She mistook my silence for doubt. “Sure, you don’t believe me.” She smiled. “Most people don’t. Most of the locals say it’s a ‘load of old codswallop.’ And they say I talk funny!”
“I do believe you, Miss. I really do. I . . .” My heart raced. I felt as if I would burst if I didn’t tell her, but I couldn’t find the right words.
“What is it, Frances?”
“Nothing, Miss.” I fished around wildly for something to say, remembering the leaflets I’d seen at home for the Theosophist Society meetings in Bradford. “Is that what the Theosophists are interested in? Fairies?”
“How do you know about the Theosophists?”
“I’ve heard Aunt Polly talking to Mummy about them.”
“Theosophists believe in the existence of other beings, and other realms,” Mrs. Hogan explained. “Ghosts and spirits, and fairy life.”
“Uncle Arthur says it’s all a load of old codswallop.” I was pleased to make Mrs. Hogan laugh. “But what if he could see fairies? He’d have to believe in them then, wouldn’t he?” I sipped my water to stop myself talking. I’d already said more than I should, talking about Uncle Arthur out of turn.
“I suppose he would. There are stories going back years about fairies in Upper Airedale and Wharfedale. Some of them must be true, sure they must, but most people only believe what they see with their own eyes.”
As I sat in Mrs. Hogan’s cottage I felt I could tell her anything, and it would be all right.
“Do you think it’s wrong to keep secrets, Miss?”
She thought for a moment. “I suppose it depends on what the secret is, and where it’s being kept.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cottingley’s a small village, and small villages can’t keep secrets. They’ve a funny way of setting them free, and who knows where they’ll end up?” She leaned forward. A gentle smile danced in her eyes. “If I had a secret, I’d hang on to it.”
The sound of the rag-and-bone man’s bell signaled that it was time for me to go home. “I should be going. Aunt Polly will be looking for me.”
“You’re welcome anytime, Frances. The woodland belongs to everyone, and my door is always open in case . . . well, never mind. It’s open. That’s all that matters.”
I said good-bye and Mrs. Hogan disappeared into the dark interior of the cottage, closing the door behind her and humming a ditty that drifted through the open window. “‘Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren’t go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, / And white owl’s feather!’”
I hurried back along the mossy path, unable to shake the feeling that I had forgotten to tell her something very important.
It was now three weeks since my first sighting at the beck. More than once, I’d almost told Elsie. Like water coming to the boil in the copper, I could feel the bubbles of excitement rise to the surface, certain they would burst out of me if I didn’t tell someone. But somehow, I bit my tongue. Only when I was alone in the bedroom did I even breathe a word about it.
“They’re real, Rosebud!” I whispered, grasping my doll’s hands. “Very real and so beautiful . . .”
“Who is beautiful?”
I turned to see Elsie standing in the doorway, a slight smile at her lips.
“Nobody. Nothing.” My cheeks flared scarlet. “I was just making up stories for Rosebud.”
Elsie stepped into the room and pulled the door to behind her, her eyes burning with excitement. “What happened, Frances? I promise I won’t tell.”
She looked so grown-up and pretty that I couldn’t resist. I had to tell her. Jumping up onto the bed, I grabbed Elsie’s hands, pulling her down to sit beside me. “You have to promise you won’t laugh, or tease me, or tell anyone.” She promised, twice, three times before I took a deep breath. “I’ve seen things at the beck.”
Elsie squeezed my hand in encouragement and nodded for me to go on. “What sort of things?”
The word caught in my throat, emerging as a faint whisper. “Fairies.”
Elsie said nothing. My heart sank. I’d known she wouldn’t believe me.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I continued, imploring my cousin to believe, “and you’ll only think I’m making it up or imagining things, but I see them, Elsie. I promise I do. I see them just as I can see you now.”
Elsie studied me carefully, her lively blue eyes searching deep into mine. “It’s all right, Frances. I believe you.”
“Do you, really?” Elsie nodded, her eyes sparkling with intrigue as I threw my arms around her. “Oh, Elsie. Can you believe it? Fairies at the bottom of the garden!”
My words came out in a rush then as I told her everything. How I’d first seen them and how they always appeared toward the end of the afternoon in fine weather, never in bad. I tried to describe them exactly as I’d seen them while Elsie listened and asked questions until we were both whispering about fairies as if we were gossiping about the neighbors. And it was as easy and as difficult as that. In a moment, the secret I’d kept so carefully in my heart wasn’t mine anymore. It was Elsie’s secret too.
That night, we lay in the dark and whispered for a long time about my remarkable discovery. Elsie assured me again and again that she wouldn’t say a word to anyone, and although I trusted her and felt a delicious fizz of excitement in my tummy when we talked about it, I also felt a nagging sense of doubt. Of something not quite right.
I felt my words seep into the walls of the bedroom and under the door. I felt them slip through the gaps in the window frame and wished I could take them back, because when Elsie went to work the next morning, she would take the secret with her. It would leave 31 Main Street and travel to Bradford, where it would spread like a fever down the long line of girls who did the spotting work with her. It would be there at every mealtime, passing between us like salt and gravy. It was part of the house now, captured in the wind that whistled down the chimney and in the floorboards that creaked on the stairs.
As I squeezed my eyes shut and fell into a restless sleep, Mrs. Hogan’s words raged through my mind like the whispers I’d heard among the barley. “Cottingley’s a small village, and small villages can’t keep secrets. They’ve a funny way of setting them free, and who knows where they’ll end up?”
Six
Ireland. Present day.