In the weeks that followed Noah’s visit to the fair, his mother continued to feel very ill, and one night, when his father came home from a drive to the city that they’d taken together, she wasn’t even with him.
‘Your mum will be back tomorrow,’ said Noah’s father, who seemed very tired and appeared to be thinking about the answers he was going to give to Noah’s questions rather than simply telling him the truth.
‘Tomorrow?’ asked Noah in surprise. ‘But why? Where will she stay tonight?’
‘In the city,’ said Dad. ‘With some friends.’
‘But she doesn’t have any friends in the city,’ said Noah, who had heard his mother say many times that she wished they knew more people there so they’d have a reason to go in on a Saturday for lunch.
‘Well, not friends exactly,’ said Noah’s dad. ‘Look, it’s difficult to explain. The important thing is, she’ll be home tomorrow, and tonight it’s just the two of us. We can play football if you like.’
Noah shook his head and went to his room. He didn’t want to play football. He wanted to be told the truth.
The next day she still wasn’t home. It was the morning of the day when Noah had planned on starting to read his fifteenth book. He took it down off the shelf and opened it to the first page but couldn’t concentrate on what was happening. There was somebody called Squire Trelawney and another man called Dr Livesey and an inn called the Admiral Benbow, and they all started to melt into one, not because it wasn’t a good book but because Noah was finding it impossible to concentrate. He put it to one side and went downstairs to ask his father why his mum wasn’t home yet.
‘You said she’d be back today,’ he said, and his father looked at him, and opened and closed his mouth for a few moments like a guppy fish.
‘I said she’d be back tomorrow,’ said his father.
‘Yes, but that was yesterday. So today is tomorrow.’
‘Now you’re just being silly, Noah,’ said Dad. ‘How could today be tomorrow?’
Noah felt a great rage build up inside him. He had never felt anything like this before. It was like a hurricane of anger, starting in the pit of his stomach, twisting and turning, collecting bits of fury and pieces of temper as it whirled around, swept up through the centre of his body and finally came storming out of his mouth in a rush of indignation.
‘I’m eight!’ he cried, bursting into unexpected tears. ‘I’m not five or six or seven any more. I want to know what’s going on!’
But he didn’t wait for a response, charging up to his room instead, locking the door behind him and throwing himself on the bed, refusing to open the door a few minutes later when his father knocked and said he wasn’t to worry, his mother would be home soon. In fact, he didn’t even go down for his dinner that night, listening through his bedroom door when he heard his father talking on the phone later.
‘All right, I’ll wait,’ he was saying to whoever was on the other end of the line. ‘Hopefully he’ll get some sleep and we can talk to him tomorrow.’
Noah was sure he wouldn’t get any sleep that night, but as it turned out he was so exhausted by the time he got into bed, his head had barely touched the pillow when his eyes immediately closed and he drifted off into a dark dream from which he was very happy to wake when a hand shook his shoulder some hours later.
The room was still dark so he knew it wasn’t morning yet, but he could sense a person sitting on the bed next to him, breathing very quietly, and he jumped up, frightened, and turned on the bedside light.
‘Mum!’ he cried, finding it hard to open his eyes as they adjusted to the sudden brightness. ‘You’re back.’
‘I said I’d be back, didn’t I?’ she asked quietly. ‘I shouldn’t really be here but I couldn’t stay away any longer. From you, I mean. I don’t know what your father will say when he wakes up and finds that I … that I came home.’
‘I missed you,’ said Noah, throwing his arms around her, and despite how pleased he was to see his mother again, he was still very tired and would have liked to have gone straight back to sleep and talk to her in the morning when he was up and dressed. ‘What time is it anyway?’
‘It’s still the middle of the night,’ she replied, leaning over and kissing him on the top of his head. ‘I wanted to show you something, that’s all.’
Noah glanced across at his bedside clock and pulled a face.
‘I know, I know,’ said his mum before he could say anything else. ‘But trust me, it’ll be worth it.’
‘Can’t we do it later?’ he asked.
‘No, it has to be now,’ she insisted. ‘Come on, Noah. Please. Just get up. I promise you won’t regret it.’
Noah nodded and climbed out of bed, and the two of them went downstairs and out of the front door and over to the far corner of their garden, where they could see right through the trees of the forest towards the horizon ahead. The grass felt damp under Noah’s feet but he quite liked the sensation, and he twisted and turned his toes in the soil to let it spread around every one of them.
‘Now watch,’ said his mum, holding his hand, and he stared into the dark distance now, unsure what he was supposed to be watching out for. He swallowed and yawned, and then yawned once more, wondering when he could go back to bed. He heard a rustling in the grass to his right, and a dark brown fox with a striking white stripe along his back appeared for a moment, glanced at him, held his gaze for the longest time, and then disappeared into the tall grass that separated their house from the forest.
‘What else am I supposed to be watching out for?’ asked Noah, turning to his mother, and she shook her head and pointed into the distance again as she glanced at her watch.
‘Just watch,’ she said, holding his hand even tighter now. ‘Any minute now.’
He narrowed his eyes, wondering what was going to happen.
‘Here it comes,’ said his mother after a moment. ‘Now don’t take your eyes off the horizon. Keep watching, Noah. It’ll knock your socks off.’
‘But I’m not wearing any socks,’ said Noah, looking down at his bare feet, wet and green beneath him.
And then, a minute later, the most extraordinary thing happened. The darkness that covered the forest floor was suddenly illuminated by a bright sheet of golden sunlight which flooded through the dew-soaked leaves of grass and the branches of the trees, turning the whole world from night to day in a few short moments.
‘You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the dawn break over the forest,’ said his mum, pulling him close to her. ‘My dad brought me out to see it just before … just before he left us. And I never forgot it. It’s one of my happiest memories of him. So I wanted us to see it together, just you and I, Noah. What did you think? Wasn’t it wonderful?’
‘It was nice,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Do I have to stay out here?’ he asked after a moment. ‘I’m freezing.’
Noah’s mum looked at him a little sadly and shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, you can go back in if you want. I just wanted us to see it together once, that’s all. Now, any time in the future you ever see the dawn break, maybe you’ll think of me.’
Noah nodded and ran back to the house, charged upstairs and threw his dressing gown on the floor. Just before he got back into bed, however, he took a quick look out of the window and was surprised to see that his mother was still out there where he’d left her, about halfway along the fence, but she’d climbed the two wooden rungs like a ladder and was standing a few feet off the ground, the only person he could see in the great expanse of forest ahead – the only person awake in the whole world, he thought – her arms stretched out wide into the bright sunny morning, her head thrown back to receive the warmth of the sun on her face. It was an extraordinary sight.
A moment later he got back into bed, but despite how tired he was, he couldn’t get back to sleep. Only when he heard his mother returning through the front door and walking slowly upstairs did he feel safe.
And that’s when he heard her cry out, a great loud cry of pain, and he sat up in bed, not wanting to move, as he heard the door of his parents’ bedroom open and his father go rushing down the stairs, calling her name.