Tilly's Moonlight Garden

by Julia Green

  They pulled off the clothes, stuffed them back into the chest, and went back down.

  Granny fussed about the ladder. “I’m not sure how safe it is. I wish you’d told me that’s what you were doing, Tilly.”

  “Sorry,” Susila said.

  “Never mind now. Get your things together and I’ll take you home.”

  The house seemed so quiet now, without Susila. Tilly flopped down on her bed. It had been nice having a friend to play with again. It was a long time since that had happened, what with the move and everything. The time had just whizzed by. She thought about Susila’s house when they’d dropped her off: the big family of children crowding around Susila’s mom at the door, all the chatter and noise and pushing and shoving and questions. It was a little like Ally’s family.

  Next time, perhaps she would pluck up courage to show Susila her den. And with any luck they would see the fox cubs together.

  And Helen? Tilly didn’t know what to make of her and the photograph in the attic and the garden that was sometimes there and sometimes not.

  Dad sat on Tilly’s bed. He was so tired he kept yawning. He nearly fell asleep when he was reading the next chapter of Tilly’s bedtime book.

  “Dad?” Tilly said. “How can something be there and not there? Is it possible?”

  Dad perked up a bit. It was the sort of question he usually loved. “Well,” he said slowly, drawing out the word. “At the same time, do you mean? Or sometimes it is there and other, different times, not?”

  “That. The second one.”

  “Hmm. What sort of thing are we talking about here? For instance, something simple, like ice? Ice is sometimes there, on a cold day, and sometimes not, when it’s warm and sunny, for example.”

  “No! Not like that. That’s obvious,” Tilly said.

  “What then?”

  “A person. Or a place. That is sometimes there and at other times it isn’t. Or you can’t find the way in.”

  “Well, people come and go. But a place, that’s a little different. You expect a place to be there all the time. Unless it’s a dream place, I suppose, or an imaginary one, like in a story. Is that what you mean?”

  “I don’t know really,” Tilly said.

  “That reminds me,” Dad said. “Granny says someone’s started working on that old garden next door. Clearing it up. Cutting trees. Perhaps someone’s bought the place. Maybe we’ll get new neighbors. Someone else for you to play with. That will be good, won’t it?”

  What about Helen? And the foxes?

  Tilly felt angry with Dad suddenly, as if it was all his fault. “You can go now,” she said. “I want to go to sleep.”

  “Me too!” Dad stood up, stretched, and yawned again. “Unfortunately, I’ve got work to do first. I haven’t written a word for days. Night night, Tilly. Sleep well.”

  Don’t say it! Tilly thought. Don’t say “sweet dreams.” She pulled the blanket up over her ears so she wouldn’t hear.

  Chapter 24

  The fox padded on velvet paws. Her amber eyes gleamed in the strange light—not normal dark, but the magic half light reflected from new-fallen snow. Snow speckled the red-brown hair on her back. She placed each foot carefully into the cold snow, leaving a line of neat prints across the snowy garden. Every so often she stopped, her black nose twitching, listening out for danger. In her mouth she carried the limp body of a dead mouse, still warm.

  The tiny cubs were waiting for her, deep in the den beneath the tangled thorny stems of the blackberry bushes. She had been gone a long time. Hunting was hard in the snow. Most mammals were hiding or hibernating, curled up deep down in their own burrows, and the mother fox was exhausted—and extra wary; she had spent most of the day listening to strange sounds, loud voices, machines, whirring, and sawing, a horrible whining, screaming sound. Every hair on her body had stood alert. Was the danger coming closer? She would have to make a new den, in a more hidden, secret place away from noise and people. She had already sniffed around an old, disused badgers’ sett in the horses’ field. That might do; it was dry and quiet, away from people and machines. She would have to move the cubs one by one, carrying them by the scruff of their neck, through the cold night. But first she had to feed them.

  Chapter 25

  It was snowing again, just like Granny had predicted. Tilly ran silently across the garden, picking her way across the grass and through the damp undergrowth.

  Tilly let out a huge sigh of relief. Helen was waiting for her, huddled in their den. She was wrapped up warmly in her old-fashioned green woolen coat with the velvet collar and two rows of brown leather buttons, a long black skirt, lace-up boots.

  Helen patted the ground next to her. She put her finger to her lips: “Sshh!”

  Tilly wriggled inside the den and sat down.

  Helen pulled the blanket over both their laps.

  Tilly could see the trail of her own footprints, leading the way from the gate across the garden and another set of tracks, small and neat and closer together. “The fox?” she whispered.

  Helen nodded. “Watch,” she whispered.

  Tilly shivered. She heard something scrambling, and then a flurry of snow blurred her vision, but suddenly right in front of her was the fox, carrying a tiny cub by the scruff of its neck, in her mouth. She plodded through the snow to the gate and disappeared.

  “What’s she doing? Where’s she taking it?”

  “She’s moving the cubs somewhere else. Something must have frightened her. The garden isn’t safe anymore.”

  It was painful, watching the vixen make her slow journeys with her babies in her mouth. Tilly wished she could help. Where was the male fox? It looked like such hard work, carrying the cubs like that, through the snow, in the dead of night, all by herself.

  She made three journeys. They waited for her to come back a fourth time. But nothing happened; there was no sign of her. Just the cold creeping in, and the snow settling deeper. Even huddled under the blanket, close up to Helen, Tilly was freezing.

  “Maybe there were only three,” Helen said. “That was the last one.”

  “So tiny!” Tilly said. “Weren’t they? Will they survive?”

  “I hope so,” Helen said. “I expect they are tougher than they look. Like human babies.”

  “What if she’s forgotten one? Or something’s happened? Supposing she’s left one behind in the old den?”

  “She might leave one if it was sick or too weak, the runt of the litter.” Helen said very matter-of-fact. “She has to do what’s best. There’s no point if it’s not going to survive.”

  “Survival of the fittest? It’s horrible. I’m going to look. Just to make sure.”

  Helen pulled her back. “Don’t be silly. If the vixen does come back and sees you, she’ll abandon the cub anyway, because you’re there. And if the cub’s too tiny and weak, what can you do?”

  “I can try and save it.”

  “How? You can’t give it what it needs. You can’t keep a fox as a pet. That’s cruel.”

  Tilly remembered a story Mom had read her once, about a girl and a baby piglet who was going to be killed because it was the runt of the litter. The girl, Fern, saved the piglet and looked after it. She fed it milk from a baby’s bottle. But that was a piglet, not a wild fox cub.

  “I’ve got to go back now,” Helen said. “And this is the last time I can come and see you. I just came to say good-bye, really.”

  Tilly’s eyes filled with tears. “Why?” she said.

  “You’ll be all right now,” Helen said. “You don’t need me any longer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  But Helen didn’t answer. She hugged Tilly tight for a second. “I’m glad we saw the cubs, even though it was for such a short time. Perhaps you’ll see them when they’re bigger. They’ll come ba
ck to the garden to play and hunt, I expect.”

  Tilly crawled out of the den. “I still don’t understand. Why do you have to go? Please explain…Where are you going?”

  Helen was already running, fast and light, toward the trees.

  Tilly watched her, dazed. She didn’t even try to follow. The snow seemed to glow, bright as daytime. She looked up at the sky. The snow was coming down thicker and faster now. Huge, soft feathers, swirling and dancing and spinning down to earth.

  When she looked for her again, the girl had vanished. Not a trace remained: her footsteps had already been completely covered up by snow. It was as if she had never even been there in the first place.

  Chapter 26

  Tilly woke up in her bed. It was early morning, and the room glowed with the strange light reflected off snow.

  Snow!

  Last night!

  Everything flooded back. The fox and the tiny cubs being carried by the vixen, one by one, and Helen…

  Saying good-bye.

  The last time.

  Sadness flooded over her. And at the same time, she remembered something else. Today was the day they’d find out about Mom and the baby and the tests at the hospital.

  Granny bustled into the bedroom. “Good morning, Tilly! Have you seen outside? If it carries on like this, there won’t be any school today!” She pulled the curtains back. “And more snow is forecasted for later today! Isn’t that exciting? It doesn’t snow for nearly twenty years, and then it snows twice in one month!”

  “Can we go sledding?” Tilly asked. “Can we take Susila too?”

  “We’ll see,” Granny said. “We don’t even know about school yet. You’d better get ready just in case.”

  Dad was already in his study. As she went past on her way down to the kitchen for breakfast, Tilly could hear him tap-tapping his story on the computer. One word and the next, and a sentence and another.

  Granny put a bowl of porridge on the table for Tilly. She made herself toast and coffee. “We’ll put out food for the birds in a minute,” Granny said. “And something tasty for your fox.”

  Tilly stared at her. “My fox?”

  Granny laughed. “All that food disappearing from the fridge! I knew it wasn’t you eating it, Tilly!”

  “She’s got cubs,” Tilly said. “And she had to move them because of the trees being chopped down.”

  “No one will be chopping down trees today,” Granny said. “Not in the snow.”

  The telephone rang. Granny went to answer it.

  Tilly’s heart beat faster. That might be Mom.

  Granny called out for Dad to come to the phone.

  Tilly listened, trying to guess what was happening. But Dad was just saying Umm and Yes and Of course, so it was hard to tell. Then it was her turn.

  “Tilly?” Dad called her over. “Mom wants to talk to you.” He handed her the phone.

  Mom sounded just like Mom—like the old Mom, before she got ill. “We’re being sent home this weekend!” she said. “Isn’t that the best thing ever?”

  “What if it’s still snowing?” Tilly said. “What if the car can’t get to the hospital?”

  “I’ll walk if necessary!” Mom said. “Nothing’s going to stop me. I just want to be home now, with you and Dad. I’ve had enough of being cooped up here.”

  “We’ve got everything ready,” Tilly said. “The baby basket and the clothes and everything.”

  “What else have you been doing?” Mom asked.

  “School. Writing a story. I had a friend over to play.”

  “Wonderful,” Mom said. “The baby wants to talk to you. Do you mind?” There was the sound of the phone being fumbled and put down and then picked up again, and then silence.

  “Say something, Til.” Mom’s voice came, a bit distant.

  “Hello, Toby,” Tilly said. “Or Todd. Or Norbert.”

  “He’s listening. He’s blowing bubbles. He’s poking out his little tongue!”

  “Charming!” Tilly said.

  Mom laughed.

  Tilly heard a faint squeaky sound and then the beginnings of a hungry-baby cry, working itself up to a full-blown wail.

  “Nothing wrong with his lungs,” Mom said. “It’s feeding time at the zoo; I have to go. But it’s not long now until I can see you. Just a few more days. I miss you, Tilly! Love you!”

  “I love you too,” Tilly said. She put back the phone.

  “You’re jumping up and down like a—like I don’t know what!” Granny said. “I assume it’s good news?”

  “She’s coming home this weekend.” Tilly was smiling so much her cheeks began to hurt.

  Granny turned the radio on. She pressed the buttons till she found the local radio station. The traffic news came on, and then something about sports, which Tilly ignored, and then a woman started reading out a list of schools closed because of snow.

  “Northfield Elementary!” the woman said.

  Tilly, Dad, and Granny cheered.

  “Give me another hour on my book,” Dad said, “and then let the sledding commence!”

  “We’ll phone Susila,” Granny said, “as soon as we’ve cleared up.”

  Tilly pulled on her too-tight boots and grabbed her coat and ran out into the garden. The birds flew down from the tree for the toast crumbs. Tilly filled the birdfeeder hanging on the tree with more seeds, and then she waited for the robin to come for his piece of cheese. That done, she ran in big circles around the snowy garden, covering it with a maze of boot prints. She found a perfect, smooth place for making angels; she flopped back onto the snow, swooshed her arms up and down to make the wings, and got up carefully, so as not to spoil the angel shape. She practiced until she made two perfect angels: one for her, one for Helen. Then she did one more for Susila.

  She went to the garden gate; there were tiny V-shaped prints of birds, light on the ice crust on the surface of the snow, up and down the snow-covered lane, and other tracks: rabbit feet, she recognized, and there—at last, a little to the right—the deeper prints of her fox.

  Tilly followed the neat prints right to the end of the lane, as far as the gate to the horse field, and then she stopped. The prints kept going, into the field, across to one side, and disappeared over the brow of the hill. The field was empty, a smooth, beautiful mound of perfect snow, almost blue, and pink at the edges where the tree shadows fell. No horses today. There was nothing to stop her from going on; the tracks would lead her straight to the new den. It was obvious now. She could find it easy as anything.

  But she didn’t.

  If I follow her now, Tilly thought, and she hears me, smells me, she won’t feel safe. She’ll look for another den. Move the babies all over again. It’s not fair.

  Helen was right. You couldn’t really be friends with a fox. That moment, ages ago now, when she’d reached out her hand and touched her fur, and the times she’d held out food and the vixen had taken it, that wasn’t fair either. The vixen had been hungry and desperate; that’s why she’d come so close. And if by chance she did start trusting Tilly, it wouldn’t be good for her, not really. She was a wild animal, not a pet.

  Tilly ran back down the lane, back through the gate, across the garden to the kitchen.

  “I’ll phone Susila,” she told Granny.

  They had one red plastic sled between the four of them, so they took turns. Then Tilly and Susila squeezed up together in the sled, Susila at the front, to make the long whizzing slide down the hill above the school. They shrieked and giggled as the sled bounced and careened off at an angle and dumped them in a heap at the bottom of the slope.

  “We never did this in London. We never even had snow,” Susila said, laughing. “I never had so much fun. Ever!”

  “We’ve never had it before either,” Tilly said.
“Not deep like this.”

  They picked themselves up and trudged back up the hill for the next go. Tilly’s face tingled with cold. Her boots were full of snow and her mittens sopping wet, but she was happy. She hadn’t laughed so much in ages. When Granny took her turn on the sled and it went sideways and shot into the hedge and Granny had to bail out and landed in a heap of wet snow, Tilly thought she’d be sick she was laughing so much.

  Granny laughed till tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Back for lunch?” Dad said eventually.

  Dad heated up soup while Granny went for a long, hot soak in the bath.

  “I’m soaked through!” Susila said. “Can I borrow some dry clothes?”

  Tilly and Susila trooped upstairs together. They slid along the shiny edges of the hallway in their damp socks.

  Tilly opened the wardrobe for Susila to choose some clothes. She picked out blue jeans and a black sweater, and sat on the carpet in Tilly’s bedroom to pull on a pair of pink fluffy socks.

  “What’s that?” Susila said, pointing. “Under your bed?”

  Tilly flushed. “It’s my old dollhouse,” she said. “I don’t play with it anymore.”

  “Why not? It looks amazing! It’s really old, isn’t it? Like that other stuff in your attic. Can I see?”

  Tilly helped her slide it out from under the bed. They blew the dust off the top of the tiled roof.

  Susila lay on her tummy so she could look through the windows.

  “It’s got lights and everything!” she said. “But no furniture.”

  “I put it all away,” Tilly said. “But I know where it is. I can get it if you like.”

  “Yes please!” Susila said.

  Tilly rummaged in the wardrobe again. The box was hidden under a pile of old sweaters. She opened it up to show Susila.