In those honey-dipped days, I felt Daddy slip further away from us. I couldn’t even seek solace in the fairies since they had gone from the beck with the passing of the summer. Worst of all, Mummy said we had outstayed our welcome at 31 Main Street, that we were starting to get under everyone’s feet and it was time for us to look for a house of our own. With no end to the war in sight, she felt it best for us to start making alternative arrangements sooner rather than later.
Aunt Polly wouldn’t hear of such a thing and said whatever would the neighbors think if she couldn’t give her own sister and niece a roof over their heads? Uncle Arthur was more sympathetic to Mummy’s point of view, saying, “If our Annie feels she’d be happier in a place of her own, then who are we to stop her?” Aunt Polly told him to shush and mind his own, that this was a matter between sisters and nothing for him to be concerning himself with. In any event, I was relieved when it was agreed that we would stay at Number 31 until the war was over and Daddy was back. I’d grown very fond of Aunt Polly and Uncle Arthur, and couldn’t imagine not seeing Elsie every day. She’d become everything to me: sister, friend, confidante, coconspirator. Elsie was a spark to my guttering flame. With her, I was a brighter, better me. With Elsie, anything was possible. With Elsie, you never quite knew what was coming next.
“We need another photograph, Frances.” Her words fell on me like lumps of rock as I lay in the bed beside her. “This time you can take one of me.”
I didn’t like the idea. The more I’d studied the first photograph, the more fake the fairies looked. I could hardly believe anyone thought they were real. “What if we get caught, Elsie? Isn’t it best to forget about the photographs now?”
“You’ve heard Mummy and Daddy talking. They still doubt the photograph, even though they don’t know how we could have faked it. If we took another, we would really convince them.” She sat up in bed, her hair silvered by the light of the full moon streaming through the window. “Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud. It’ll be fun.”
I had reservations but I supposed it was only fair for Elsie to be in a photograph since she’d taken the first one of me. And so it was agreed. Elsie would start work on a new cutout the next morning. I asked her if she needed Princess Mary’s Gift Book, but she said no.
“This one will be different. It’ll be a surprise.”
It was more than a surprise. When Elsie showed me the new cutout, I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t a fairy but an odd little man.
“What is it?” I asked, peering at the strange-looking creature.
“It’s a gnome, silly. They’ll be expecting us to take another photograph of fairies, so we’ll surprise them with this. They’ll be more likely to believe us if we photograph something different. Come on. We’ll take the photo in top field. They won’t be expecting that, neither.”
It was a misty Saturday morning, far from ideal conditions for photography. I winced when Elsie asked Uncle Arthur if she could borrow the camera again. His “no” was quickly brushed aside by Aunt Polly, who came to our rescue again, telling him not to be a spoilsport and to let us have the camera for half an hour.
“Up to summat, you mark my words,” he said as we put on our boots at the back door.
Aunt Polly said that we might very well be up to summat, but at least we were up to summat outside and not under her feet and that he shouldn’t be complaining.
“Up to summat, you mark my words,” Elsie mimicked as we ran through the garden. I laughed so hard I thought my sides would burst.
It was an unusually still day. No breeze. No clouds. Not the faintest swaying of grass or fern. I picked campion for my flower press while Elsie sat down in the field and arranged herself and the cutout, using a hat pin as before to position the “gnome,” as she called it. She looked pretty in the bridesmaid dress she’d worn for our cousin Judith’s wedding the week before. It was one of Mummy’s designs, beautifully stitched as always. I had one to match but hadn’t wanted to wear it to play outside, knowing how prone I was to slipping and falling. Elsie also wore her favorite hat and had left her long hair to fall in loose tumbles around her shoulders. I peered nervously at her through the camera lens, terrified that I would get it wrong and spoil the one plate Uncle Arthur had given us.
Elsie patiently explained how everything worked until I felt better about it. “Is the camera ready?” she asked.
I checked everything again. “Yes. I think so.”
Elsie reached out her hand so it looked as if the gnome was going to hop onto it. “Go on, then. Press the lever.” I hesitated. “Today, preferably.”
I checked one last time that the pointer for the exposure time was set at the correct number for the distance between Elsie and the camera. On the count of three, I pressed the lever.
Elsie gathered up her skirts and the “gnome” and rushed over. “Come on. Let’s ask Daddy to develop it right away.”
She was all excitement and enthusiasm, but I was uninspired by the whole event. The cutouts had been harmless fun the first time. This I wasn’t so sure about. “I’ll stay by the beck for a while,” I said. “You take the camera back. I’ll follow you in a bit.”
Elsie didn’t question or try to persuade. She wasn’t that sort of girl. “Promise not to tell?”
“Promise not to tell.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
Elsie pushed the hat pin into the ground and ran off through the field, leaving me to dispose of the cutout. I did the same as last time, tearing the paper into pieces and tossing them into the stream, before settling myself on the willow bough seat, hoping for my real little friends to appear.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been there when a voice made me jump.
“What you up to, then, Frances Griffiths?” Mavis Clarke stood on the opposite bank, arms folded, face screwed up in smug satisfaction.
“Sitting,” I replied, trying my best to sound bored. “Why? What’s it to you?”
“What were you and Elsie doing up in top field?”
My heart thumped in my chest. Had she seen us? “None of your business, nosy parker.”
“Up to no good, you two. That’s what. And when I find out, I’ll tell on you both.”
I swung my legs beneath the willow branch and tried to sound nonchalant. “Tell. See if I care.”
But I did care. Very much. If Mavis Clarke had seen what we’d done, she would tell everyone. And then we would be in awful trouble. She stuck her tongue out, laughed, and stomped off upstream, beneath the stone bridge, toward the quarry, where I hoped she would fall in and never be seen again, like the poor Hogan girl.
As soon as Mavis was out of sight, I jumped down from the branch and ran back to the house as quickly as I could. I had to tell Elsie not to develop the plate.
But I was too late.
She was already waiting for me on the back step, a great smile on her face. “It worked!” The excitement made her voice all shrill, like Aunt Polly’s. “The photograph came up!”
She showed me a funny-looking image. It wasn’t half as nice as the one of me with the fairies.
“Why does your hand look all big?” I asked.
“Daddy thinks it must have been overexposed.”
“What did he say?”
“He still thinks it’s a trick, but Mummy thinks it’s real.”