Darkling Cottage
Thursday 14th November 1918

 

Dear Alfred,

I’ve come to bed early for I’ve lots to tell you, though I have hardly enough ink to write it all down.

You’ll remember Mama’s been wanting Papa to take up a hobby. Well, he’s chosen photography. I don’t know about you, Alfred, but I’ve only ever seen a camera at school when Mrs Burgess made us line up by the front wall and smile for a man who ducked his head under a blanket to take the picture.

Papa’s camera is much smaller. It’s called a ‘Midg’ and is a black boxy shape about the size of a satchel. There’s a lens at the front, and the back opens like a door. It’s a surprisingly simple-looking gadget.

Anyhow, today – after much pleading – I was allowed downstairs to sit in the library with Papa. I’d hoped we might talk some more about this Chime Child business, but alas he was busy developing pictures. Strange bottles and trays of liquid covered every available surface. It was as if our library was now a laboratory, and our Papa a mad scientist! I think the title ‘Dr Waterhouse’ would rather suit him, don’t you?

Truly, Alfred, it was fascinating to watch him at work. Slowly, but surely, little shadowy shapes appeared on the paper, and then Papa pegged each piece onto a sort of clothes line to dry.

We waited. And waited some more. Then Papa checked his pictures and got cross (his temper is very short these days) because they’d not developed properly after all.

Well, I didn’t care to stay after that. But the fire in the drawing room hadn’t yet been laid, and I couldn’t bear to go back upstairs. Pulling on my coat, I went to the woods. And there, under our special beech tree, I soon forgot Papa’s short temper and his stupid pictures.

Last time you were home, we lay at this very spot and stared up at the sun until our eyes went funny, didn’t we? Well, there was no sun today. If you’d been here we’d have climbed up to the special O-shaped place where the trunk splits in two. But you weren’t here, Alfred, and without you everything feels so difficult.

So I made do with climbing to the lowest branch, and gazed out over Glossop’s meadow. At some point, I happened to look down.

At the foot of the tree, the grass was moving. I suspected a rabbit, maybe a fox, but no animal emerged and yet the grass kept twitching. How odd it sounds! Well, prepare yourself. It gets odder still. Even writing of it makes my heart skip a beat.

As suddenly as it started, the grass went very still. Then, before my eyes, little figures began to emerge from the undergrowth – I counted ten in total. None was taller than a foot in height. Just like the ones I’d seen before, they looked as human as you or I, only much, much smaller. Some had pale skin, some had dark, yet they all wore the same garment – a pale green tunic made of thin, gauzy stuff, which caught the light as they moved.

And move they did, rushing from one tree to the next. It was like watching ants at work, or bees in a hive. And how their tiny wings fluttered, just like a butterfly’s!

They knew I was watching them. A few dipped their heads at me in a kind of greeting. Another flew up to hover at my feet, inspecting me just as I’d inspected them. All the time I barely moved. Indeed, I held my breath for such long intervals my lungs felt ready to burst!

Eventually, the sky grew dark and I knew it must be near teatime. The little people faded from sight until all that remained was ten perfect circles of flattened grass.

When I slid down from the tree, I’d grown stiff and very cold. And yet in all other respects, I felt very well. For the first time in ages, it seemed as if nothing was missing – not even you, Alfred. I felt COMPLETE.

Back home, I spoke to Mrs Cotter of what I’d seen. You’ll remember how she is with old sayings and superstitions so I didn’t suppose she’d think me queer. She said she’d never seen any creatures in the wood, unless I meant squirrels and rabbits, and she’d seen plenty of both.

Yet there are such things as fairies, Alfred. And despite what people think, it appears they live in our wood.

Your very excited sister.