The Secret Book of Flora Lea: a Novel, page 14
“Whisperwood,” she said.
Mum closed her eyes, and her cheeks rose with the squeeze of her eyes, a sound near a cry but softer. “It’s beautiful: Whisperwood,” she said and opened her eyes. “And it belonged to just the two of you?”
“Until now.” Hazel reached down and slipped the book from her bag, handed it to her mum. “Someone else knew.”
“Who?” The word came like a bullet, fast and quick at Hazel.
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Harry? Perhaps Bridie?”
“No, it wasn’t Bridie.”
“So you’ve already asked her?” Mum paused, leaned back in her chair. “You told her about this before you told me?”
Hazel saw the hurt in this. “I’m sorry, Mum. I needed to know if she told anyone before I even came to you.”
“You love them both so much.”
“Yes, I do.” Hazel shook her head. “I did. But you always think I love them more. It’s not true.”
Mum smiled with her lips slightly closed and nodded toward the rest of the house. “Just like you, Hazel. You think I love them more…” She swept her hand across the sunroom. “And that is also not true. We can miss our Flora, still grieve, but we cannot let that keep us from loving.”
“Mum… that might be true for you but great, mad love for someone or something ruins me and them. Every single time.”
“Oh, my Hazel.” Mum’s mouth quivered. “I have wanted to find a way for you to heal for so long. I loathe the fact that you believe love ruins. I’ve watched you destroy relationships and shut off your heart. I’ve tried and tried to help, but I don’t know how to do it for you.” Mum leaned forward and kissed Hazel’s forehead. “I love you so much.” Then she picked up the book. She read the back cover copy and opened the inside, scanned it for a moment before looking to Hazel again. “A coincidence?”
“Not a chance.”
“Okay, then. Who told the story to this author?”
“I am praying, Mum, I am praying it was Flora who told the story.”
Mum’s hand flew to her chest, where she let it rest for a moment, a face contorted by a hope she’d thought gone.
“Delia, honey, where are you?” a deep voice called out, clear and echoing.
Mum answered, “In here with Hazel.”
Hazel despised the way that Alastair had cut her mum’s name short from Camellia to Delia, the way he’d taken ownership over her by giving her a new name, one shorter, less melodic than her real one.
He burst into the room the same way he always did, with glee and as if he were expected. He was a tall man, and when Hazel first met him, she’d thought he looked like a coatrack with a crooked hat hanging at its top—an image that never left her. He gave the impression of man who was born knowing his rightful place in the order of things.
“Hazel!” His voice filled every crevice, blotting out the music. Then he was at her side, reaching his hand down to shake hers. “We are so glad you arrived for the party. Welcome.”
“Thank you, Alastair,” she said, wanting to be the crueler Hazel and call him “Stair” and see how he liked it.
“What are we talking about in here so seriously?”
Hazel couldn’t get the book off the glass table fast enough. He gave her congealed and uneaten eggs and hash a cursory glance. “This looks good.”
“Yes,” Mum said. “It does.”
Hazel knew then that her story was safe with her mum, protected. Her heart rate slowed and she greeted Alastair with a smile he’d never know was false.
“I must go pick up the champagne,” he said. “Do you need anything else, my love?”
“Everything is set and ready,” Mum said. “I have my beauty parlor appointment in an hour but Lorraine has everything else on a smooth schedule.”
Alastair nodded, gave her a kind kiss, and squeezed her shoulder, gazing at his wife as if Hazel weren’t in the room. “Our son is fourteen. Can you quite believe it?”
“No.” She smiled and kissed him again. “I cannot.”
He rushed off to his errands. Mum gazed at Hazel and nothing else needed to be said right now.
CHAPTER 21
September 1939
Just after breakfast on their first day in Binsey, Bridie shooed Harry, Hazel, and Flora out of the house. “Now go! Harry will show you about. I have work to do, and I will pop into town to send your postcard. We must figure out your schooling, but today is Saturday, so off you go.” But before they left she tucked a sprig of rosemary into their coat pockets. “For protection,” she said with a wink.
“What work must she do?” Hazel asked Harry, while slipping on her mackintosh and wellies.
“Mum does accounting for businesses in Oxford.”
Outside, Hazel took a deep breath. This world smelled of grass, possibly dirt, and perhaps the crushed flowers or decomposing leaves scattered about. Whatever it was it was glorious and fresh. Walking a few steps behind Harry and Hazel, Flora jumped, tripped over an enamel milking can, and cried out as she fell to the ground.
Harry turned, hands reaching out for her, but Flora was already on her bum in the middle of the field. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“That?” Flora lifted her wellie and there, on the boot’s bottom, was a dark brown glob, its aroma rich and dank.
Harry offered her his hand, which Flora grabbed, getting back on her feet. “You’ve stepped on Daisy’s dung,” said Harry with a laugh. “I’m assuming you don’t have many cow patties in London?” He smiled. “Welcome to the country.”
Flora seemed to grow four inches, lifting her chin, and smiling at Harry as if he’d saved her life.
“Come now, let me show you the river,” said Harry. “If you know where the river is, you can never get lost. The river is our guide to the edge of our land.”
Flora looked at Hazel and smiled. Harry could be as charming as a prince, but Hazel and Flora had their secrets and their own land. Only they knew what the river meant, and it was more than a guide, it tethered them each to the other.
They followed Harry down a well-worn dirt path that cut through the grass. Stones were set at the trail’s edge where the ground dipped, and muddy puddles dented the earth.
Hazel lost track of time as they wandered past thatched-roof houses on quiet lanes. It was one of the most beautiful walks Hazel had ever taken. Past browning horn bush hedges, with leaves falling from the trees like rain. The sun seemed to hang in the sky, unmoving, waiting for them to reach the river’s edge.
The three of them ran down the path with green fields on either side and Hazel spied the blue-and-gray ribbon of river sparkling, and beyond the waters, another but larger pasture. She stopped short and Flora did, too. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” Hazel said. In London the river was often dirty, and there were large boats coming and going, the call and cry of seagulls and horns. But this river, the same one in name, the same one that flowed to London, glittered and winked as ducks waddled toward its silty edge and swans floated serenely by the tree branches that bowed over the waters, worshipping it.
Harry waved his arm in a “come on” gesture and took off. Hazel and Flora ran to catch up. At the river’s edge, hand in hand, Flora and Hazel stood next to Harry as a punting boat rowed past with three women, laughing and trying not to tip over. Across the river on the flat green pasture, black-and-white cows grazed, nosing into the grasses and chewing lazily. White clouds reflected in the water. Hazel said, “It looks like another world, an upside-down world inside the river.”
Harry shook his head with a grin. “Wouldn’t it be brilliant if true?”
Flora pulled at Hazel’s coat. “Is this ours? Are there stars?”
Hazel shot Flora a look with her eyes wide and a small shake of her head.
“Stars?” Harry asked.
“It just looks sparkly, that’s all,” Hazel said.
But Harry looked directly at Flora. “You can never go in there. It looks pretty but it will take you…” He stopped and looked at Hazel as if for backup.
“Yes,” Hazel said. “You cannot, ever, go into it without us.”
Flora nodded, looking near tears.
“All right,” Harry said. “I have more. Let’s go…” And he was off and they followed him. Although Hazel wanted to stay and stand at the edge of that river where the willow trees bent in submission to create hidden hollows, where the green reeds swayed to water’s music. She wanted to stare at the cows who nuzzled grass in Port Meadow across the flowing waters, wonder at the reflected sky. It all seemed as mysterious as the land she imagined, a world so ancient it might tell its own tales.
“Those roofs you see beyond are from the towns of Gadstow and Wolvercote.” He turned in the opposite direction and pointed. “And that way is where the river splits around a little island and there is a boat house, and then the bridge across to walk through the meadow to Jericho and Oxford.” He smiled. “Now on with us.”
They followed Harry until he led them down a long path and they approached a stone chapel blinking in the sunlight. As they walked, Flora gathered fallen leaves in the hem of her dress until they arrived at the wide lawn in front of St. Margaret’s Church. Gravestones, white and gray, slanted and straight, were scattered about the church graveyard.
“We’re walking on the dead,” Harry said with a mischievous smile.
“Ohhhh,” Flora said, looking down with curiosity.
“Stop it,” Hazel said. “You’ll scare her.”
“No, he won’t.” Flora’s voice rang high into the trees.
Hazel stopped and Flora with her. In the quiet, Hazel heard the high trilling call of birds, even the rustle of insects scurrying beneath fallen leaves. Flora pulled on the hem of Hazel’s raincoat, allowing her collected leaves to fall to the ground. Harry was a dozen feet in front of them now, walking and kicking leaves into the still air.
“I see a door,” Flora whispered.
Hazel smiled. “Where is it?”
“Right there, under that twee.”
“I see it, too,” Hazel said, “but we must come back later for it. Okay? We mustn’t tell Harry about our doors.”
Flora nodded, her curls bounced, and her smile widened.
Ahead Harry stopped and turned, motioning them onward. Hazel thought he was undoubtedly handsome. But it wasn’t just his looks that gave her an odd feeling. It was Harry’s way in the world that made her stomach feel funny. He was nothing like the wisecracking boys who slicked their hair and sauntered through Bloomsbury. Instead, it was as if the sunlight followed him. Hazel felt flipped inside-out, a sensation she couldn’t name. It was a bit like fear, but that wasn’t quite right.
She noticed a gray, shingled cottage behind the parish church. Smoke curled from its chimney, and on its front porch was a table with four chairs around it and candlesticks with burned-down candles, as if there’d been a party.
“Who lives there?” Hazel asked.
“It’s usually the rector’s home, but he lets the nurses who came to help at hospital live there while he stays in a guest room at the Baldwins’ house. We all must help somehow.” He paused. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
They followed him until he stopped short before a rectangular stone wall surrounding an opening in the earth. Brick steps led steeply down to a flat gravel area in front of a triangular opening, a wellhead of water hidden in shadow. Hazel felt a chill. This was as old as time, or so it seemed.
Harry leaned forward, planting his hands on the stone wall. “This is the well in Alice in Wonderland.”
“Ooohhh!” Flora let go of Hazel’s hand and stepped closer.
Hazel grabbed her shoulder, pulling her sister back from the dark hole of water that led underground to who-knows-where.
Harry clapped his hands, and they both jumped. He stepped closer. Hazel felt the warmth of him with an earthy scent. “Remember the part in Wonderland where the Dormouse tells the story of three daughters who live at the bottom of a treacle well?” he asked.
“During the mad tea party,” Hazel said.
“Yes!” He lifted a fist in the air like she’d won a prize. “This is that well.” He pointed to three brick stairs, which led down to where dark water glistened like ink.
“What’s a treacle?” Flora asked, mangling the word.
“It means healing,” Harry said.
“No!” Hazel stomped her foot, for if he was to tell stories he must at the least use the right words. “Treacle is molasses; it is sweets and sugar.”
“You’re right, too,” he said, so amiable and kind that Hazel’s thorny words seemed cruel. “It also means healing; its roots are Latin.” He rolled his eyes in great exaggeration. “Just you wait, you won’t escape Latin lessons in Mum’s house.”
Hazel stared at him and Flora stepped closer, touching the edge of the well’s stones with her fingers, gently.
“There is another story about this well, even older than Alice in Wonderland.”
“Tell me!” Hazel said with a startling forcefulness.
Harry patted the top of the worn stones where there were engraved words. “It says Saint Margaret’s well, but another saint came here first: Saint Frideswide.”
“That’s not a story!” Flora said as she drew closer to Harry than Hazel.
“No. It’s the beginning of a story.”
“But that’s not how to start a story!” Flora said.
“Okay, so how should it start?”
“Not very long ago and not very far away…” She looked to Hazel for confirmation.
“Fine.” He nodded. “Not very long ago and not very far away there was an Oxford princess named Frideswide.”
“Are you making up that name?” Hazel asked.
“No! That was her name. Let me tell the story!” He grinned. “Frideswide grew up in an Oxford priory, and she wanted to become a nun. But her beauty attracted men from all over the kingdom who begged to marry her.” Harry deepened his voice. “One day the King of Mercia, named Algar, arrived in Oxford and asked Frideswide’s father for his daughter to become his bride. Frideswide would then be the Queen of Mercia.”
“I want to be a queen!” Flora threw her hands out wide.
Harry lowered his voice. “Perhaps you do, but you see, Princess Frideswide did not want to be Algar’s queen. So she ran away. She jumped onto a boat and sailed up the River Thames and arrived at…” He paused dramatically.
“Where?” Hazel asked, her mind and heart leaning into the story.
“Binsey!” he said.
“She came here?” Hazel asked. “So the king couldn’t marry her?”
“Yes!”
Hazel paused to think about what this meant. “She didn’t want to be a queen?”
“No, she wanted to be a nun and heal people, which she did with these waters.”
“If the king loved her and wanted to marry her, why did he just let her run away or did he go looking for her?” Hazel asked. This seemed important to her. Wasn’t it worthwhile going after someone you loved?
“Yes,” said Harry. “Algar searched for her, and one time he was near to finding her when…” Harry paused dramatically, wiggling his eyebrows.
“What?” Flora asked. “What?”
“BOOM!”
Both girls jumped back, then laughed at their silliness.
“King Algar was struck by lightning. It blinded him, so he would never ever, ever find Frideswide.”
“Ohhhh.” Flora’s eyes widened.
Hazel wondered out loud at a story she’d never heard before. “A princess who didn’t want to be found and didn’t want to be a queen.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” Harry said. “And now she’s a saint. Her shrine is in Oxford at Christ Church. Even Catherine of Aragon visited the shrine when she could not have children; she thought Frideswide would heal her.”
“Is being a saint preferable to being a queen?” asked Hazel.
Harry shrugged. “That would depend on the person, I’d think. Frideswide also has a stained glass window with her shrine.”
“What are all of these?” Hazel asked, pointing to a small pile of stones and feathers, jagged pieces of glass and links of a tarnished gold chain, a cracked piece of blue china.
“People bring offerings and pray to Frideswide. They believe that if they leave something and pray, the well will heal them.” He paused before grinning. “Now, follow me!”
He walked off while Hazel and Flora lingered, gazing into the hole of dark water. Its healing powers turned a princess into a saint, a princess determined to live her own life.
“Does Whisperwood have a well?” Flora whispered to Hazel.
“I bet it does. We’ll look for it next time.”
They ran to catch Harry, who wasn’t even looking behind. He was onto the next adventure even before they were done with this one.
The three children scampered down the hill, browning grass bending beneath their feet until they reached a dirt road. Harry stopped and turned to check. In front of them was another ancient stone building with a sign on a wooden post swinging in the wind: The Perch.
Harry pointed. “They say Lewis Carroll wrote pages and pages of Alice in Wonderland here,” said Harry. “And”—he lowered his voice and looked about as if frightened—“a sailor haunts this place.”
“There’s a ghost?” Flora asked in a whisper.
Harry shrugged. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never seen him.”
Walking off, he halted just a few yards later in front of a wooden building. “Binsey School,” he said.
“School?” Hazel hadn’t considered a return to something as normal as school. They were in a more magical place: in the middle of a hamlet near a river where a boy told stories about saints and kings and princesses who ran away.
“Yes,” Harry said with a laugh. “Did you think kids only go to school in London?”
“No.” Hazel blushed hot with embarrassment. “It’s… small.”
“Only two rooms,” he said. “Now you’ve seen everything there is to see. Binsey is nice, but not a very big place.”
“Stop!” a high voice called out.
All three turned to see a girl, auburn braids flying behind her, her dress’s hem in hand, the better to run faster, bounding straight for them down the hill. With something like awe, Hazel wondered why the girl didn’t rise and fly, for she looked as if she might. It was Kelty, the crying girl from the hall, the one taken away by the hag.
Mum closed her eyes, and her cheeks rose with the squeeze of her eyes, a sound near a cry but softer. “It’s beautiful: Whisperwood,” she said and opened her eyes. “And it belonged to just the two of you?”
“Until now.” Hazel reached down and slipped the book from her bag, handed it to her mum. “Someone else knew.”
“Who?” The word came like a bullet, fast and quick at Hazel.
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Harry? Perhaps Bridie?”
“No, it wasn’t Bridie.”
“So you’ve already asked her?” Mum paused, leaned back in her chair. “You told her about this before you told me?”
Hazel saw the hurt in this. “I’m sorry, Mum. I needed to know if she told anyone before I even came to you.”
“You love them both so much.”
“Yes, I do.” Hazel shook her head. “I did. But you always think I love them more. It’s not true.”
Mum smiled with her lips slightly closed and nodded toward the rest of the house. “Just like you, Hazel. You think I love them more…” She swept her hand across the sunroom. “And that is also not true. We can miss our Flora, still grieve, but we cannot let that keep us from loving.”
“Mum… that might be true for you but great, mad love for someone or something ruins me and them. Every single time.”
“Oh, my Hazel.” Mum’s mouth quivered. “I have wanted to find a way for you to heal for so long. I loathe the fact that you believe love ruins. I’ve watched you destroy relationships and shut off your heart. I’ve tried and tried to help, but I don’t know how to do it for you.” Mum leaned forward and kissed Hazel’s forehead. “I love you so much.” Then she picked up the book. She read the back cover copy and opened the inside, scanned it for a moment before looking to Hazel again. “A coincidence?”
“Not a chance.”
“Okay, then. Who told the story to this author?”
“I am praying, Mum, I am praying it was Flora who told the story.”
Mum’s hand flew to her chest, where she let it rest for a moment, a face contorted by a hope she’d thought gone.
“Delia, honey, where are you?” a deep voice called out, clear and echoing.
Mum answered, “In here with Hazel.”
Hazel despised the way that Alastair had cut her mum’s name short from Camellia to Delia, the way he’d taken ownership over her by giving her a new name, one shorter, less melodic than her real one.
He burst into the room the same way he always did, with glee and as if he were expected. He was a tall man, and when Hazel first met him, she’d thought he looked like a coatrack with a crooked hat hanging at its top—an image that never left her. He gave the impression of man who was born knowing his rightful place in the order of things.
“Hazel!” His voice filled every crevice, blotting out the music. Then he was at her side, reaching his hand down to shake hers. “We are so glad you arrived for the party. Welcome.”
“Thank you, Alastair,” she said, wanting to be the crueler Hazel and call him “Stair” and see how he liked it.
“What are we talking about in here so seriously?”
Hazel couldn’t get the book off the glass table fast enough. He gave her congealed and uneaten eggs and hash a cursory glance. “This looks good.”
“Yes,” Mum said. “It does.”
Hazel knew then that her story was safe with her mum, protected. Her heart rate slowed and she greeted Alastair with a smile he’d never know was false.
“I must go pick up the champagne,” he said. “Do you need anything else, my love?”
“Everything is set and ready,” Mum said. “I have my beauty parlor appointment in an hour but Lorraine has everything else on a smooth schedule.”
Alastair nodded, gave her a kind kiss, and squeezed her shoulder, gazing at his wife as if Hazel weren’t in the room. “Our son is fourteen. Can you quite believe it?”
“No.” She smiled and kissed him again. “I cannot.”
He rushed off to his errands. Mum gazed at Hazel and nothing else needed to be said right now.
CHAPTER 21
September 1939
Just after breakfast on their first day in Binsey, Bridie shooed Harry, Hazel, and Flora out of the house. “Now go! Harry will show you about. I have work to do, and I will pop into town to send your postcard. We must figure out your schooling, but today is Saturday, so off you go.” But before they left she tucked a sprig of rosemary into their coat pockets. “For protection,” she said with a wink.
“What work must she do?” Hazel asked Harry, while slipping on her mackintosh and wellies.
“Mum does accounting for businesses in Oxford.”
Outside, Hazel took a deep breath. This world smelled of grass, possibly dirt, and perhaps the crushed flowers or decomposing leaves scattered about. Whatever it was it was glorious and fresh. Walking a few steps behind Harry and Hazel, Flora jumped, tripped over an enamel milking can, and cried out as she fell to the ground.
Harry turned, hands reaching out for her, but Flora was already on her bum in the middle of the field. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“That?” Flora lifted her wellie and there, on the boot’s bottom, was a dark brown glob, its aroma rich and dank.
Harry offered her his hand, which Flora grabbed, getting back on her feet. “You’ve stepped on Daisy’s dung,” said Harry with a laugh. “I’m assuming you don’t have many cow patties in London?” He smiled. “Welcome to the country.”
Flora seemed to grow four inches, lifting her chin, and smiling at Harry as if he’d saved her life.
“Come now, let me show you the river,” said Harry. “If you know where the river is, you can never get lost. The river is our guide to the edge of our land.”
Flora looked at Hazel and smiled. Harry could be as charming as a prince, but Hazel and Flora had their secrets and their own land. Only they knew what the river meant, and it was more than a guide, it tethered them each to the other.
They followed Harry down a well-worn dirt path that cut through the grass. Stones were set at the trail’s edge where the ground dipped, and muddy puddles dented the earth.
Hazel lost track of time as they wandered past thatched-roof houses on quiet lanes. It was one of the most beautiful walks Hazel had ever taken. Past browning horn bush hedges, with leaves falling from the trees like rain. The sun seemed to hang in the sky, unmoving, waiting for them to reach the river’s edge.
The three of them ran down the path with green fields on either side and Hazel spied the blue-and-gray ribbon of river sparkling, and beyond the waters, another but larger pasture. She stopped short and Flora did, too. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” Hazel said. In London the river was often dirty, and there were large boats coming and going, the call and cry of seagulls and horns. But this river, the same one in name, the same one that flowed to London, glittered and winked as ducks waddled toward its silty edge and swans floated serenely by the tree branches that bowed over the waters, worshipping it.
Harry waved his arm in a “come on” gesture and took off. Hazel and Flora ran to catch up. At the river’s edge, hand in hand, Flora and Hazel stood next to Harry as a punting boat rowed past with three women, laughing and trying not to tip over. Across the river on the flat green pasture, black-and-white cows grazed, nosing into the grasses and chewing lazily. White clouds reflected in the water. Hazel said, “It looks like another world, an upside-down world inside the river.”
Harry shook his head with a grin. “Wouldn’t it be brilliant if true?”
Flora pulled at Hazel’s coat. “Is this ours? Are there stars?”
Hazel shot Flora a look with her eyes wide and a small shake of her head.
“Stars?” Harry asked.
“It just looks sparkly, that’s all,” Hazel said.
But Harry looked directly at Flora. “You can never go in there. It looks pretty but it will take you…” He stopped and looked at Hazel as if for backup.
“Yes,” Hazel said. “You cannot, ever, go into it without us.”
Flora nodded, looking near tears.
“All right,” Harry said. “I have more. Let’s go…” And he was off and they followed him. Although Hazel wanted to stay and stand at the edge of that river where the willow trees bent in submission to create hidden hollows, where the green reeds swayed to water’s music. She wanted to stare at the cows who nuzzled grass in Port Meadow across the flowing waters, wonder at the reflected sky. It all seemed as mysterious as the land she imagined, a world so ancient it might tell its own tales.
“Those roofs you see beyond are from the towns of Gadstow and Wolvercote.” He turned in the opposite direction and pointed. “And that way is where the river splits around a little island and there is a boat house, and then the bridge across to walk through the meadow to Jericho and Oxford.” He smiled. “Now on with us.”
They followed Harry until he led them down a long path and they approached a stone chapel blinking in the sunlight. As they walked, Flora gathered fallen leaves in the hem of her dress until they arrived at the wide lawn in front of St. Margaret’s Church. Gravestones, white and gray, slanted and straight, were scattered about the church graveyard.
“We’re walking on the dead,” Harry said with a mischievous smile.
“Ohhhh,” Flora said, looking down with curiosity.
“Stop it,” Hazel said. “You’ll scare her.”
“No, he won’t.” Flora’s voice rang high into the trees.
Hazel stopped and Flora with her. In the quiet, Hazel heard the high trilling call of birds, even the rustle of insects scurrying beneath fallen leaves. Flora pulled on the hem of Hazel’s raincoat, allowing her collected leaves to fall to the ground. Harry was a dozen feet in front of them now, walking and kicking leaves into the still air.
“I see a door,” Flora whispered.
Hazel smiled. “Where is it?”
“Right there, under that twee.”
“I see it, too,” Hazel said, “but we must come back later for it. Okay? We mustn’t tell Harry about our doors.”
Flora nodded, her curls bounced, and her smile widened.
Ahead Harry stopped and turned, motioning them onward. Hazel thought he was undoubtedly handsome. But it wasn’t just his looks that gave her an odd feeling. It was Harry’s way in the world that made her stomach feel funny. He was nothing like the wisecracking boys who slicked their hair and sauntered through Bloomsbury. Instead, it was as if the sunlight followed him. Hazel felt flipped inside-out, a sensation she couldn’t name. It was a bit like fear, but that wasn’t quite right.
She noticed a gray, shingled cottage behind the parish church. Smoke curled from its chimney, and on its front porch was a table with four chairs around it and candlesticks with burned-down candles, as if there’d been a party.
“Who lives there?” Hazel asked.
“It’s usually the rector’s home, but he lets the nurses who came to help at hospital live there while he stays in a guest room at the Baldwins’ house. We all must help somehow.” He paused. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
They followed him until he stopped short before a rectangular stone wall surrounding an opening in the earth. Brick steps led steeply down to a flat gravel area in front of a triangular opening, a wellhead of water hidden in shadow. Hazel felt a chill. This was as old as time, or so it seemed.
Harry leaned forward, planting his hands on the stone wall. “This is the well in Alice in Wonderland.”
“Ooohhh!” Flora let go of Hazel’s hand and stepped closer.
Hazel grabbed her shoulder, pulling her sister back from the dark hole of water that led underground to who-knows-where.
Harry clapped his hands, and they both jumped. He stepped closer. Hazel felt the warmth of him with an earthy scent. “Remember the part in Wonderland where the Dormouse tells the story of three daughters who live at the bottom of a treacle well?” he asked.
“During the mad tea party,” Hazel said.
“Yes!” He lifted a fist in the air like she’d won a prize. “This is that well.” He pointed to three brick stairs, which led down to where dark water glistened like ink.
“What’s a treacle?” Flora asked, mangling the word.
“It means healing,” Harry said.
“No!” Hazel stomped her foot, for if he was to tell stories he must at the least use the right words. “Treacle is molasses; it is sweets and sugar.”
“You’re right, too,” he said, so amiable and kind that Hazel’s thorny words seemed cruel. “It also means healing; its roots are Latin.” He rolled his eyes in great exaggeration. “Just you wait, you won’t escape Latin lessons in Mum’s house.”
Hazel stared at him and Flora stepped closer, touching the edge of the well’s stones with her fingers, gently.
“There is another story about this well, even older than Alice in Wonderland.”
“Tell me!” Hazel said with a startling forcefulness.
Harry patted the top of the worn stones where there were engraved words. “It says Saint Margaret’s well, but another saint came here first: Saint Frideswide.”
“That’s not a story!” Flora said as she drew closer to Harry than Hazel.
“No. It’s the beginning of a story.”
“But that’s not how to start a story!” Flora said.
“Okay, so how should it start?”
“Not very long ago and not very far away…” She looked to Hazel for confirmation.
“Fine.” He nodded. “Not very long ago and not very far away there was an Oxford princess named Frideswide.”
“Are you making up that name?” Hazel asked.
“No! That was her name. Let me tell the story!” He grinned. “Frideswide grew up in an Oxford priory, and she wanted to become a nun. But her beauty attracted men from all over the kingdom who begged to marry her.” Harry deepened his voice. “One day the King of Mercia, named Algar, arrived in Oxford and asked Frideswide’s father for his daughter to become his bride. Frideswide would then be the Queen of Mercia.”
“I want to be a queen!” Flora threw her hands out wide.
Harry lowered his voice. “Perhaps you do, but you see, Princess Frideswide did not want to be Algar’s queen. So she ran away. She jumped onto a boat and sailed up the River Thames and arrived at…” He paused dramatically.
“Where?” Hazel asked, her mind and heart leaning into the story.
“Binsey!” he said.
“She came here?” Hazel asked. “So the king couldn’t marry her?”
“Yes!”
Hazel paused to think about what this meant. “She didn’t want to be a queen?”
“No, she wanted to be a nun and heal people, which she did with these waters.”
“If the king loved her and wanted to marry her, why did he just let her run away or did he go looking for her?” Hazel asked. This seemed important to her. Wasn’t it worthwhile going after someone you loved?
“Yes,” said Harry. “Algar searched for her, and one time he was near to finding her when…” Harry paused dramatically, wiggling his eyebrows.
“What?” Flora asked. “What?”
“BOOM!”
Both girls jumped back, then laughed at their silliness.
“King Algar was struck by lightning. It blinded him, so he would never ever, ever find Frideswide.”
“Ohhhh.” Flora’s eyes widened.
Hazel wondered out loud at a story she’d never heard before. “A princess who didn’t want to be found and didn’t want to be a queen.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” Harry said. “And now she’s a saint. Her shrine is in Oxford at Christ Church. Even Catherine of Aragon visited the shrine when she could not have children; she thought Frideswide would heal her.”
“Is being a saint preferable to being a queen?” asked Hazel.
Harry shrugged. “That would depend on the person, I’d think. Frideswide also has a stained glass window with her shrine.”
“What are all of these?” Hazel asked, pointing to a small pile of stones and feathers, jagged pieces of glass and links of a tarnished gold chain, a cracked piece of blue china.
“People bring offerings and pray to Frideswide. They believe that if they leave something and pray, the well will heal them.” He paused before grinning. “Now, follow me!”
He walked off while Hazel and Flora lingered, gazing into the hole of dark water. Its healing powers turned a princess into a saint, a princess determined to live her own life.
“Does Whisperwood have a well?” Flora whispered to Hazel.
“I bet it does. We’ll look for it next time.”
They ran to catch Harry, who wasn’t even looking behind. He was onto the next adventure even before they were done with this one.
The three children scampered down the hill, browning grass bending beneath their feet until they reached a dirt road. Harry stopped and turned to check. In front of them was another ancient stone building with a sign on a wooden post swinging in the wind: The Perch.
Harry pointed. “They say Lewis Carroll wrote pages and pages of Alice in Wonderland here,” said Harry. “And”—he lowered his voice and looked about as if frightened—“a sailor haunts this place.”
“There’s a ghost?” Flora asked in a whisper.
Harry shrugged. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never seen him.”
Walking off, he halted just a few yards later in front of a wooden building. “Binsey School,” he said.
“School?” Hazel hadn’t considered a return to something as normal as school. They were in a more magical place: in the middle of a hamlet near a river where a boy told stories about saints and kings and princesses who ran away.
“Yes,” Harry said with a laugh. “Did you think kids only go to school in London?”
“No.” Hazel blushed hot with embarrassment. “It’s… small.”
“Only two rooms,” he said. “Now you’ve seen everything there is to see. Binsey is nice, but not a very big place.”
“Stop!” a high voice called out.
All three turned to see a girl, auburn braids flying behind her, her dress’s hem in hand, the better to run faster, bounding straight for them down the hill. With something like awe, Hazel wondered why the girl didn’t rise and fly, for she looked as if she might. It was Kelty, the crying girl from the hall, the one taken away by the hag.
