Dad’s crying now in big hard sobs.
‘She took his heart, Alice. He was eleven years old and she took his heart.’
I stare at him. I don’t understand.
‘He belonged in these woods. This was where his heart was.’ He stamps the ground with his foot. ‘Right here.’
I nod: I think I follow that part.
‘But Nell had other plans. He was a healthy young boy, so she made him a …’ He pauses. Clears his throat: ‘… a donor. His heart was given to someone else.’
I nod again. I want him to keep talking, though I try to hide my shock. I mean, Jacob? A heart donor? This is a massive thing to take in.
‘But that’s good, surely,’ I say, thinking of how long we waited for a match, with Theo getting sicker every day. Then I look into Dad’s face. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘It should’ve been. Except the person who got Jacob’s heart rejected it and died anyway, a week after surgery.’
I go cold.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That’s …’
‘Awful. Sad. Painful,’ Dad cuts in. ‘Yes, it was. That poor family’s hopes were raised and then dashed again within a matter of days.’
It feels uncomfortably close. Too close. Dad and I both fall silent. All around us the woods are quiet too, but what’s charging round my head feels deafening.
Dad’s the first to speak again.
‘I was never happy with Nell’s idea from the start. I just couldn’t … you know … handle the thought of Jacob’s heart still alive inside someone else. I couldn’t bear it that part of him was out there in the world and he wasn’t here with us.’
I know what Dad means. When I saw Theo, it was strange to think of another person’s heart pumping away inside him. How that person was loved and missed just as much as we loved Theo. And how part of that person still survived.
‘It’s not a bad thing Nell did,’ I say. ‘Where would Theo be now without a donor? At least someone gets to live.’
‘But not Jacob,’ Dad says through clenched teeth.
I don’t know what to say. In my head, though, things are getting clearer. This is why Dad got so scared, isn’t it? Why he stopped seeing us when Theo got really sick. Why he punched a wall at the hospital that day and why his hands shook all the way home in the car. It doesn’t excuse it, but it is starting to make sense.
Dad takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulders. ‘So now you know,’ he says, as if that’s finished and we can all move on.
I’m not ready. There’s something else.
‘All this time we’ve had to manage without you, Dad,’ I say. ‘You should have stuck with us, not gone off to Devon. We’d have been all right.’
Dad sighs. Pulls a face. Something in me snaps.
‘Don’t look like that!’ I cry. ‘We’re your family! You can’t just replace us with another one – a better one – because you got bored of us!’
‘Alice, come on …’ He opens his arms.
I step back. ‘Well, I hope you’re happy! Because actually we’ve got along JUST FINE without you!’
I’m shaking with anger. Dad messed it up with us and here he is, still messing up with Nell. It’s pathetic.
‘You’d better tell Nell what you did with those ashes!’ I say. ‘You can’t just walk away from her too!’
Dad won’t look at me.
‘Especially if they are here in the woods. Before she cuts the lot down. Before it’s too late.’
‘Why?’
Is he that dumb? Do I really have to spell it out?
‘Because, Dad, this is your big chance to do something right for a …’
‘Alice! Alice! Are you there?’
It’s Nell. I see her blue jumper through the trees. She’s coming our way. I stare at Dad.
‘Now’s your chance,’ I say.
Borage finds us first. He puts his paws on my shoulders and lands a big doggy lick on my nose.
‘There you are,’ says Nell, stepping into the clearing. ‘I was just coming to ask … oh.’ Seeing Dad, she stops dead.
Gently, I push Borage off because I need to breathe.
‘Dad and I have been talking,’ I say.
Dad fidgets with his car keys like he’s planning his escape.
‘Really?’ says Nell, drily.
‘And we agree,’ I glare at Dad, ‘don’t we, that it’s time this thing between you got sorted.’
Neither of them speaks. It goes on like that for a good few minutes: two grown people staring at their feet like they’re kids in the playground at school. Then Dad tips his head back and looks up into the beech tree. For a second, I think he’s seen Flo. Then he moves closer to the trunk, reaches up on tiptoe and puts his hand into the fairy door. He pulls out a piece of paper. It’s that same expensive-looking note Flo and I almost fell out over. I’ve no idea what Dad’s doing with it now.
‘You always did like to use my best stationery, David,’ says Nell, as he gives her the note.
Through the thick paper I can just make out the words: ‘PLEASE KEEP MY BROTHER SAFE.’
I look at Nell. The paper trembles in her hands. She tilts her chin towards the fairy door. ‘Is Jacob here?’
I cover my mouth with both hands. The note isn’t about Theo. No wonder Flo didn’t understand why I was so upset.
This note is from Dad.
‘He was. I left his ashes here,’ Dad says, indicating the branch where last night Flo and I sat. ‘The fairies took him away.’
‘David …’ says Nell.
I try to picture what someone’s ashes might look like – dust, I suppose, or sand. Certainly nothing like a boy in a striped jumper hanging upside down from that same branch.
Dad keeps talking. ‘Jacob loved this tree. He always said he could see fairies through the hole. I never saw them myself, but he was adamant he could. He said one day he wanted to join them.’
Despite everything I feel myself smiling inside. It’s not exactly a happy ending, but when I think of how beautiful those fairies were, I’m glad Jacob’s resting place was here. Yet Nell’s working her jaw like mad. She looks ready to explode.
Very carefully, she folds the piece of paper and puts it in her pocket. She takes a deep breath. Then she crouches down at the base of the tree, putting her hands flat on the ground as if she’s warming them before a fire. She shuts her eyes. Goes very still. The only thing moving is the tears rolling down her face.
By the time Nell gets to her feet again, the light is already fading. Cool, heavy night air hangs between the trees.
‘I don’t believe in fairies, David,’ she says.
‘No,’ Dad says. ‘You’ve always been clear on that.’
‘Just as you didn’t believe in organ donation.’ She sounds sharp as ever; I’m not sure anything has changed.
‘But,’ she says, ‘life has a funny way of working these things out for us. You have had Theo’s plight to contend with, and I now have a place to come and think about my son.’
As Nell looks up at the trees a smile spreads across her face. ‘Do you know, I may have been a little overzealous in my plans for the wood – Mr Giles has been trying to tell me so all day. I’ll have a word with him, see if we can’t just clear the trees closest to the house.’
Then she goes up to Dad until she’s only inches away. I hold my breath. Her hand touches him on the shoulder. I’m shocked by how gentle she is.
‘My dear,’ she says. ‘You did what Jacob would’ve wanted. It’s time I accepted that fact.’
Nell and Dad walk back to the house – not arm in arm or anything, but they’re talking in normal voices, which is a good start. I let them go on ahead. Borage stays with me, sniffing the air.
The sky has gone very pale, which makes the trees look darker, stronger. The magic of this place makes my skin prickle. And now it’s done. It’s over. The woods are saved. I keep an eye out for Flo; I’ve so much to tell her. But it goes on getting darker, and she doesn’t come.
‘Come on, Borage,’ I say, after a while. ‘Let’s go.’
We’ll come back tomorrow, because I know Darkling Wood will still be here.