Once upon a time, Oprah Winfrey stepped into the role of fairy godmother for two unexpected friends.

Earlier this month, the media mogul sent a little girl and her magnanimous fairy friend to Disneyland after they proved “magic still exists even in the hardest of times,” in Oprah’s words.

Like all classic fairytales, this story began on Twitter. Los Angeles-based photographer Kelly Kenney penned a series of tweets in December to share the inspiring story of how she befriended Eliana Pauls, now 5.

In March 2020, Eliana created a fairy garden underneath a tree of their L.A. apartment building, because she “felt lonely in quarantine and wanted to spread some cheer,” according to Kelly.

The L.A. designer shared, “At the beginning of the pandemic I went through some painful personal stuff and would often go out at night for long walks because no one was around and I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

After she stumbled upon the painted rocks and other trinkets under the tree, she wrote a note to Eliana, pretending to be a fairy named Sapphire that lived in the foliage. Sapphire had a proposition: If Eliana did three acts of kindness, said nice things to five people and gave her an animal drawing, she would give her magical pink dice.