Away With the Fairies (2 page)

“Is it Lucy?” her mother cried. “Have you found Lucy?” (
Lucy lying dead somewhere in some corner of the house they had failed to search).
June shook her head, and her mother held her tightly, feeling weak with relief.
Let them find her,
she thought.
But not dead. Please not dead.

June had stopped screaming and now she was crying in huge, choking sobs. “It's all my fault, I should have stopped her.”
Mum held her a little away, so she could see her face. “Stopped her doing what?”

“Fairyland,” June cried. “I should have stopped her going into Fairyland. I was right there beside her and I just let her walk in.”

Monica Wainwright was not a fool, but she was at the end of her tether, unable to think straight in her terror for her daughter, and ready to believe anything. “Tell me,” she said.

By now the whole neighbourhood was out scouring the countryside. It was like on the television news; policemen holding hands and walking over the fields. June could see them through the window. It was no use, of course. They were never going to find Lucy, not out there.

“I'm just going to call Dad,” Mum said.

****

Ben Wainwright was up in Johnson's top field when the phone rang. He was feeling what his eldest daughter would call 'spaced-out'. Everything that had happened today from when Monica called him at work seemed unreal. The frantic, vain searching of the house, ringing everyone they could think of, including Granny McCurdle, who was right at this moment driving over, the police coming to interview them, Monica in tears, her face red and puffy. He had come out with the searchers because that is what you did if your child was missing. You joined the search. But he didn't believe it, not really. If they found her in the fields, it would be her dead body they found, wouldn't it? That's what these people were expecting, the policemen and his neighbours. They were looking for her dead body. And that couldn't be right. Lucy couldn't be dead. He had seen her this very breakfast time, arguing over which cereal she could have. Anyway, it was the wrong weather. How could you be looking for the dead body of a child on a glorious sunny day like this? It should be dank and dismal, drizzling grey rain.
The phone continued to ring and he stared at it in mute horror, suddenly terrified to answer. Afraid it would be bad news. Then he pressed the button and put the phone to his ear. “Yes?”

It was Monica. “Ben, can you come home? June thinks she knows where Lucy is.”
“What? Where?”
“I can't explain over the phone. It's too complicated. Just come.”
He almost dropped the phone, his fingers fumbling to find the right button. But he managed to end the call and stuff it in his pocket. Then he turned and ran hell for leather back to the house, unaware that all the other searchers had stopped to stare at him and that one of the policemen was on the radio to headquarters. After a moment, the policeman signed off, clipped the radio to his belt and began to follow in a more leisurely fashion.

****

“OK,” Mum said. “Let's go and have a look.” And she started up the stairs. June held back, reluctant to go back to the strange place her bedroom had become. Mum opened the bedroom door and instantly something small and green shot through it and flashed past her and down the stairs, brushing against June as it went. She shrank back with a small mew of disgust.

“What in Heaven's name was that?” Mum was standing outside the bedroom door, clutching her chest. Her face had gone white underneath the red puffiness, giving her a livid, mottled look.

“It's a fairy,” said June.

Mum looked down the stairs where the creature had run. “I don't think so,” she said thoughtfully. “No, I don't think so at all.”

Then she pulled herself together, beckoned to June, and together they went into the bedroom.

****

The front door was open when Ben got home and there was no sign of anyone. He glanced into the front room and the kitchen, then stood indecisively in the hall. He had run all the way and was panting hard, which probably accounts for why he didn't hear the scuffling noises.

“Up here,” Monica called from the girls' room, and he made his way up the stairs.

He hesitated in the doorway. Monica and June were sitting on Lucy's bed staring at the wall. His heart skipped a beat. It was exactly the way Lucy sat during her episodes of petit mal.

“Just come and sit next to us,” Monica said, her eyes never leaving the wall, “and tell me what you see.”
He came into the room. There didn't seem to be anything unusual to see... unless … there seemed to be a greenish light playing over the wall. He looked back towards the window, thinking there must be a tree casting a shadow, but of course there wasn't. There had never been a tree before, why should there be one now? He looked back at the wall and suddenly the picture snapped into place – a forest, dark and gloomy in a grey-green twilight, the leaves on the trees moving ever so slightly in a breeze he could not feel or hear. Little scuffling movements in the leaf-mould beneath the trees. Something long and thin running up a tree trunk, so fast it was gone before he could grasp what it was.

Stunned, he sat down on the bed next to June.

Monica turned and looked at him. “You can see it, then?” she said. “The wood?”

“Fairyland,” June murmured.

Ben dragged his eyes away from the incredible, impossible picture playing out on the wall and looked at his wife. “Lucy's Fairyland?”
Monica nodded. “That's where she is. June saw her go in.”

“And Mitzy,” June said. “Mitzy went in too.”

Ben drew a long, ragged breath. He felt as if he were teetering on the brink of madness. He didn't want to accept this ridiculous thing. He would almost deny his sanity rather than accept the evidence of his own eyes. But he wanted Lucy more. He wanted Lucy back and if that meant venturing into strange mad places, he would go.

“Good,” Monica said, as if they had had a whole conversation and the matter was settled. “You stay here with June and she'll show you how to open the way and keep it open. I'm going downstairs to get the spare clothes-line.” And she left the room.

June looked away from the wall and the picture vanished with a pop.

“Right, Dad,” she said. “First you have to squinch your eyes sideways like this. Like in those pictures...”

****

Monica went through the kitchen and into the utility room to get the washing-line. As she reached up to the shelf, she heard a rustling noise in the kitchen behind her and her brow creased in a frown of irritation.
Bloody fairy!
She'd deal with it later, after she'd got Lucy back. She put the washing-line under her arm and, as an afterthought, also picked up a large reel of gardening twine.

In the kitchen, the fairy peeped out from the cupboard beneath the sink and watched her go past. What a dreadful place this was! All hard surfaces and sharp angles, no trees, no food. He had sniffed at dozens of evil-smelling things and tasted some that didn't smell so bad, but none of it was food. His ears drooped in despair.

When Monica came back into the bedroom, both Ben and June were staring at the gateway in the wall. June turned round and smiled. “Dad's really good at it,” she said. “Miles better than me. He did it first time!”

Ben's lips twitched in a smile. “I can do the 3D pictures as well,” he said, then looked up at his wife. The wall snapped back into place the moment he looked away.

Monica looked slightly alarmed. “It's all right,” he said. “I can get it back straight away. Now, what's the plan?”

Monica handed him the reel of twine and began to tie the clothes-line round her waist. “I'm going in to look for Lucy,” she said. “You and June stay here and for Christ's sake keep the door open.”

“Just a minute!” Ben put out his hand. “Shouldn't I go? I'm more likely to be able to handle trouble.”
“Oh, there'll be no trouble,” Monica said between clenched teeth.

Ben looked at her admiringly. Under normal circumstances his wife was a very placid woman, easy-going and slow to anger. The weeping woman of a few hours ago was completely out of character. Monica was practical and organised, not a woman who cried easily. It was, he imagined, the horror of the situation and the feeling of powerlessness which had reduced her to tears. But here was yet another version. Here was the tigress looking for her lost cub, and woe betide anyone who stood in her way.

“OK,” he said, “but take something as a marker.”

Monica looked up from tying the knot at her waist and raised one eyebrow questioningly.

“We don't know what you can see from the other side. You might not be able to find the gate again. You need something bright to mark the place.”
June bounded across to the wardrobe and pulled out a rainbow-coloured scarf. “Will this do?”

“It's perfect, Sweetness,” Ben said, and hugged his eldest daughter briefly and fiercely. She had become so much more precious in the last few hours.

Monica finished tying the knot and took the scarf. “Right, here we go,” she said, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

All three of them stared at the wall and the gateway instantly appeared. Monica gave a little gasp. “I told you he was good, didn't I, Mum?” June said smugly.

Monica took a deep breath, and paying out the rope behind her, walked into Fairyland.

It was much darker on the other side. She looked up at the canopy overhead. She could see tiny patches of blue sky between the thick foliage. Not night-time, then. Just shadow.

“Lucy!” she called. “Lucy, it's Mum.”

Nothing stirred in the forest.

She turned back to the gateway and there, incongruously, was a patch of her daughters' bedroom, superimposed surreally in a space between the trees. She walked over and tied the lurid scarf to the tree on the left, and stepped back to admire her handiwork. “It looks pretty good,” she said to Ben and June, but they just stared back blankly.

“She's trying to say something,” June said. Ben risked a quick look sideways at her. “Keep it open,” he said. “I'll try phoning.” June dutifully continued to stare at the wall while Ben got his phone out of his pocket, pressed speed dial and put the phone to his ear. “The number you have called,” said a metallic voice, “is unavailable.”

Monica had pulled her own phone out and was staring at the screen. She looked up and shrugged. No signal. Ben shrugged. It had been a long shot anyway. He blew his wife a kiss and she turned back towards the forest.

Without any warning, something pale green shot out into the room and out of the bedroom door. “My God, what was that? Ben cried, turning away from the wall and staring in horror in the direction where the creature had gone.

“Mitzy,” June said, not looking away from the wall. “
Concentrate,
Dad.”

Ben looked back at the wall. “But it was green.”

“Yes, I know,” said June, “but it was Mitzy just the same.”

Privately Ben thought she must be wrong, but he didn't argue.

“Lucy! Lucy?” Monica was moving further into the wood. She looked behind her. The bedroom was still comfortingly near. “Lucy!”

“Mum?” The voice was very small and far away.

Monica shouted louder. “I'm here, Lucy. It's Mum. I'm here.” She was sobbing with relief.

A few minutes later a bedraggled figure appeared between the trees, then broke into a run and jumped into her mother's arms. “Lucy. Oh, Lucy.” Monica hugged her so tight she was afraid she might break her ribs.

Lucy was sobbing. “I've lost Mitzy, Mum. She ran in here and I can't find her.”

“It's all right, Darling,” Monica said soothingly. “She's gone back in the house. I saw her run past a minute ago. Look!” She turned with the child in her arms and pointed to the brightly-lit patch of bedroom a few yards away.

A moment later they were both safely back in the bedroom. Ben hugged both wife and daughter in a group hug, but June crossed her arms and scowled. “
Mum!
” she said. “You left my scarf in there.”

Both her parents turned to her and laughed. Then Ben put out an arm and pulled her into the group hug. “I'm going to buy you a whole shopful of scarves, Sweetness,” he said, “but nobody's going back in there.”

He put down his daughters and turned to Monica. “Come on,” he said. “Help me move the wardrobe in front of the wall. Nobody seemed to notice that Lucy's face had taken on a greenish tinge.

“Hellooo!” came a stentorian voice from the foot of the stairs. “Is anybody home?”

The girls exchanged a look. “Granny McCurdle,” whispered Lucy. A moment later they heard her footsteps coming up the stairs.

The girls appeared at the bedroom door and went down to meet her and Granny McCurdle's face broke into a beaming smile.
“Lucy, Darling. They've found you. Whatever have you done to your face? Is it face paint?”