I turned the pages by candlelight, showing Elsie my favorite illustrations from the Alfred Noyes poem “A Spell for a Fairy.” I’d read the words so often I knew them by heart and recited the poem all the way to the end. “‘You shall hear a sound like thunder, And a veil shall be withdrawn, When her eyes grow wide with wonder, / On that hill-top, in that dawn.’”
Elsie liked the illustrations and said I read very well, which made me feel proud and grown-up.
After she’d blown out the candle, we whispered a while in the dark, each too conscious of the other to relax into sleep. Elsie fidgeted beside me while I tried to keep my frozen toes away from hers until they’d warmed up on the stone hot water bottle at the foot of the bed. The room was coal-black, and strange creaks and cracks disturbed me.
I tried to go to sleep, but the wind whistled in the eaves, and there was another sound: a faint rumbling that set my mind racing.
“What’s that noise, Elsie?”
Elsie rolled onto her back. “What noise?”
“That. Listen.”
Elsie sat up, straining to hear. “That’s the waterfall at the beck. It’ll be full at the moment, with the late snow and the thaw.” She lay back down again and yawned, a misty breath caught in the sliver of moonlight that slipped through the window. “Try to sleep, Frances. It’s late.”
My thoughts returned to the forbidden space beyond the house. Cottingley Woods, Mummy had said, and the glen that cuts through them. “Nothing for little girls to be troubling themselves with. . . . It’s dangerous. . . . And you’ll muddy your new boots.” “Mummy said I wasn’t to be going there. That it’s dangerous.”
Elsie didn’t say anything.
“Is it?” I tensed my legs and gripped Rosebud tightly in my arms as the darkness intensified around me.
“Well, there are stories.”
My eyes widened. “What stories?”
“Local folklore mostly—and then there’s the Hogan girl.”
“Who’s the Hogan girl?”
“She went missing last year. Wandered off in the middle of the night and never came back. Sleepwalking, they reckon, although some people have other explanations.”
“Like what?” I was terrified and enthralled by the suggestion of a local mystery.
“Child snatchers. Bad men. Her mother says the fairies took her. They never found her, either way.” I shivered and drew my knees up to my chest. I sensed that Elsie wanted to say more but thought better of it. “Anyway, it’s nowt, really. Just folk’s imaginations running away with them. I shouldn’t be gossiping about Mrs. Hogan, ’specially since she’ll be your teacher.”
I lay still, thinking about my schoolteacher and her missing child and listening, all the while, to the distant rumble of the waterfall. “Can we go to the beck tomorrow?”
“Suppose so. If you can think of nowt better to do.”
“What does nowt mean?”
“Nothing. Nowt means nothing. You’ve a lot to learn before we make a proper Yorkshire lass of you, Frances Griffiths. Now, get to sleep before my father comes up and tans your backside!”
“He wouldn’t!”
“He might.”
For all that my body longed to rest after our long journey, my mind was wide awake. I tossed and turned, willing myself to sleep. The mattress was too soft and then too lumpy, the room so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I thought of Daddy and wondered if he was lying awake, thinking of me. I wondered if gunners on the front lines ever went to sleep at all.
Eventually I forgot about my toes touching Elsie’s and snuggled up beside her for warmth, glad of the companionship. With the rumble of the waterfall in the distance, I slipped into sleep and dreamed of a red-haired girl holding a posy of white flowers. The words of Mr. Noyes’s poem crept from the pages of my picture book and tiptoed into my mind. “Then you blow your magic vial, / Shape it like a crescent moon, Set it up and make your trial, Singing, ‘Fairies, ah, come soon!’”
NOTES ON A FAIRY TALE
Cottingley, Yorkshire. April 1917.
After a restless night filled with curious dreams of a little girl and a pretty woodland cottage, I woke to a bright peaceful morning. Elsie was already up and the sheets were cold beside me. I clambered to the end of the bedstead to peer out of the narrow window. A bitter chill still laced the air, but a generous sun gilded everything that had been so colorless and gray yesterday. The constant sound of the waterfall reminded me of Mummy’s words of caution and Elsie’s talk of the missing girl. Nevertheless, the trees beyond the little garden looked inviting and I couldn’t wait to get out there.
I shivered as I washed at the basin. The water in the ewer was stone cold and the cracked tablet of Sunlight soap refused to produce anything much in the way of suds. Dressing quickly in a hand-me-down pinafore from Elsie that was still a good three inches too long for me (the portmanteau with my own clothes had not yet arrived from Plymouth), I tied my hair into bunches with white ribbons and rushed downstairs. Everyone was up and about, and all was chatter and clatter as porridge was spooned into bowls, bread was sliced, and fresh pots of tea were drawn. Aunt Polly read our tea leaves, predicting a happy marriage for Elsie and an interesting encounter with a stranger for me.
After breakfast and chores, I nagged at Elsie to show me the waterfall until she relented, despite insisting that our faces would be frozzed in no time. I didn’t mind. I wanted to be outside in the fresh air, frozzed or not. Mummy and Aunt Polly were delighted to see me and Elsie getting along so well, and although Mummy wasn’t keen on the idea and suggested we stay indoors and play draughts, Aunt Polly encouraged our little expedition outside, as long as we wrapped up well and were back for dinner at twelve. I followed Elsie through the musty cellar and out into the garden that sloped steeply down toward the tree line at the bottom, my tummy tumbling with the excitement of Christmas mornings and birthdays.
The sky was a perfect blue and the sun cast a pleasant warmth over the garden, making glistening dewdrop necklaces of the spider webs draped between the slats of the fence between Elsie’s garden and next door. While Elsie strode ahead, I stopped to inspect every new leaf and plant, and to listen to the unfamiliar songs of unfamiliar birds that perched on the rooftops. It would have been perfect if it weren’t for the awful stench of grease and wool from the mill at the bottom of the village. I covered my nose and mouth with my hand.
Elsie laughed at me. “Manky, isn’t it? I hardly notice it anymore. You’ll soon get used to it.”
I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to get used to a smell like that.
“The beck’s only small,” Elsie explained as she opened the latch on the gate. “So don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’re bored in five minutes.”
I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy picking my way around great clumps of stinging nettles and wild blackberry bushes that snagged on my coat and scratched the backs of my hands. As I walked, the rumble of the waterfall grew louder with every footstep, matching the heightened beating of my heart. Elsie told me to watch my footing as we clambered down a steep bank, grasping onto gnarled roots and embedded rocks until the trees opened up in front of us to reveal a narrow ravine.