Last Year

The first drops of rain fell shortly after the thunder started. They met the windshield of the car with fat, untidy splats before being spread across the glass with a squeak as the wipers clicked on. Outside, the January afternoon was sepia colored, finally giving in to the storm it had been spoiling for.

It matched the mood in the car perfectly.

In the backseat, Rowan’s head was lowered, her long, auburn hair falling forward over her shoulders. Through the gaps in her bangs, she could see her father’s face in the rear-view mirror. Though his eyes were on the road, she could tell from the way his dark brows were knotted together that his concentration was not. He was angry. Angry with her. So far, the journey had been one of silence, but Rowan knew that it would not last. She did not have to wait long.

“You’re grounded.” Her father’s voice was level, but there was an edge to it. He was struggling to keep his temper in check.

She gave a small nod. It was no less than she’d expected.

“For a month,” he added.

At this, Rowan’s head snapped up. “A month? But… the school trip, next week… I’ve just got all the camping stuff!”

“It’s all going back,” her mother said, from the front passenger seat. “We’ve still got the receipts. You’re not going.”

“But that’s not fair! It’s all planned—you have to let me go!”

“What’s not fair, young lady, is your behavior,” her father snapped. “We were worried sick about you today.”

Rowan brushed her hair back. “I was fine,” she muttered. She stared at the back of her father’s head and resisted the urge to flick the bald spot that had taken nest in his once thick, dark hair.

“Fine? Fine?” her mother said. “Anything could have happened to you! You can’t do that—just skip school for the day and wander off to London on a whim! What were you thinking?”

“It wasn’t on a whim,” Rowan said quietly. I planned it, she thought. She looked down at the small paper bag that was clenched in her hand. On the front of it were the words THE NATIONAL GALLERY. She turned the bag over in her hands distractedly.

“You’re twelve years old, Rowan,” her father continued. “You may think you’re grown up, but you’re not old enough to go off to London by yourself—”

“Let alone on the Underground!” her mother interrupted. “It makes me feel sick just thinking about it!” She raised a hand to her temple and massaged it. It was a gesture Rowan knew well.

“I’ve said I’m sorry,” Rowan muttered. She caught her father’s eye in the mirror then, for the briefest of moments, before he turned back to the road.

“Sorry is only a word. And there’s a difference between saying it and meaning it.”

“I do mean it.”

At this her mother turned around to watch her closely.

“You’re not sorry you did it. You’re sorry that you were found out.”

Rowan said nothing. It was partly true.

“Suspended, again!” her mum continued. “Three schools in two years. And now you’re on your last warning at this one—”

Her voice began to crack and she broke off.

Rowan lowered her head again. She’d heard it all before.

“This obsession of yours has to stop, Rowan,” her father said. “I mean it. No more talk of seeing things, these creatures… these… these fairies.” He spat the last word out quickly, as if he couldn’t bear the taste of it in his mouth. “Or whatever you’re calling them these days. Perhaps we humored you for too long. The time for these stories and fantasies is over. Finished.”

“For you, maybe,” Rowan whispered. Her eyes down-cast, she slowly reached into the paper bag and withdrew several postcards. She had bought them at the gallery. She stared at the first: a black-and-white photographic image of a girl whose chin rested in her hand as she gazed serenely at the camera. In the foreground, several tiny figures danced before her. The image was a famous one in a sequence of five photographs taken in the early nineteen hundreds. On the reverse of the postcard, a small caption read “The Cottingley Fairies.” She sifted through the rest of the postcards, absorbing the images. A sepia watercolor painting of winged creatures flying over London’s Kensington Gardens; a woman wearing a mask of green leaves. Each was beautiful, intriguing. And on the back of each card, beneath the title of the image, was the name of the exhibition: Fairies: A History in Art and Photography.

Carefully, she eased the postcards back into the paper bag. It crumpled and rustled beneath her fingers. In the passenger seat, her mother’s fair hair bobbed as she turned at the noise.

“What have you got there?”

“Nothing,” Rowan said defensively, trying to stuff the bag in her backpack—but it was too late.

“Hand it over. Now.”

Reluctantly, Rowan passed the bag to her mother. As the postcards were slid out once more, there was a quiet moment in which all that could be heard was the thrum of the car’s engine as it continued its journey along the packed M25. In that moment a small sigh caught Rowan’s attention and, for the first time since she’d gotten in the car that afternoon, she glanced over at her baby brother, asleep in his car seat. His thumb was lodged firmly in a rosebud mouth, his wrist sticky with a line of dribble. He’d inherited his golden looks from their mother—blond curls and wide, thick-lashed blue eyes. Subconsciously, Rowan lifted her hand to her own unruly mane of red hair, cursing it again. Even in looks, she was the one who was different. Even in looks, she didn’t fit in.

The sound of tearing paper brought her back to reality.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, lunging forward.

Her mother had torn the postcards in two and was preparing to tear again.

“Don’t!” Rowan yelled.

“Quiet!” her father hissed. “You’ll wake James!”

But all Rowan could see was her mother’s hand wrenching at the pictures, and suddenly she didn’t care about waking her brother. She was too angry.

“Stop!” she shouted. “Stop it!”

Her voice collided with James’s sudden howls as he woke up. Chaos erupted in the car. Rowan and her parents were shouting. The baby was shrieking. Rowan was straining against her seat belt, leaning forward between the two front seats as far as she could, reaching for her mother’s hands. Her mother was yelling at her to sit back. Outside, the rain lashed against the windshield as the wipers worked furiously to keep it at bay. And then, realizing the hopelessness of the situation, Rowan gave up, throwing herself back into her seat with tears blurring her vision. She blinked them away. Next to her, James continued to wail, and she reached over and placed her hand on his cheek, stroking gently. Beneath her fingers was a fish-shaped birthmark the color of a tea stain.

As her tears dispersed, she became aware of a movement in the footwell. Looking down, she watched as a small opening appeared in her backpack and two tiny, pale paws appeared through the gap, closely followed by a rodentlike head. The creature looked up at her disapprovingly before crawling out of the bag and scurrying up her leg. She winced as it bit her, twice. It was displeased with her for having the fairy images on the postcards, she knew. But not half as displeased as her parents would be if they knew she hadn’t paid for all of them. She had not been brave enough to steal the book accompanying the exhibition, but the postcards had been small and easy. In fact, the entire thing had been easy—except the part where she’d been found out.

Rowan had gotten up, eaten breakfast, and brushed her teeth, then showered and dressed into her school uniform. She’d taken her lunch box from the kitchen counter, then kissed James’s fair head as he sat in his high chair, his face grubby with mashed-up baby food. After calling good-bye to her mother, she’d walked out the front door, and out of her ordinary little street.

Only, today, instead of turning left to go to school, she’d turned right at the end of the road, heading for the train station. Before buying her ticket she’d changed quickly in the toilets there, stuffing her school uniform into her bag and pulling on the jeans and top she’d stashed away the night before. A quick once-over in the mirror confirmed that out of uniform she looked older than twelve: fourteen at least.

It took just over half an hour to get to Fenchurch Street, then an extra twenty or so minutes on the tube to get to central London. She hadn’t enjoyed the tube journey at all. It was rush hour and she’d been crammed into the packed carriage with her nose wedged into a stranger’s armpit. After leaving the train she hurried through the station, ducking her head and avoiding the gaze of all around her: the commuters, the Underground staff, and the beggars reaching toward everyone who passed.

Once out in the air, walking across Trafalgar Square, Rowan had started to feel better. Dodging the pigeons, she walked past the great stone lions and up the steps to the National Gallery. Inside, the gallery was bustling with visitors. Among hordes of tourists and schoolchildren on day trips, it was easy to mingle anonymously. She picked up an exhibition guide and set off, ignoring the more famous attractions—the Botticellis and the van Goghs—instead making her way to the farthest galleries, the ones that held the exhibition of interest. There the rooms were quieter, with fewer visitors.

Rowan cast her eyes hungrily over the walls, questioning and absorbing what each image had to offer. The majority of paintings she disregarded; these were saccharine notions of beautiful creatures nesting in flowers or perched benignly on toadstools. One quick glance was all it took for her to dismiss them for the fanciful dreams that they were. It was the others she was interested in. The darker images of masked beings camouflaged in woodland; the images of humans being made unwilling dancers to a bewitched tune; a child being coaxed toward a stream with one hand, while the other held another child beneath the icy water. These were the images Rowan was seeking. The images that held truth, as seen by those like her. Those with the second sight.

Rowan broke from her thoughts and came back to the present. The car was silent now except for a small whimper from James every now and then, but she knew that once they arrived home and James was out of earshot, she was in big trouble. Her only consolation was that she’d at least done what she’d set out to do without getting caught. That part had come later, just after she’d left the gallery and was walking across the square. When the hand clamped down on her shoulder, the last face she’d expected to see when she turned around was her father’s, his expression of relief quickly becoming one of anger. Into her face he thrust a National Gallery leaflet detailing the exhibition—and which had train times printed on it in Rowan’s writing. In dismay she realized that he must have fished it out of the trash after receiving the phone call from the school about her absence.

She still couldn’t believe he had found her.

The creature that only she could see had made its way over to James, and was now nestling with him in his car seat, crooning a strange little sound, something like a lullaby. Rowan wondered if he could hear it. He couldn’t see it, of that she was sure, but he did seem to be settling back into his slumber. She watched as the creature reached out with its paw and brushed a lock of golden hair away from her baby brother’s eyes. As it did so, its whiskers skimmed his cheek, and for a moment his mouth curved into the faintest of smiles. And that was the moment Rowan’s life changed forever. The moment the truck came crashing through the central barrier with a deafening screech of metal upon metal and plowed into the car.

Afterward, Rowan would always remember those few seconds in horrifying detail. The shattering of glass that was followed by icy wind and rain. The scraping and creaking of the car as it buckled against the crushing weight of the truck. James’s helpless, confused cries mingling with her own as the car flipped onto its roof, spinning like a sycamore seed. Torn postcards fluttered around her head like broken fairy wings.

She would remember her wish to protect her little brother from this terrible harm… and how the ugly, nameless little fey creature had suddenly ballooned in size and thrown itself upon him, wrapping him in a furry, protective cocoon.

She would remember the flashing lights, and the side of the car being cut away; how she’d screamed when they pulled her out, breaking her arm in order to do so. But the thing that Rowan would never forget, and which haunted her most, was the complete silence from the mangled front of the car.