Nana’s gaze drifted off into the distance, lost somewhere Olivia couldn’t reach her. It was a look Olivia had seen often, even before the onset of Alzheimer’s, a look she sensed she wasn’t meant to notice.
She picked up her bag from beside her chair and took out the magazine article and Frances’s manuscript. “I found some interesting things at the shop today, Nana.” She explained about the briefcase and the things she’d found and handed Nana the Conan Doyle article. “I thought you might like to see them.”
Nana took the page from Olivia. It shook in her hands as she brought it closer to her face, studying it carefully before resting it on her lap. She ran her fingers across the photograph of Alice and the fairies as if she were reading braille, searching for a memory among the words and the picture. She chuckled lightly, a curious, faraway sound.
“Do you recognize it?” Olivia leaned forward, willing her to remember. There was a softness to Nana’s face that Olivia hadn’t seen for a long time. For the briefest moment, she looked like the old Nana Martha. Alive. Full of questions and stories.
Nana tapped the photograph with her fingernail. “That’s Frances.”
Olivia’s heart sank. She tried to keep her voice calm and patient as she explained. “It’s Alice, Nana. Look. It says underneath.”
Nana fixed her with a determined stare. “I don’t care what it says. That’s Frances.”
Olivia knew when to back down. “Did you know her? Mammy had the same photograph in a silver frame in her jewelry box.” She paused, waiting for any sign of recognition from Nana, anxious not to upset her by stirring distressing memories. “I haven’t seen it for years, but I’ve never forgotten it.”
Nana looked back at the image. “Such a lot of fuss about a few photographs. It was all those men from London. Interfering. They never meant it to go as far as it did.”
She remembered.
There were so many questions Olivia wanted to ask, but she didn’t want to overwhelm Nana. She thought of the hope and wonder in Iris’s eyes that morning when she’d asked if the fairies were real. She thought of the hope and wonder she’d felt in her own heart when she’d asked her mammy the same question. She hardly dared ask it again now.
“Are they real, Nana? The fairies?”
Nana turned her eyes to Olivia, her gaze settling firmly on her as she took hold of her hands. “Which ones, dear? The ones in the photograph, or the ones we can’t see?”
Olivia looked at the photograph again. The girl—Alice or Frances or whoever it was—looked straight ahead into the camera. Why wasn’t she looking at the fairies in front of her? Surely she would have been so captivated by them she wouldn’t have been able to look at anything else. Perhaps there was another story to be told; another story behind the camera.
“There were some other things, too, Nana. Another photograph in an old children’s picture book, and this.” She lifted the heavy manuscript from her bag. “It was written by someone called Frances Griffiths.”
Nana nodded. “The girl with the fairies in the photograph.” She took the thick pile of paper and rested it on her lap, running her fingers over the violet ribbon.
“It’s a sort of memoir,” Olivia explained. “Do you know why Pappy might have had it at the shop?”
Nana shook her head and closed her eyes. Her memories couldn’t keep up.
“I thought I could read the story to you when I visit. It’s set in Cottingley in Yorkshire. Isn’t that where you grew up?”
Olivia hesitated, wondering if she shouldn’t have mentioned any of this at all. Perhaps it was something Nana didn’t want to remember, even if she could.
“That’s right,” Nana said. “Cottingley. Pretty little place. There was a stream.” A slight smile played at her lips as she spoke. She opened one eye and looked at Olivia. “Go on, then. Start reading.”
After the first four chapters, Nana grew tired and asked Olivia to take her back to her room. Olivia sat with her until she slept and the evening nurses came around. Then Olivia kissed Nana’s cheek and told her she loved her, as she always did, although she was never sure if Nana heard. Even if she did, she never said it back.
OLIVIA SLEPT FITFULLY that night, back in the bedroom of her childhood at Bluebell Cottage, Nana and Pappy’s home in Howth. Despite the soothing hush of the sea that tiptoed through the open window, the emotional turmoil of the day cartwheeled through her mind, and her thoughts refused to settle. They jumped from Pappy and Nana to Frances and Elsie. They even settled—fleetingly—on Ross and Iris. But no matter who else resided there for a moment or two, it was to Jack and the wedding that her thoughts ultimately returned. Jack, and the future they’d planned over Michelin-starred dinners and expensive wine. A future that felt increasingly distant with each day that she moved hesitantly closer toward it.
It wasn’t until the thick blackness of night made way for the navy hue of dawn that she eventually fell asleep, but even then she couldn’t properly rest. Her dreams were occupied by visions of a little girl, hair streaming like flames as she placed a posy of white flowers on the doorstep of a woodland cottage before settling on the bough of a willow tree above a narrow stream. There she sang of fairies at the bottom of the garden and watched the flowers slowly unfurl their petals beneath the warmth of a gentle morning sun. Even from behind the veil of sleep, Olivia sensed that something about this dream was different, that although she inhabited it, it wasn’t her dream at all.
Like the prospect of married life with Jack waiting for her in London, somehow she sensed it belonged to someone else.
Five
Ireland. Present day.
She woke to the sound of the sea, the sound of home. A cool breeze floated through the open window, carrying a dandelion seed inside with it. Jinny-Joes as she called them, although Nana Martha insisted they were called fairies in Yorkshire, and if you caught one you had to make a wish. Olivia watched it dance in a shaft of sunlight before it settled onto the pillow beside her. She picked it up and twirled it around between her thumb and finger. Something about its fragility spoke to her of letting go, of being blown on the wind to some unknown place. She closed her eyes and made a wish.