CHAPTER 55 

Two Years Later

In March of 1962, exactly two years after the brown parchment package with the red frayed ribbon arrived at Hogan’s Rare Book Shoppe, the Celtic Sea of St. Ives in Cornwall glitters flat and calm, a flinty mirror. A lamppost light hangs in the air like a fallen moon. They live here now in this place of myth and legend, of windswept cliffs and blue ribboned seas, of yellow lichen-covered roofs and long winding paths that whisper between stone cottages and whitewashed studios.

Hazel and Harry Aberdeen stand at the open window of their second-floor flat watching day transform to night, taking a moment alone before the chaos of the grand opening party in their gallery below. A briny breeze lifts the creamy gauze curtains and Hazel breathes in the smell of the sea. Harry holds Hazel close and his free hand rests on her stomach where, well into her seventh month, pregnancy blooms beneath her flowered-cotton dress.

“We did it,” Harry says.

Hazel lifts her face to his and they kiss. “And what did we do?”

“We wrote a better ending.”

“And so much more.” She pauses and rests her head on his shoulder. “Do you know the first time I loved you?” she asks.

“No, tell me.” His voice contains such joy in it.

“When you picked up the scatterings of my knapsack in the middle of the street.”

“Well then, my love, we fell in love at the same moment.”

From below lifts the sound of a guitarist tuning his instrument, testing a microphone. Then a call rises from outside the window. “Auntie, get down here and hug me right now.”

Hazel and Harry lean forward to see Midge, now ten years old, with Fergus and Kelty standing on the pavement below. All three of them wave their hands like they’re flagging down a ship.

“Coming!” Hazel calls out. She smooths her hands over her dress. “Do I look all right or do I look like a whale in a flowered sack?”

“You look like the radiant new owner of a rare book and illustration studio on the Cornish coast.”

“Sounds fancy, doesn’t it?” Hazel lifts her face for another kiss. “Very fancy.”

But she knows it is all far from fancy. She lived with the dust and the grime and the long backbreaking hours it took to open the new gallery below their flat: H2: Art, Books, and Original Illustrations. Harry and Hazel equal H2, and they combined his work and local art with rare books and their specialty: original illustrations from famous novels and fairy tales.

Hazel carefully steps down the worn eighteenth-century carved stone stairs that lead into the back room where the sun is sending honey hues through the windows. This is Harry’s art studio hidden from the rest of the gallery. Barn doors, which they refurbished and painted bright blue, separate the two spaces. She slides the doors open to step into the main gallery.

The caterers bustle about, a bartender sets out the glassware, and the guitarist strums a lazy tune. The front doors remain shut. Hazel pauses to take it all in before rushing to greet her friends. If she dreamed of a hand-curated gallery, she would have dreamed this. On floating wooden shelves, painstakingly hung by Harry, sit blond-wood-framed colored illustrations leaning against the wall. Each one is a Pauline Baynes drawing from the Peggy Andrews Whisperwood collection.

Scattered about in groupings are handmade jewelry, drawings, paintings, etchings, cushions, pottery, and any fare Harry’s artist pals bring to sell in the wide bright space.

And in the middle of it all, on a round wooden table, rests a pile of books by Hazel Mersey Linden. The River Child: A Memoir of Whisperwood. With a cover of the starry-winding river rushing through an enchanted woodland, each book is wrapped in a red silk ribbon, just as the original package that once landed on the back table of Hogan’s Rare Book Shoppe.

Hazel sets her hand on the pile and smiles; warmth fills her as her child kicks inside, as if she knows what this book is about. No, Hazel isn’t absolutely sure her child is a girl, but she suspects. And although she hasn’t yet told Harry, she would love for them to name their child Flora Lea Aberdeen.

Hazel walks to the locked front door and laughs to see Midge’s face squashed against the iron mullioned windows, her palms on either side of her eyes. Hazel slides the iron bolt of the double door and opens it so that Midge falls into her arms. “Auntie!”

Hazel hugs Midge while taking Kelty in her arms, Midge squeezed between them. “Oh, look at you!” Kelty places a hand on Hazel’s stomach. “It’s only been a month since I’ve seen you. Are you sure it’s not twins?”

“Take that back right now,” Hazel says. “I’m glad you’re early, you can help me finish setting up.”

Kelty glances around the gallery and tears fill her eyes. “I am so proud of you. So damn proud of you.”

“Well, I hope people show tonight! You know what Edwin used to say.” She pauses for a moment and thinks of the click clack of his cane, of his papery skin and kind eyes. “God rest his soul. He used to say that there are those who are collectors and those who have no idea what any of the fuss is about. I’m hoping the first kind show tonight.”

“He also used to say that he lived for the great discovery,” Kelty says. “I remember that, too.”

Hazel feels the wash of sorrow that her child will never know Edwin along with great gratitude that she herself knew him.

The back barn door slides open and Harry strides into the gallery. “Well, look who’s first.” He hurries to Midge, scoops her into his arms.

He’s going to be a damn fine father, Hazel thinks. For a man who never did find out what happened to his own father, he is the finest man she’s ever met. Even when he was a boy, he was the finest man she’d ever met.

Within the hour, the gallery bustles with patrons, friends, and family. By twos and threes they come through the door faster than Hazel has time to greet them. Her mum and Alastair dressed in their finest for an art show and book signing in a seaside town. Tenny has a date hanging on his arm, a young girl trying to look like Jean Shrimpton’s famous photo with the velvet-bow headband and fringy bangs. Dot and her husband, Russel, and their son, six-year-old Connor, stand together in front of the Baynes illustrations. They’ve visited St. Ives at least every two months since Hazel and Harry moved here last year. Dot and Hazel are more than sisters now; they are the dearest of friends.

In London, Mum and Dot have fashioned a new relationship out of long walks and leisurely teas. And each time Mum looks at Dot, Hazel sees Mum’s face shine with the sheer miracle of Flora’s existence in the world, here with them, alive as a woman with her own child.

Peggy and Wren arrive to a smattering of applause for those who know who she is: the author of the Whisperwood series. They rush to Harry and Hazel with hugs and kisses all around. Peggy looks so stylish wearing a shift dress of bright yellow crepe with a shawl that falls over her back in waves. Peggy sets her hands on Hazel’s shoulders and steps back to stare at her. “You are a wonder.”

“As are you,” Hazel says.

It has been over a year since Book Two of Whisperwood sailed into England with a huge splash, and the publishing house sent Peggy to London for an extended book tour. Since then, there have only been letters and brief phone calls between Hazel and Peggy, but the deep sense of connection flows between their stories.

“How’s the next one coming?” Hazel asks, holding Peggy’s hands.

“Slow. But steady. I’ve been a bit preoccupied… planning.” She holds up her left hand and a diamond ring surrounded by emeralds flashes in the candlelight.

“Oh, congratulations!” Hazel hugs Peggy and kisses Wren on the cheek. “And your mother? How is she faring with you in Boston?”

Peggy sighs. “She’s adjusting.”

Hazel laughs. She’s long since granted forgiveness to Linda. It isn’t Linda’s fault that a poor young nurse, who’d been unable to save the most wounded of the war, had “saved” a young girl who didn’t need it. In her best moments, Hazel feels sorry for Imogene Wright, whose mind was bent and twisted by the gore and carnage of young boys she could not rescue. Yet in Hazel’s worst moments, when the midnight fear awakens her from a dream where she is running along the river’s muddy edge screaming for Flora, she feels anything but sorry for Imogene; she senses only fierce and piercing rage. The feeling passes, it always does, and yet the anger still lives in the recesses of Hazel’s childhood heart, visiting in the darkest night.

Bridie and Mr. Nolan walk through the door and Hazel runs through the crowd to hold them tight.

“You are radiant,” Bridie says.

“That’s what Harry said!” Hazel kisses her mother-in-law and takes Mr. Nolan’s hand. “I am so happy you’re both here.”

Mr. Nolan looks to Bridie. “You want to tell her?”

Bridie nods and a mischievous grin lifts the corners of her lips. “We’re not only here; we’re not leaving until well after you’ve had that baby. We’re here to help and to be with you and Harry.”

“Oh, Bridie!” Hazel cries out. “This is the best news of the night.”

“No.” Bridie points to the table of Hazel’s books. “That is the best news of the night. Now go greet your fans.”

Even if these are the only people who attend the grand opening and book signing, Hazel’s heart will be full to overflowing. But there are so many more. Aiden Davies has come, holding his felt hat in his hand and gazing around with awe. He holds a scotch on the rocks in a glass tumbler and follows Dot around like he will never let her out of his sight.

Friends from St. Ives, including Ethan, other artists, shop owners who have shut down early, and tourists wandering by, fill the gallery with conversation as they gaze over the latest handmade fare.

Hazel’s literary agent, Meg, bursts through the door with a smile as bright as sunrise, her long caftan bright blue and flowing behind her. “I hate being a know-it-all,” she says as she approaches Hazel and takes her by the shoulders. “But I told you.” She nods at the book.

“I like when you’re right,” Hazel says with a laugh.

Harry climbs onto a wooden platform he’d built just last week and dragged in for this purpose. He holds out his hand for Hazel and she joins him. With the end of a paintbrush, he clinks his crystal. “A toast,” he calls out.

The room hushes in increments until it is quiet enough for Harry to continue. “Hazel and I want to welcome you to the grand opening of H2 and my beautiful wife’s book signing.” He turns to her. “All good things have come from your stories, and I love you so much.”

“As I love you.” She smiles at him. “And you are one of my favorite stories.” She then catches Dot’s gaze and winks, for she knows that Dot, and her return, is the best story of all.

Hazel lifts her glass, and whoops and hollers fill the room. Midway through his toast while he offers gratitude to everyone he can remember to thank, Tim and Poppy walk through the door.

Hazel lifts her glass to the duo of Hogan’s and smiles. Sensing a pause, Dot raises her hand and calls out with laughter, “Dorothy Bellamy from Vanity Fair here asking—Hazel, why would you open this place in St. Ives?”

Hazel laughs and sets her hand on her stomach where it seems the child within her heard the joy of Dot’s voice, of Flora’s voice. “The Celts speak of thin places,” Hazel says. “And if such a place exists outside of Whisperwood, it exists here. This land is liminal, transporting… mystical, even.” She smiles. “And within every package that arrives here, there might be another adventure, another quest, another mystery. I know someone else might see the package as something simple: a rare book or signed illustration, but here’s the secret—nothing is simple.”

Hazel pauses and it seems as if the tide outside, her breath inside, and the crowd around her wait for whatever might come next. “For when you see that the world shimmers just like the outline of Whisperwood’s doors, mystery and enchantment are everywhere just waiting to be noticed. In an unmapped realm in your own souls, I hope all of you find the land made just and exactly for you.”