When Lorene sifts through her trunk filled with diaries and mementos, she is filled with emotion. As she reads her own words, the passages bring back both the greatest joys of her life and the challenges that ultimately confined her to a wheelchair. A diary from 1944 proves too difficult to process, so instead, she selects a childhood diary from a much happier time. Lorene recalls her first diary from 1917, when her dear mother and daddy, Minnie and Charlie, were still alive, and her ten-year-old self had dreams as big as the stars in her eyes. As Lorene reminisces, her life’s story takes the stage.

One of the best days from Lorene’s childhood was spent at the silent movies with her best friend, Louise. With Lorene’s mother playing the piano for the movie and her father serving as the page-turner, young Lorene doesn’t have a care in the world. Later at a picnic under the rose arbor, Lorene, already an aspiring concert pianist, composer, and avid storyteller, shares with her confidant Louise her yearning for a fairytale life where she is Princess of the Grand Piano. While Lorene is the passionate artistic type, Louise dreams of being a pilot and possesses no-nonsense spunk. The two share a special bond that deepens in adulthood. As children, Louise listens intently to Lorene’s fanciful stories, where Lorene’s fairy doll, Esmerelda, whisks them off to the imaginary moon called Reverie. Lorene’s carefree childhood is cut short when she is struck by a serious illness that paralyzes her legs. While Lorene struggles for her life, the lines blur between reality and fantasy. As Lorene gradually recovers and regains her ability to walk, she reveals to Louise that in her delirium, she visited Reverie, where Esmerelda helped her recover her strength. Intrigued, Louise wants to know more, and Lorene goes to the piano, where an original composition transports them both to the magical moon, where they visit The Palace of Rose Petals. Following her illness, Lorene’s storytelling becomes more vivid, and Esmerelda appears as real as the shapes in the clouds and is no longer just a doll. Louise, enthralled by the immersive experience, becomes convinced that Lorene’s piano is enchanted.

As time goes by, much to Louise’s dismay, Lorene falls in love with the dashing Spencer. Louise is concerned that Spencer may get in the way of Lorene pursuing her dreams, but Lorene also wishes to have children and a family. In 1929, in America, touring as a concert pianist is incompatible with a woman’s role in the family, so Lorene has choices to make. At difficult junctures in her life, Lorene finds solace composing music at the piano, where she is able to find Reverie. With her wishes in a whirl, Lorene sorts through her desires at Reverie’s Well of Divergent Desire. Guided by the wisdom of Esmerelda, Lorene navigates her life challenges, pondering the symbolic nature of the gifts Esmerelda sends home with her.

Over a cup of tea, Louise tells Lorene that she has received her pilot’s license. Meanwhile, Lorene reveals that her passion for playing the piano sometimes conflicts with her role as a dutiful wife. While Lorene finds fulfillment as a mother and piano teacher, not all goes as planned. In 1944, in the midst of World War II, things come to a head as Lorene’s personal life begins unraveling. A mysterious stranger enters, and Lorene’s marriage is in peril. To make matters worse, her walking problems have returned, and Lorene struggles to take just another step.

In this dark night of the soul, Lorene clings to her music. Louise continues to be a constant source of support for Lorene, and they venture together to Reverie’s Forest of Magical Mirrors in search of answers. When the answers they find leave Lorene heartbroken, Lorene faces decisions that will alter the course of her life. Lorene’s music takes on more intensity as she explores Reverie’s more somber side. On a visit to Siren Sea, Lorene debates between seeking revenge as encouraged by the sirens and Esmerelda’s more peaceful gift. Ultimately, Lorene strikes out on her own, taking her children, Bobby and Elaine, back to her childhood home, where her aging parents welcome them all with open arms.

Single motherhood in mid-twentieth century America is no easy feat, and Lorene documents her trials and tribulations through diary entries and letters. As time passes, Lorene’s beloved parents pass away, and her children start lives of their own. When her legs give out from under her once again, and she is confined to a wheelchair, Lorene is no longer reminiscing through her diaries. Instead, she wheels herself into her childhood home, where she lives out her final years. Even with so many unfulfilled dreams, Lorene doesn’t have enough ink to express her gratitude for the people in her life who stood by her.

Nearing the end of her life, Lorene writes to Louise to tell her that she feels like she has fallen into quicksand. Concerned, Louise makes a personal visit, finding Lorene bedridden. Through Louise’s positive presence in her life, Lorene is able to face all obstacles. Lorene expresses to Louise that looking back, her life really was a fairytale despite not having a traditional fairytale ending. Having documented it all, she tells Louise to make sure Elaine saves her trunk. When Lorene’s time is up, the two women imagine dancing on quicksand contained in an hourglass with new adventures on the other side. Years later, when Lorene’s trunk is opened, the contents of an unlikely fairytale life are discovered by Lorene’s great-granddaughter, Grace, also a musician. Grace then sits down at the piano to play Lorene’s original composition found in the trunk, titled Reverie. The fairytale magic lives on.