I think it may have had to do with the Blue Fairy’s “preparations” she talked about in “The Stranger”.
For some reason, when I don’t know what’s going on I always blame the Blue Fairy. 😆
It’s a fair call to blame her IMO. She’s shifty, that one, and though she’s always on the “right” side, that doesn’t mean she always does “pure good”.
Based on the fact that it seems Cora will be in present day FTL, I think her presence will have something to do with the fact that part of the land was immune to the curse to a certain extent.