1997
Rosie was aware of nothing apart from her sister’s shadow. It spiked, jagged and black, across the stippled, sunburnt grass. She skipped inside its edges, her white leather sandals dipping into the cool before springing out, feeling once again the blister of sunlight.
She hopped in and out of Laurel’s shadow like a sprite, seeing only the ground as she danced, watching the grass change to asphalt beneath her. They flitted past the unoiled swings where children squeaked, throwing their flying silhouettes onto the grey concrete of the playground, then past the colossal oak tree that shaded the white-and-red awning of the trailer café where a circle of mothers clustered, holding Styrofoam cups of coffee. Then they turned left, in the direction of the old metal rocking horse that creaked back and forth, its seats worn shiny and pale.
Jumping over the cracks in the concrete, Rosie skidded to a halt at the platform alongside the horse. Still gazing down at the ground, she could see her sister’s feet below the horse’s mouth, her scuffed red trainers, one on top of the other, the laces split short and untied. Above the trainers, attached to legs astride the horse, she could see the flowery buckled shoes of a toddler, her podgy toes bunched up beneath a strap, her ankles fat like coddled cream.
Rosie lifted her head. Her eyeline reached that of the blank-faced horse. Metal rolls of hair curled down the mane to where the toddler’s fingers clung tightly to the strands of frayed rope that served as reins.
‘Where’s your mother?’ Laurel asked the little girl.
Rosie moved her gaze to her sister. The leaves of the oak tree swayed quietly above them; a breeze kissed their foreheads damp with sweat.
‘Do you like sweeties?’ Laurel said. ‘I’ve got some if you like.’
Rosie felt the top of her lip prickle. She said nothing, though. Just waited.
The toddler shifted on the seat at the front of the horse. She wore a yellow T-shirt with a daisy on it. Light blue shorts. She had a clip in her hair, pink and shimmery. Rosie raised her hand to touch it. It was beautiful. Like the toddler’s golden hair.
The little girl turned her head to where her mother stood, coffee cup in hand. Her mouth opened in a soft little ‘oh’.
‘Sssshhh . . .’ whispered Laurel and the toddler hesitated. ‘Do you know where the fairies live?’ she asked. ‘They live in a little dell, just down there.’ And she flung her hand out, pointing over the playground fence, to where the grass dipped down and the land stretched out beyond where they could see. ‘Just there. They live in tiny houses. Under buttercups and snowdrops. It’s beautiful,’ she said.
Rosie watched as the toddler’s gaze followed the line of her sister’s hand. As her eyelashes widened at the beautiful and incomprehensible names her sister gave the fairies: Titania; Cobweb; Mustardseed.
Rosie began to dance and spring again, in and out of the shadow of her sister as it moved once more across the playground. She whispered the names to herself: Lily and Bluebell and, her favourite, Rosebud.
They skipped over the rough ground, the grey of the paving stones, through the gate and back onto the sun-stained grass, its coarse, unmowed tufts grazing their calves, flattening dock leaves as they passed. And then down the slope they went, down into the cool and the shade of the line of oak trees that stood guard, wise and silent, running the whole length of the old canal path.
That was where they went.
Down to the grass-filled gully as the trees whispered above them, watching them and waiting.
For what was yet to come.