by Julia Green
What was Granny talking about?
Tilly tried hard to stay awake. She listened to Granny pottering about, having her bath and sorting her things out in the spare room at the end of the landing. She watched the shadows dance around the room, from the lamp by her bed. She propped herself up on the pillows so she could see the dollhouse better. Was Helen in bed yet? Or still up, climbing trees, or running around the garden? Perhaps she was sitting in the den or playing with the fox…the fox she’d somehow tamed.
Tilly climbed out of bed again and drew back the curtains, to look out. All she could see was her own reflection. She turned off the bedside light and looked again, her face pressed against the cold glass. The dark shapes of trees and bushes were swaying in the wind, and clouds moved fast across the moon. The first spatter of rain hit the window. Tilly climbed back into bed. She listened to the rain and the wind battering the house. The fox would be safe and dry in its den, deep in the bramble thicket. She hoped it had found the food she left earlier.
She still hadn’t heard Dad come back home from the hospital. The knot of worry inside her was getting bigger, taking up all the space.
Chapter 17
“Well, you did sleep well!” Granny whisked back the curtains in Tilly’s room. “Right through that storm and everything!”
Daylight flooded the room. As Tilly woke up, the pain in her stomach came back too. “Is Dad here?” she said.
“He stayed the night with Mom, at the hospital,” Granny said in her extra cheerful voice. “I expect he thought it would be lonely for your mom, all by herself.”
Tilly reached out a hand for the little clock on her bedside table. “Twenty to ten!” she said.
“Yes! It’s much too late for you to go to school now. So we’ll have another day doing nice things together.”
“Won’t school be upset?”
“No. I’ve explained everything to your teacher. If you feel up to it, you can write some more of your story, she says.”
Tilly didn’t ask what exactly Granny had explained. The relief at not having to go to school flooded over her.
Granny was still talking. “So, get washed and dressed and then you can go and see if the storm did any damage in the garden. And we have to feed those birds.”
Tilly tried to eat the bowl of porridge, since Granny had made it specially, with brown sugar melting on the top. She managed two spoonfuls, and then she put on her coat and boots, and ran outside before Granny could say anything.
The birds were waiting for her in the tree. They flew down for toast crumbs, no longer scared of her, and a robin chirped from the bench and followed her as she went through the gate and across into the wild garden. The food she’d left out for the fox was gone.
A large branch had fallen in the storm. Tilly had to climb over it. The bark was wet and slippery and stained her hands green. Everything was sopping wet. The long grass had been flattened and the old rose had fallen off the wall.
Tilly went farther across the wild garden.
She gasped. Her den had partly collapsed; the branches had fallen down; the woven grass was just a soggy mess.
She stared at it and then she set to work, tugging the branches back into position, mending it as best she could.
She wished Helen would come and help her. She looked around, in case she was watching, hidden in a tree or playing in another part of the garden, but the garden just seemed empty. There was no one here. No sound of singing or rustling of leaves. Even the birds seemed quiet. Drips rained down from the trees overhead every time the wind blew the wet branches.
Tilly started putting back the spiral of pebbles, arranging the scattered stones in size order. Her hands were freezing cold, and the pebbles felt clammy and horrid. She put the log table back upright in the middle of the den, and then she saw something else, half hidden under a pile of dead bracken: the corner of an old square tin box. She pulled it out, pried open the lid.
Inside she found a stump of candle and a book.
Tilly took out the book very carefully. It was old, like the ones in Dad’s study, with a green cover and thick cream pages and pictures. Black and white line drawings on almost every page, and just a few in color, on a page by themselves, with a sheet of very thin, almost transparent paper over the top, which you had to lift up so you could see the pictures. Carefully, she turned the pages.
The edges of the pages were mottled with brown spots, as if the book had gotten wet. Helen must have left it here, before the storm in the night. Tilly imagined her reading the book by the light of the candle, snug in Tilly’s den.
Tilly half expected to hear her at any moment, singing that tune that seemed to get right into her head. But there was only the drip, drip of water running off the leaves and branches in the trees and shrubs around her, and the call of some bird, repeating the same two notes over and over.
There was no sign of the fox. Tilly could see where the grass and brambles had been squashed down as it made its way to its den each day. In the soft mud at the edge, she thought she could make out paw prints. The fox was probably curled up asleep, warm and dry in the den it had hollowed out in the earth.
Well, she could try to find the house herself. Helen might be there, even though it was the morning, and a school day.
Tilly pushed her way through the thicket of trees, stumbling over fallen branches and twigs and long trailing creeper vines that dangled from the tops of the trees like ropes for monkey swings. She went past huge ferns like tongues. In the dark, she hadn’t seen any of this. It was even harder work than before, clambering through the tangled wood; there wasn’t a path, just a whole maze of animal tracks, and it was impossible to remember which way the fox had taken her before.
Any minute now, Tilly thought, and I’ll get to the other side and the lawn with the statues and the pond and the house.
She tried for a long time, pushing through the undergrowth, getting scratched and wet, and still she couldn’t find the way.
She seemed to have been gone for hours. Finally she gave up and went back home. She was nearly there. That bird was calling, repeating its cry, and then another sound echoed, like a bird, but not quite right. Like, Tilly suddenly thought, a person imitating a bird. Was Helen there, up in the tree, teasing her?
But she couldn’t start searching for her now. Granny was standing at the open garden gate, looking up and down the grass path. She whirled around as she caught sight of Tilly. “Where have you been? I was really worried! Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
Tilly put her arms around Granny. “Sorry,” she whispered.
“You’re soaking wet! What have you been doing?”
“Exploring,” Tilly whispered. “Mending my den.”
“You must tell me when you go off, Tilly. I’m looking after you, remember. You can’t just go wandering into some old wasteland to play. It isn’t safe!”
“It’s a garden, not a wasteland!” Tilly said indignantly. “And it’s totally safe!” And then, before she’d thought about what she was saying, “It belongs to my friend.”
Granny looked at her. “And which friend is that?”
“She’s called Helen.”
“Hmmm,” Granny said, as if she didn’t believe a word of it.
Back in the warm kitchen, Granny wanted to hear more about Tilly’s friend.
“What did you say her name was?”
“Helen.”
Granny’s eyes went narrow.
“Does she go to your school?”
Tilly shook her head. “I’ve only seen her twice,” she said. “She lives in the house on the other side of the trees. The garden’s huge.”
“Well, that’s nice. Should we invite her over to play here?”
Tilly didn’t know what to say. But Granny was persistent.
“I’v
e only been there through the woods, in the magic garden,” Tilly said. “But there might be another way.”
Granny was quiet for a bit. “Is she a real friend or a made-up one?” she finally asked.
Tilly wouldn’t answer any more questions after that.
Granny made coffee for herself. Tilly frothed up the milk for her with Dad’s electric whisk.
“There must be another way around to the house,” Granny said. “We’ll go later, you and me. We’ll go for a walk, and call on Helen and invite her to tea!”
Granny put on her coat and boots.
Tilly got ready too, but slowly. She didn’t want Granny interfering with her and Helen. She thought quickly what to do. Perhaps if she distracted Granny, she’d forget about finding where Helen lived.
“Let’s explore where the grassy path goes, Granny,” she said. “I’ve never been up there.”
Tilly led the way, out of the garden gate, and then turned right, along the path. It ran between the two gardens, so that the tumbled-down stone wall of the magic garden was on one side and the beech hedge of Tilly’s garden was on the other.
“No wonder there are foxes!” Granny said, following Tilly along the footpath. “Isn’t it lovely? Like living in the countryside. You wouldn’t expect it so close to the city.”
The path got muddier. There were ruts and puddles. They reached the end of both gardens; now there was an overgrown hedge on both sides and then woodland, and finally they came to a big wooden farm gate.
“Farmland,” Granny said. “But there’s a stile, look. So the path goes on, across the field.”
Tilly climbed over the stile and then she stopped. Three horses in the field had stopped grazing and turned their heads to watch. They began to trot toward the gate. Tilly climbed quickly back over the stile.
“They only want to say hello!” Granny said.
But the horses looked huge close up. They rolled their eyes. When Granny reached her hand up to stroke their noses, they stamped their feet and reared their heads, showing their teeth. “Perhaps we won’t go into their field after all,” Granny said.
It started to spit with rain. “Can we go back now?” Tilly said.
“Don’t you want to find Helen’s house?” Granny asked. “Let’s just quickly explore the other way. It would be good to have someone to play with, wouldn’t it?”
It was a boring walk, back the way they’d come, and then on and on. The grass track became a stony lane, and finally it joined the road.
“If we turn right here,” Granny said, “and go along the road for a bit, that should bring us to a front way into Helen’s house, logically speaking.” She smiled at Tilly. “We can ask her mom if she minds you going into that wild bit of garden by yourself. I’d rather be sure.”
Tilly dragged her feet. This wasn’t right. Through the trees she glimpsed the shape of a house, set back from the road, but it looked very different now, in the daylight. Nothing like the house she’d seen before.
Granny stopped. She was reading something, a sign nailed to a post, next to the wall.
“Land for Sale. By Auction.” Granny read out the words, loud enough for Tilly to hear. “They must be selling that huge wild garden,” she said. “And no wonder. It’s much too big for one family to look after.”
Granny waited for her to catch up.
“I want to go back,” Tilly said. “I don’t like it here. It’s all wrong. Everything’s wrong.” Suddenly, everything felt all muddled and horrible. She didn’t want Granny there. She wanted Mom.
She started walking back the way they’d come, fast.
Granny came after her. “Wait!” she called, but Tilly started to run.
Tilly couldn’t answer Granny’s questions.
The real answers didn’t make any sense.
She didn’t want to tell Granny anything.
Not about hearing Helen in the garden and finding the things she left. Or about the fox taking her to the other part of the garden, and how she’d seen Helen up a tree before she went into her house with the rose-patterned wallpaper and the tiled floor…or about Christmas Eve and their midnight feast…
Tilly wished she’d never mentioned Helen in the first place. She wished she could turn back time.
Granny filled up the kettle and switched it on. She put the teapot next to the sink and a mug on the kitchen table, ready for tea.
Tilly went upstairs to her bedroom and shut the door.
She knelt down in front of the dollhouse, with its tiled roof and chimneys at either end, and its green-painted wooden bay windows and cream walls. She opened the hinged front. She got everything out of all the rooms: the people and the furniture and even the tiny pictures hanging on tiny nails on the rose-patterned walls.
She put it all in a pile, and then she found an old shoe box and dumped everything in there, and shoved it to the back of her wardrobe. She pushed the dollhouse under the bed, so she didn’t have to see it anymore. She lay on the bed, and she cried.
Dad was home at last.
Tilly ran down the stairs to open the front door for him. She hugged him tight.
Dad looked surprised. “Hey, Tilly! That’s a nice welcome!” He hugged her back. “Mom sends you hugs and kisses,” Dad said.
They went into the kitchen to make tea for Dad. They went past the open living room door; Granny was sitting on the sofa, knitting something with fine white wool. The needles click-clicked.
Tilly looked away quickly.
“Tomorrow, I want to go to school,” Tilly told Dad. “I’ve decided.”
“Good plan,” Dad said. He looked pleased.“Written any more of your story?”
Tilly shook her head.
“Me neither. How about we both work on our stories till supper time?”
While Dad tap-tapped on the laptop in his study, Tilly lay on the carpet and drew with her new pastels and watercolor paints onto thick white paper.
“My story has changed,” she told Dad. “It’s not about a cat anymore. It’s about a fox, and a girl, and a magic garden.”
“Excellent,” Dad said. “The best stories change a lot while you’re writing them. Can I read it when it’s ready?”
Tilly nodded.
“How long do you think? Hours or days?” Dad asked.
“A day, at least!” Tilly said. “How about yours?”
“You wouldn’t want to read mine!” Dad laughed. “And mine won’t be ready for a long time.”
“Hours or days?” Tilly asked.
“Months! A year, even!”
“What’s yours about?”
Dad looked puzzled. “Well…it’s about a boy growing up. And about a family, I suppose.”
“It sounds boring!” Tilly said, which made Dad laugh.
It’s nice, both of us working like this, Tilly thought, as she painted the fox’s tail russet brown. The clock ticked. The faint sound of music on the radio drifted up the stairs. Outside, it was raining hard.
“I’m going back to see Mom after supper,” Dad told Tilly. “We think the baby might be born tonight.”
Chapter 18
Dad read Tilly the next chapter of her book. He looked up when he finished. “You don’t really need me to read you this,” he said. “I know you could read it by yourself. But I’m glad you let me read to you still.” He kissed her good night. He stroked her hair.
Dad didn’t seem to want to go.
“Won’t Mom be needing you?” Tilly asked eventually.
Dad kissed her again. “Yes. Are you going to be all right?”
Tilly nodded.
“See you tomorrow, then.”
Tilly’s throat was tight. “Night night! Give Mom a hug from me.”
She listened to Dad’s feet going along the landi
ng and down the stairs, and then the sound of the door opening and closing, and the car engine. She imagined him arriving at the hospital; all the windows would be lit up, shining out into the dark. He would go up the stairs two at a time and walk fast along the maze of corridors, and through the swinging doors to Mom’s ward, where Mom would be waiting for him.
Tilly didn’t want to imagine what would happen after that. She knew a bit about babies being born. She knew it sometimes hurt a lot. And she didn’t want to think about those too tiny babies who might not survive because they had been born too soon. This baby wasn’t supposed to be born till February.
Granny tapped on the door and called out, “Goodnight, Tilly! Sweet dreams!”
“Night night, Granny,” Tilly called back. But of course she wouldn’t have sweet dreams. How could she, when she wouldn’t be going to sleep?
She let herself doze a bit, so she would have more energy for later. She hoped Granny would go to bed early again, so she wouldn’t have too long to wait.
The phone rang.
Tilly got out of bed and opened her door a little, so she could listen to what Granny was saying, but it didn’t seem to be anything important.
She shut the door again and hopped back into bed. She snuggled down under the blanket. She still had her socks on, and a sweater under her pajamas. Dad hadn’t noticed. The window rattled as a gust of wind buffeted it, and she heard rain pattering onto the path outside. Inside, she was cozy. Warm as toast. Getting very sleepy…
The fox barked three times.
Chapter 19
The fox was standing at the gate. Its eyes glowed amber, watching Tilly’s every movement. When Tilly held out her gifts of bacon and lime and coconut cake, the fox crept forward, its belly low, and took the food delicately from Tilly’s hand without biting or hurting her. The fox gulped it down without chewing and then turned and padded toward the magic garden. Tilly watched the white tip of its tail flicker in the darkness.
