They’re everywhere: on the ground, in the bushes, on the lower branches of the tree. From the undergrowth more keep coming. Their colours blur together, not just the greens I’d imagined but a big, glowing trail of purples, pinks and pale blues. And when, for just a second, they do slow down, I see how each one looks different. They’ve got wings, but they’re not birds. They’re not insects either, though they move like butterflies. I’ve never seen anything like them. I must be dreaming. Yet when I rub my eyes and look again, they’re still there.
Flo’s beside me now, whispering in my ear, ‘Goodness! They’re putting on quite a show for you tonight, Alice.’
I don’t speak; I’m not sure I can.
Finally, when it seems every bit of woodland is covered with tiny, wing-beating bodies, the creatures settle. As we gaze at them, I know they’re watching us too.
‘What are they doing?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know. They’ve never behaved like this before.’
‘That’s not good,’ I say, nervously.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll sing to them,’ Flo says. ‘They’re supposed to like it.’
‘Not my singing they won’t.’
We settle on a Christmas carol because it’s the only song we both know all the words to. The fairies react like it’s a signal. They join hands, reaching up into the bushes, down onto the ground, until every single fairy is connected to another like a long, twisty chain of paper dolls.
Something stirs inside me, forcing me to keep looking though I can’t trust my eyes. The fairies are dancing now. They weave in and out of the trees. It’s like watching a trail of moving Christmas lights. Fairy lights. An image of Theo flashes into my head. Not how I last saw him, but how I remember him best, his face lit up with happiness. What I’d give for him to see this.
Our singing speeds up. The fairies spin around us in a blur of colour. On and on they go, whirling and twisting till it makes me dizzy. I shut my eyes. Now I really can’t watch any more.
Suddenly I sway backwards. My arms fly out, but there’s nothing to grab hold of. I feel lightness. Then terror. I’m going to fall. At the very last second, Flo seizes my coat.
‘Steady there,’ she says, and somehow I’m sat squarely on the branch again. It takes me a moment to catch my breath.
When I glance through the fairy door, everything’s normal again. The fairies have gone. The bushes and the grass look grey in the moonlight. Not far off an owl shrieks, a proper owl this time. I feel like I’ve just woken up.
‘Did that really happen?’ I ask Flo.
‘It did,’ she says. ‘I’ve never seen so many before, not all at once like that. And the colours! The fairies I’ve seen have always worn only green.’
We both go quiet. It’s almost too much to put into words, like everything I know has just been shaken hard and hasn’t fallen back into place. Gradually, though, my head begins to clear. I’m left feeling stiff and cold.
‘I’d like to get down,’ I say to Flo.
Back on solid ground, my legs are like rubber. Flo lands lightly beside me.
‘You most definitely believe in fairies now, don’t you?’ she says.
‘I do.’
I’m not entirely sure what I’ve just seen. Or how to explain it. When I glance at Flo, she looks a bit shaken too.
‘Well, if seeing is believing then you’ve given their magic the most astonishing strength!’ she says, staring at me in amazement.
‘Stop looking at me like that!’ I say, but it’s sort of nice and makes me glow inside.
‘Alice,’ she says. ‘Fairies only appear to special people. It’s linked to the day and hour of your birth.’
I smile. ‘My dad told me that myth. He says I’m a Chime Child, which means I can see fairies – and ghosts, apparently, though I haven’t.’
‘I hope you believed him. You are a special person, you know,’ says Flo.
My smile gets bigger. Perhaps that’s what Dad meant when he told me. I hope he’s there at the hospital now, telling Theo he’s special too, because it really helps to hear it. Yet as I take in Flo’s china-doll face, with its too-big, too-blue eyes, I think she’s the one who’s special.
‘Do you live with the Travellers, Flo?’
She tilts her head. It’s not a yes or a no.
‘I don’t know anything about you,’ I say.
‘You saw the fairies because you were ready,’ she says, not answering me. ‘Maybe in the morning you’ll see other things too.’
She sounds so calm, yet I’m still dreading what’ll happen when Mr Giles comes back. I wrap my arms around myself to stop me shivering. We can’t lose the wood now.
‘Alice, trust me,’ Flo says. ‘You must go to school like normal. You’ll get into trouble if you don’t.’
And I’ll be in trouble if I do, I think, remembering the history homework I’ve still not done.
‘Don’t you have school too?’ I ask Flo.
She doesn’t reply. Instead she turns and walks off through the trees. I half think about following her, but I don’t know where she’s heading because, once again, I didn’t think to ask where she lives.
*
On my way up to bed, I stop to listen for sounds from Nell’s room. Everything’s quiet. The door behind the curtain must be shut because there’s no light coming in; the passage is pitch black.
Except it isn’t. I’ve seen something extraordinary tonight and my brain is still buzzing. I can’t go to bed, not yet.
I tiptoe along the passage. Down two steps and I lift the red curtain to one side. Behind the door, the room’s lit by moonlight. It makes the keyhole easy to spot. The door’s locked; I don’t have a key. Searching my coat pockets, I think how in books people use hairpins to open doors like these. All I’ve got is the pen Max lent me at school.
At the first try the pen makes a splitting sound. I must have broken it because the ink part is sticking out, but actually this bit is smaller. More bendy. I’m able to poke it right through the keyhole. Amazingly, the lock clicks. I ease the door open.
The first thing I see is a great wall of words. It’s actually the boxes with names written on their sides, but in the moonlight they glow white – ‘Campbell’ mostly, but near the bottom of the pile are more labelled ‘Waterhouse’ than I’d noticed before.
Peering under the table, I look for the jar that once had Jacob in it. It’s the only thing left of the uncle I never knew. I want to hold it, just for a moment. But the jar isn’t here. What catches the light instead is the pretty box of letters. I don’t know why but I’m a bit intrigued. Tucking it under my arm, I close the door behind me.
Once I’m in bed, I open the box, hoping a bit of reading might help me get to sleep. The letters seem to be in date order. They go from mid to late November 1918.
1918. The end of the war.
I sit up, more alert now. Some letters are in envelopes, some aren’t. They’re addressed to a person called Alfred Waterhouse at an army base in France. They seem to be written by his sister in Darkling Cottage, and Bexton gets mentioned too. She describes a library, an attic room with awful wallpaper, a warm and cosy kitchen with a door that leads out to the garden.
It’s this house.
There’s mention of stubborn people – people set in their ways. How being practical and sensible isn’t always the best way to be. And how sometimes it might take something big and awful to convince people that the impossible can happen. Most of all though, there’s mention of fairies. It’s a sad story. Yet as I read on, a warmth spreads through me, which I think might be hope.