CHAPTER 38
September 1940
After traveling from Binsey to the Russell Square Station, Hazel thought she and Mum had disembarked at the wrong place: The landscape was altered just enough to be at once familiar and not. They walked past a tattered British flag, flapping in the wind from a pole poking out of a pile of rubble, bricks and concrete, charred wood, and fragments of furniture: a drawer, a turned leg of a missing table, a bedpost.
In front of Hazel was a house with its front missing. There was a clear view into the living room where a couch sat under a crystal chandelier. It was a life-size dollhouse, nothing disturbed inside, but glass glittered on the ground outside, and concrete and bricks were in piles like a child’s tumbled game of blocks. They passed a mum in a tattered khaki dress, with three small children. They stood outside a home with their arms wrapped around each other, staring at a pile of rubble and wood, the boy pointing at something Hazel couldn’t see. The youngest was crying about a lost cat named Sandy and the oldest, maybe ten years old, was stoic but trembling.
“They lost their home,” Hazel said.
“Yes,” Mum said. “So many have. We’ve been lucky so far.”
So far.
Dust was everywhere, covering lampposts and cars parked at the edge of the street, on the sills of storefronts with blown-out windows, and black curtains fluttering in the shattered spaces. Then there was an undamaged butcher shop next to a destroyed café. It was all randomness. Intact houses sat next to destroyed ones; undisturbed pavement would drop off into a crater big enough to crawl into, where earth and concrete crumbled.
The Number 77 red double-decker bus with KINGS CROSS emblazed on its rear, an advertisement for Picture Post on its side, was perched nose-up from a giant crater. The vehicle’s back end had been swallowed.
“This area was hit two nights ago, Hazel. So you know I’m not fooling with you when I say it is dangerous.”
“I don’t think you are fooling. I didn’t… I thought…”
Mum stopped midstep and turned to Hazel. They were the same height now, and Mum took Hazel’s face in her hands. “If you think you want to be here, if you think coming here or running away like Kelty is something you want to do—I want you to know the truth.”
Hazel nodded as a woman walked past carrying a suitcase, dirt on her face.
Mum’s voice was clear and loud. “The bombers fly up the river, Hazel. They use our beloved Thames as a map into the city. You can hear the grind of their engines, then the high whistle of a bomb being dropped, then the thump of it hitting the earth, exploding homes, setting afire cathedrals and libraries and museums. They come just after dark.” She shuddered. “You never know when the next one will arrive. The sky trembles like a thunderstorm. Far away or close, you see a bright white light, then a yellow flame.”
Hazel felt the fear of it happening right then wash over her. How did Mum go to sleep at night, knowing they were coming again and again?
“We’re jammed into underground platforms. I’ve witnessed people digging their way out of an air raid shelter, all thank God alive, but next time—”
“Mum, stop!” Hazel couldn’t breathe. The words her mum was saying were like bombs themselves. “Come live with us in Binsey.”
“I cannot, Hazel. But this will end, and you and Flora are staying away so that one day you can come back. Kelty might have been spared, but if anything happened to you…”
“You don’t have to protect me.”
“Yes, I do. That is my job. That is all that matters. It matters little if I am happy or I am content. My job is to take care of you.” She kept her gaze on Hazel’s. “We are lucky Bridie chose my girls. You must stay safe. They think they can destroy us. Well, they can destroy our houses and buildings and boats and cars but they can’t destroy the British, not the morale. Not us. Not you, Hazel. Not me.”
“I understand, Mum. I will go back to Binsey, I promise. Just let me see Kelty and my home. I will go right back to Bridie.”
Mum put her arms around Hazel and pulled her close. “I cannot lose you, my darling Hazel. I will not take that chance.”
Everyone wore white. That was Hazel’s first thought as Mum led them through the wooden front door of the Great Ormond Street Hospital. Hazel followed Mum to the front desk where a nurse in a white cap, a white apron over a white dress, gave Mum directions to Kelty’s room.
“Down the hall to the right, Ward C.” The nurse looked as tired as the nurses behind the parish church. Her low bun tucked under her hat was coming loose, and greasy strands of hair fell onto her shoulder. The phone rang with a broken jangle, and the nurse lifted her chin, indicating the hallway they should take, before answering. “Great Ormond Street.”
The ward where Kelty was supposed to be had floor-to-ceiling iron- framed rectangular windows that were smudged and dirty. The room was crowded with rows of white iron beds and cribs. A boy sat as a nurse read to him. A petite woman wore a lace nurse’s cap different from the rest of the nurses’ caps, and she leaned over a child asleep in a crib, patting its back.
White lamps dripped puddles of bright light, circled by shadow, on the bedside tables where vases held wilted flowers and scattered papers with scribbled notes. Colored ribbons hung from some beds, fluttering as a nurse walked by. One girl ran her fingers through the ribbons even as her eyes were closed.
Hazel scanned the room for Kelty, locating her on the far side of the room. Her bed rails on either side were up, as if imprisoning her. As she approached, Hazel saw that Kelty’s eyes were closed, and a bandage covered her arm and forehead.
Hazel let out a cry and ran to her side. “Kelty!”
Her friend opened her eyes and smiled. “I told them you would come and they didn’t believe me.”
“Oh, Kelty…” Hazel reached to take her friend’s hand but a tube ran into a vein, a large bandage with a single spot of dried blood covering it. “I’m so sorry about everything that happened.”
“Mum is dead.” Kelty’s left cheek was distorted with a yellow-green bruise beneath the bandage on her forehead, but her eyes were dry. “She was right next to me. And then she wasn’t.” Kelty’s voice was clogged with emotion and she squeezed shut her eyes. “They are going to send me to my aunt Bernice in Lancashire. I’ve only met her a few times, Hazel. Let me come back to Binsey with you. Please.”
“Mum, can I?”
Mum didn’t answer, and Hazel’s gaze wandered to the fluttering ribbons. “What are those?” she asked.
Kelty looked sideways, and her face fell. “Some of the girls trade ribbons. Their parents bring them, and they trade them to have every color. The mums braid them into their hair and then they bring even more of them.”
“Mum!” Hazel cried out. “You have to bring Kelty some ribbons.”
“I will, darling.”
“Kelty must come back with me,” Hazel said. She lifted her gaze to her mum, who now stood on the other side of the bed, stroking Kelty’s arm.
“She isn’t going anywhere,” said a stern voice from behind. The nurse with the lace cap had arrived at the bedside of the child next to Hazel. The girl, her eyes closed, was no older than Flora, and there were black letters written on her forehead: M ¼. The nurse was short enough that she would look like a child if not for her graying hair and uniform. Obviously in charge, she read the chart at the end of the child’s bed, then turned to Hazel and Mum.
“I am Matron Lane, and this young lady isn’t going anywhere yet.”
Hazel stared at the little girl in the other bed. “Why is there writing on her head?”
The nurse stared at Hazel as if deciding what to say, then softly told her, “In an emergency, it is the best way we have to quickly communicate. The notation means she’s had a fourth dose of morphine.” Matron Lane placed her hand on Kelty’s bedside rails. “Kelty, is your headache better?”
“Much better,” Kelty said. “Nothing hurts. Can I please go now?”
“Not yet.” The nurse looked to Mum. “Are you kin?”
“Yes,” Hazel answered, “we are kin.”
Matron Lane offered a weary half smile at Hazel, then repeated the question to Mum. “You are kin?”
Mum shook her head.
Matron Lane gently touched the bandage on Kelty’s forehead. “She will be just fine. One more day to make sure she is nourished, and her aunt has time to come here and retrieve her. These are terrible days, to be sure.”
“She’s like my sister,” Hazel said. “Please let her come home with me.”
Tears filled Kelty’s eyes as she looked up. She tried to be brave and said, “Hazel, we will find each other again.”
Flora curled into the curve of Hazel’s body, her back resting against Hazel’s tummy. Bridie had told Hazel that Flora hadn’t left their bedroom in the cottage all day, that she’d waited there, clinging to Berry, until Hazel returned. It was a moonless night.
“Tell me,” Flora said.
“I’m too tired to make anything up,” Hazel said, already near sleep, feeling the comforting soft edges of oblivion.
“No, tell me about Kelty.”
Hazel decided not to tell Flora of the hospital or the bandages or the ribbons or the child with writing on her forehead. “Kelty is all right. Her aunt Bernice will take her home tomorrow.” Hazel took a deep breath. It was hard to say but she must. “We cannot leave here. This is our real home, and we have to stay safe. Until this is over, we can’t go anywhere else.”
“Not even Whisperwood?” Flora’s voice cracked.
“No.”
Only then did Flora cry, pulling away from Hazel and curling into herself, Berry grasped tight. Hazel reached over and rubbed her sister’s back. After the horrible things she’d seen that day, she knew their land had been an illusion. Whisperwood and its sparkling river made of stars—of course none of it was real and true. Child’s play. There were no stars in the rushing river; it was just muddy water running to the sea as it always had and always would. She was fifteen years old, and the war was real. No more fairy tales or fake queens or shimmering doors. She had to protect her sister, help Bridie, and keep them safe.
The end of Whisperwood wasn’t Hazel’s fault; the bombs and the war and the evil man with the mustache had ended their story.