The Secret Book of Flora Lea: a Novel, page 15
Gasping, Kelty came to a stop in front of Hazel, Flora, and Harry. “They’re chasing me.” She pointed up the hill. Two boys with ruddy cheeks—obviously twins—ran toward them.
“They’re the Baldwin twins,” said Harry. “They’re harmless.”
The boys halted in front of them all. “You think they’re vaccies?” the right side asked the left side.
“They’re dirty vaccies,” the other replied.
“Whoa!” Harry stepped forward and clapped the right-side boy on the shoulder. “Ethan, these young ladies are visitors in our town.”
Harry glanced at the girls with a grin and tried to make light. “You’re evacuees, did you know that?”
Flora vehemently shook her head and was on the verge of tears. She buried her face in Hazel’s skirt.
“That’s not what we are,” Hazel stated, acting braver than she felt as she moved closer to the two bratty boys. “We are from Bloomsbury, and we are here to help the war effort by staying safe and out of harm’s way.”
“So, you’re scaredy-cats,” said the right-side twin.
“What is a vaccie?” Hazel asked Harry, taking a few steps back.
“It’s a stupid name for an evacuee,” Harry told her.
“So what if we are!” The girl with the red braids—Kelty—pushed the second boy to the pavement. “Evacuee is not a bad name!”
The twin still standing formed his hand into a fist as if to punch Kelty, then thought better of it. His brother stood and brushed himself off, dirt on his knees and palms, and a growling noise came from deep in his throat. He said, “You’re lucky you’re a girl or I’d beat you until you begged me to stop.”
“Adam, no.” Harry stepped in front of the girls. “Stop, okay? It’s not fun anymore. Go find something else to kick around—not girls.”
The twins scurried back up the hill and disappeared, and above them a flock of starlings swooped into a cloud of wings. A priest rode by on his bike, tinkling his bell and waving at them. Behind him, walking, was a group of four women with blue capes fluttering in the wind, white caps like swans perched on their heads. They were laughing, jostling each other, and the shortest one, with dark curls, waved at the children before linking her arm through another woman’s and saying, “Do you think he’ll be at the pub tonight?”
Hazel looked away and stared with admiration at the astonishing red-haired girl. “I’m Hazel,” she said. “I like the way you knocked that mean boy down.”
“I’m Kelty,” the girl answered. “I’d knock him down for you, too, you know.”
Hazel wanted to hug Kelty. “No need. Did you billet with that mean- looking lady?”
Kelty nodded. “Her name is Mrs. Marchman.”
Hazel lowered her voice, leaned forward. “I think she’s a hag from a bad fairy tale. I saw you in the Oxford Town Hall.”
Kelty bit her bottom lip. “Will you let me come home with you for a while?” she asked.
Hazel thought of Frideswide fleeing King Algar and finding a home in Binsey. She thought of Algar being struck blind and she wished the same for the hag. It was as if Harry had brought Frideswide into this world from another, and Frideswide had red braids and a wild spirit.
Harry piped up. “Yes, let’s go home.”
CHAPTER 22
September 1939
A blazing fire warmed the Aberdeens’ cottage. The phonograph played Bing Crosby. This—Hazel thought as she walked through the front door with Harry, Flora, and Kelty—is what Harry means when he fondly utters the word home.
They shed their coats and hung them on the pegs, lined their wellies in a neat row under the pine bench as Bridie emerged from the kitchen and greeted them with a warm “Hallo! How was your traipse about our hamlet?”
Flora bounced on her toes and held up her hands. “We found a well where a princess ran away…” It sounded like printheth, but Bridie knew what she meant.
“Oh yes, indeed. Our local Frideswide.” Bridie wiped her hands on her apron. “Who wants a cuppa and shortbread?”
“I do!” Harry said, and then, “Mum, meet Kelty.”
Bridie smiled warmly. “Welcome, darling.”
“Thank you.” Kelty’s voice shook.
Bridie moved closer. “Dear, are you quite all right?”
Kelty pushed back her shoulders and truth tumbled out. “I am not. The lady who chose to billet me is mean and dirty. I cannot stay there. I must beg you to let me stay here with you.”
“I am not permitted to take more children without another bed. But it can’t be all that bad, can it?”
“I will sleep there.” Kelty pointed at the flowered and saggy couch where Hazel had left a Peter Pan book open and facedown on the cushions. Kelty’s lips trembled. “I would give you my rations, but Mrs. Marchman took them and put them in a locked drawer. And she wants to teach me to mend clothes, which is how she makes money. She drinks from a dark bottle at night and falls asleep in a big chair without making dinner.” Kelty shuddered, and her words came fast. “I found some carrots to eat last night. Then she snores with her head all the way back and talks and yells in her sleep! You should hear some of the things she says!”
Bridie looked near to tears, but stood straighter. “Kelty, for now come have a cuppa and biscuit.” She motioned to the back of the cottage. “And then you can use our bathtub to clean up. I have some rosemary soap with the most delicious aroma.”
Kelty’s eyes filled with tears, and she threw her arms around Bridie, a drowning child finding a life raft. “I know everyone gets money for taking us in. I heard. You get ten shillings and six pence each child.”
Harry’s shoulders straightened. “My mum makes her own money. She does the books for nearly every business in town. We didn’t do it for money!”
Bridie reached for her son’s shoulder, squeezed it. “It’s okay.”
Kelty’s face seemed to crumble even more so now for she’d insulted Harry. “I know; I’m sorry. I meant to insult the hag, not you,” she said.
Hazel and Harry looked at each other and Hazel felt a longing for something unnamed. But the feeling passed as quickly as it had come, and the five of them sat around the tiny kitchen table, dipping crumbly shortbread into warm tea.
Hazel saw the expectant look in Bridie’s eyes and told her, “We love Binsey.”
“Indeed.” Bridie smiled. Hazel had pleased her. “Magic is everywhere here.”
Hazel knew this wasn’t true, but the saying of it made it seem possible while a war raged and Mum sat home alone, awaiting her postcard.
* * *
Slowly evening descended, and the fire in the living room hearth blazed again. Harry worked on his math sums and Hazel read Peter Pan out loud to Flora. Bridie cooked in the kitchen with Kelty watching, the warm aroma of lamb and rosemary filling the house, when a series of loud knocks at the door surprised them all.
Hazel jumped up. Had Mum received her postcard in just one day? And then she’d boarded a train and found them, lickety-split? Hazel ran in stocking feet to the door and opened it to find the disheveled and awful hag staring at her with dull eyes.
Not her mum at all.
Mrs. Marchman, with the sour smell of a London back alley, pushed past Hazel to see Kelty cowering on the couch. “I suspected Mrs. Aberdeen was at the bottom of this. She’s the reason for many disappearances.”
Harry jumped and his chair fell to the ground. “Do not speak to or about my mother ever again.”
Bridie appeared, seeming to float into the room, her floral apron falling in soft folds from her waist. In every way, she stood in stark contrast to the hag. “Hello, Glynnis, may I help you?”
“You took the child meant to billet with me. Send her back right now or I will tell the police you kidnapped her.”
“Do calm down. I didn’t take anyone.”
“Give me back the girl.” The hag moved fast, standing so close to Bridie that their noses nearly touched.
Bridie didn’t budge. “Hazel,” she said without turning her head, “will you please take both girls to your bedroom?”
Hazel didn’t budge as Flora and Kelty fled. “Please,” Hazel said to Bridie. “Let Kelty stay with us.”
Bridie nodded. “Hazel, I need you to go back to the bedroom and let me take care of this.”
Hazel retreated to the bedroom, where she found Flora and Kelty sitting on the edge of the bed. “That lady is awful,” Flora said. “Like the witch in the hidey hole.”
Hazel sat next to Flora and squeezed her leg so tightly, hoping her message was clear. Do. Not. Talk. About. Our. Story.
“She’s more than awful. She’s”—Kelty played with the frayed edges of her braid—“she’s bloody awful.”
They laughed, but there was no joy in it.
Hazel considered telling Kelty about Whisperwood to comfort her, but then she didn’t. It was too sacred. Instead, she told Kelty about Frideswide, the princess who didn’t want to be a queen of Mercia, how she ran away and how God protected her by striking King Algar blind.
“Nice story,” said Kelty, “but I’m not counting on God striking Mrs. Marchman blind.”
The girls played jacks on the bedroom floor while Kelty told the sisters about herself. She was from North London, her father was at war, and her mum would come get her if she knew about the hag. She had a dog named Jack, and a kitty called Silver. Her best friend was Lila, and her purple bedroom at home had lacy curtains. Kelty chatted nonstop as if it might mute the hag’s craggy voice slipping beneath the door.
They heard another knock on the front door, but Kelty continued on with a story about her mum taking her to the seaside just last year when none of them could have imagined where they were now.
The bedroom door opened. “Girls,” Bridie said. “I need you to come out here.”
They dutifully obeyed even as Hazel felt the rock of dread in her gut. In the living room stood a tall man, a bobby with his blue hat in his hand. A scar ran like a crooked road across his forehead and had turned whiter than the skin on his face.
He spoke sternly. “Bridgette, you must let the girl go back with Mrs. Marchman. She’s been billeted with her; the paperwork has been done and—”
“Paperwork means nothing to me, Aiden,” Bridie said. “Mrs. Marchman is cruel to this child. She doesn’t give her enough to eat! Kelty stays here.”
The hag let out a sound that could never be called a laugh but was meant to be one. “Cruel? Because I expect obedience and cooperation? Cruel? Because I don’t dance around fires and play in the river like a child?”
Hazel looked at Bridie, her face as beautiful as Mrs. Marchman’s was ugly. Dance around fires? Play in the river?
Bridie clapped her hands together like a magic spell about to be cast. “Get. Out. Of. My. House.”
“Not without the girl,” Mrs. Marchman said.
Bridie exhaled through her lips, her freckled cheeks puckering in. “Can we please talk about this outside?”
The adults left the house, and the four children huddled together around the kitchen table.
It didn’t take long until Constable Aiden Davies returned with the devastating news that Kelty must return to Mrs. Marchman where she had been legally billeted.
* * *
Hazel was already awake the next morning when Harry’s sketch slipped under the door. She’d been sitting with her back against the pine headboard of the four-poster bed, wondering about Kelty. The girl had been swept away by Mrs. Marchman and Aiden, tears pouring down her freckled cheeks. Hazel rose and picked up the sketch, held it to the morning light streaming through the bedroom window to see a drawing of a cow’s downy face and wide brown eyes; one from the pasture next to the dirt path that led to the river. It was so realistic that Hazel wanted to run her fingers along its little comma-shaped ears.
After Flora woke, they ate breakfast silently. Harry did schoolwork at the table. Flora and Hazel went for a walk in the woodlands until soon enough they found themselves huddled together in a hollow opening of an oak tree on damp-soft soil. The nearly naked boughs arched over the forest floor, roots rose from the earth in humps of thick and shiny rope. The wind whispered a secret language between trees.
The open space in the tree trunk was just the right size for two girls to slip inside its cavern, and close their eyes and escape.
They traipsed through Whisperwood.
“Tell me,” Flora said. “What are we today?”
“You decide,” Hazel said.
“Fairies.”
“Yes, we are,” Hazel said. “Our mission is to save the faerie queen and return her to her castle beneath the alder tree.”
The sisters flew above Whisperwood, where it was springtime, not the cold of autumn. In this land, flowers bloomed white and red. The paths twisted and tricked them on their search for the ogre who had stolen the fairy and hidden her beneath the branches of a dead hazelnut bush. As always, the castle beckoned far beyond the mountains while the land before them came alive. The trees transformed to helpful women, their leaves turning to small mice, the sky lifting them higher, and the grass waves pushed them onward—everything in Whisperwood was there for the sisters, to help them, to ease the way. A witch slept in a hidey-hole of a large fallen tree, and they snuck right past her. The girls finally reached the castle, and the queen, who looked nearly exactly like their mum in London, sat safe on her throne when they were jolted from the throne room by Kelty’s voice calling their names.
“Hazellll! Flora!”
The sisters’ eyes popped open, and they shivered. Dusky evening had fallen outside the tree, and they were hidden in the cavernous damp space.
“Over here!” Hazel called, climbing out, tugging Flora with her.
Kelty burst through the trees and stopped in front of them.
Hazel felt unsteady, for surely they had brought a fairy out of Whisperwood and into the forest.
Kelty stomped her foot and placed her hands on her hips. “What are you doing?” she demanded, her high-pitched voice both urgent and frightened.
“We were just playing, that’s all,” Hazel said. So much time had gone by. How long had they been in Whisperwood?
“It’s past dinnertime and the nice lady you live with is frantic with worry and the boy is looking everywhere. He thought you’d be at the magic well.”
“Oh no. We didn’t mean to scare them. We were just trying to stay out of the way.” Hazel’s voice faded.
“I don’t rightly believe Mrs. Aberdeen wants you out of the way—not like the witch I live with. She’d boil me for dinner if she thought she could get away with it.”
Flora stood and stepped toward Kelty. “You live with a witch?”
Kelty touched the top of Flora’s head. “Who is filling your head with stories so you believe everything you hear?”
Flora looked over her shoulder to Hazel and smiled the conspiratorial smile of a secret keeper.
“Mrs. Aberdeen is frightfully worried,” Kelty said.
The three of them jogged as fast as they could, out of the glade and up the pathway toward the stone cottage. Almost there, Hazel stopped and gazed at the home. Smoke curled from the chimney pot on the sloped slate roof, and the ivy crawling up the left side of the cottage shone red and gold. The home looked nearly like the one she had created; she had told the story of a cottage in the woods and now they found themselves in it.
Hazel caught Flora and Kelty. Bridie stood in the front yard, waiting. Kelty called out, “I found them!”
Bridie shook her head. “Well, now, where did you two go?”
“Just to the woods, ma’am. It wasn’t far,” Hazel said.
Just then, as if answering Hazel, an owl hooted close by. They all stopped, lifted their faces to the sound. Had the bird followed them from Whisperwood?
“Ah,” Bridie said dreamily. “An owl visit.”
“What does that mean?” Kelty swiveled around, looking for the owl calling from the darkness.
“It means someone here can see what is hidden.”
“Hazel!” Flora said. “We have an owl, don’t we?”
Hazel squeezed Flora’s hand and looked to Bridie. “I’m sorry. We lost track of time.”
Bridie motioned for them to come inside, then shut the door behind her. She stared at the girls with an intensity they hadn’t yet seen. “I want you to listen carefully. It is quite lovely to run about the woodlands and the river is one mighty beautiful thing. But you must tell me where you go and you must come home before dark. I am now responsible for you.”
Flora sidled closer to Hazel, hid behind her, and buried her head into the folds of her dress.
“I don’t mean to scare you, Flora,” Bridie said, “but you girls gave me quite a fright.” She turned her attention to Kelty. “And thank you, dear. Please do stay for dinner with us?”
“Yes, please.” Kelty switched from foot to foot. “Can I… stay for longer?”
“Longer?” Bridie asked.
“Yes.”
She was cut short by Harry bursting in with the cold air. He spied the group and slammed shut the door. “Where were you?”
“In our thory,” Flora said.
“Story,” Hazel corrected.
“What does that mean?” Hazel could smell his sweat mixed with the woodsy air of the outdoors.
“It means nothing,” Hazel said. Her neck was warm, and her face felt like it didn’t know what to do with itself, smile or frown or what. And she had an odd feeling that her hips wouldn’t hold her steady.
Hazel turned away from him and Bridie returned to the kitchen with Flora following her. Kelty and Hazel walked to the opening of the fireplace and held their hands to the warmth. Harry followed, standing too close.
“You don’t have to worry about me!” Hazel said in a voice that sounded sharper than she’d meant it to. It was hard to tell what all her feelings were lately. They came too fast and without names.
