Hearing movement downstairs, Elsie quickly put the pins and the drawings into the biscuit tin and slid back under the bed to return it to its hiding place.
“And not a word, Frances,” she said when she emerged. “Not to anyone. Promise?”
I nodded with my most serious face. “I promise, Elsie. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“Not even Rosebud.”
My rag doll was propped up on the pillow. My confidante. The one person I told my biggest secrets to. She’d been there all the time, and heard everything about our plans. But Elsie—although not too grown-up to believe in fairies—was too grown-up to believe in dolls being able to understand humans.
“I won’t even tell Rosebud. I promise.”
Saturday arrived with bright sunshine and a warm breeze that blew through the open windows and doors of 31 Main Street. The house was heavy with anticipation, the air laced with secrets shared and secrets hidden.
I had a spoonful of porridge halfway to my mouth when Elsie asked Uncle Arthur if we could borrow his camera, explaining that she wanted to take a picture of me with it. I couldn’t move. I hadn’t expected her to come out with it just like that, as casually as if she was asking someone to pass the milk jug. I glanced sideways at Uncle Arthur, who was equally surprised.
He put his cup down. “Well . . . no. You can’t borrow the camera. Expensive stuff, that. I’ll take a photograph of our Frances if that’s what you really want it for.”
I glanced at Elsie, throwing her an oh, well look as my heart sank into my boots beneath the table. I’d suspected as much all along. Uncle Arthur would never agree to us having his precious camera. The plan was ruined, and I would still be forbidden from playing at the beck.
Elsie wasn’t as easily defeated. “Please, Daddy. I’ll be very careful with it. I promise. I’ve watched you work it, and I’ve handled lots of the glass plates at work. We’ll bring it straight back as soon as we’ve taken a picture, and you can develop the plate so we won’t be near your chemicals and things.” She looked at him with pretty pleading eyes, drawing every ounce of her infectious charm toward him.
Aunt Polly stood up to clear the breakfast dishes. “Oh, go on, Arthur. Let them use it. It’ll get them out from under your feet if nowt else.”
Elsie sensed her opportunity, pouncing as quickly as the cat catching a mouse. “Please, Daddy. Mummy’s right. It’ll get us out of the house for a while, and it’s such a lovely day.”
Everyone stared at Uncle Arthur. Eight eyes that he couldn’t resist. I watched him melt beneath his daughter’s gaze, and for a moment I forgot all about fairies and cameras. All I could think about was Daddy far away in France, and with all my heart, I wished he was here in the scullery so he could look at me that same way. Sometimes I forgot what he looked like. Sometimes, I struggled to remember him at all.
Uncle Arthur stood up, his chair legs scraping against the floor. “You’re to bring it straight back, mind. And if there’s so much as a scratch on it . . .”
Elsie was up and out of her chair before he could say another word, throwing her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Daddy. Thank you!” She turned to me. “Well, come on, then.”
There was an urgency to her voice. I stood up without even realizing I had.
“Erm. Where do you think you’re going, Frances Griffiths?” Mummy looked at me, arms folded, a quizzical look on her face.
“Can I leave the table?” I asked, itching to follow Elsie, who was already halfway up the stairs.
“May I?”
“May I leave the table?”
“Yes. You may.”
With that, we were gone, thudding upstairs on eager feet, giggling and whispering as we left the adults to finish their breakfast and shake their heads and wonder about the peculiar ways of children.
I waited as patiently as I could in the narrow hallway while Uncle Arthur explained everything to Elsie: how to load the glass plates, how to set the aperture and shutter speed, and how to frame the picture through the small viewfinder. It sounded complicated, and I hoped Elsie was paying attention. She wasn’t known for her ability to concentrate. I twirled my fingers around and around the curls in my hair, formed from the rags I’d slept in the previous night. I knew Elsie had the fairy cutouts in her coat pocket, and worried they would fall out and our plan would be spoiled before we’d even left the house.
As I waited, the grandfather clock ticked methodically beside me, sweeping the restless minutes away like dust being brushed out of the scullery door. Rather than taking time away, I imagined the passing minutes stretching out further and further, like bread dough rising and proving, filling the months and years ahead when I might not live in Cottingley and might never speak of fairies again. And for the first time, I understood why Peter Pan didn’t want to grow up, because neither did I. I wanted to be nine years old forever. I wanted to stay in this summer of fairies. I wanted time to pause.
Eventually Elsie emerged from the front room, carrying the heavy camera by the handle, her eyes wild with impatience. We didn’t speak a word to each other as we clattered down the cellar steps and followed the slope of the garden down toward the beck. Only when we’d negotiated the slippery stones and picked our way toward a mossy bank in front of the waterfall did we dare to look at each other and burst out laughing.
“Oh, Elsie. I thought he’d never agree. It’s a good job Aunt Polly stepped in.”
“He’d have given in eventually. I can nag for hours.”
The waterfall was especially beautiful that morning, falling in a veil of silver silk, the water perfectly smooth as it tumbled in arcs over the stepped rocks. The continual rumble had become so familiar to me since that first fretful night when I’d heard it from the bedroom. I dipped my fingertips into the water, savoring the icy tickle as it ran across my skin.
Taking one last look around to check that nobody had followed us, Elsie began to arrange the fairy cutouts. She’d already taped a hat pin onto the back of each and stuck the ends of the pins into the earth. I stood to one side, watching my cousin work as I picked idly at the wildflowers around me, threading them together through their stems to make a garland that I placed on my head like a May queen’s crown.
Elsie laughed when she glanced up and saw me. “Look at you! The fairy queen. What was she called?”
“Which one?”
“The Shakespeare one? We learnt it at school.”
“Titania? From A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
“That’s it. You look like Titania!”
I admired Elsie’s drawings again as she arranged them to make them look like they were dancing across the bank. I thought them very clever and beautiful, even though they weren’t much like the real fairies I saw, but I supposed it didn’t matter. Mummy and Aunt Polly and Uncle Arthur didn’t know what the real fairies looked like anyway, so Elsie’s attempts were good enough. While she fussed with the camera, I wandered along the stream, watching, listening, hoping to catch a glimpse of them.