenney. As it worked out, Eliana asked to go to the tree to see if she could "catch" Sapphire in the garden.

Eliana's parents and Kenney tested negative for the coronavirus two days before they met in person wearing masks. Dressed as a fairy (with a cape she said covered her wings), Kenney and Eliana met and talked for about an hour, mostly about life as a fairy and other pressing issues.

"I was definitely shaking and stumbling over my words at first, but once we chatted for a bit, it was like we were the best of friends, I mean, we are," Kenney said.

Pauls herself did not know whether Eliana would be shy or rush to Sapphire, but the two hit it off in person immediately. On the ride home, she said, Eliana "was gushing."

The two plan to keep in touch through old-fashioned mail. Kenney hopes that Eliana holds on to the hope and magic of this relationship for as long as she can.

"We are all in this time together, living through a pandemic in the year 2020, trying to take everything one day at a time. It's easy to be pessimistic and get lost in the painful and chaotic stories we see every day, there's a lot of pain in the world right now, but if you have the ability to brighten even one person's day, you never know what that might turn into," Kenney said.