by Lucy Strange
Mama was quiet for a moment and then she said, ‘What a wonderful place the world would be, Hen, if everyone had your imagination.’
The sun dipped lower and I thought I saw the first star of the evening – a pinprick of light directly above us. There was a fluttering movement in the grass next to me and I turned my head to look. It was a moth. Its fragile wings were the most extraordinary colour – a dusty, mottled gold. It was so beautiful – I turned to see if Mama had seen it too. But Mama wasn’t looking at the moth, she was looking at me, and her eyes were shining with tears. ‘I’m not out of the woods yet, Hen,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m still – a little lost.’
‘I know. But it’s going to be all right, Mama,’ I said. ‘We’ve found you now.’ And I thought of that little phrase Mr Berry had taught me – the motto of Paris: ‘Fluctuat nec mergitur.’
She blinked.
‘It’s Latin, Mama,’ I said, and something twisted inside my chest.
She sobbed a little laugh – ‘Yes . . .’
‘She is tossed by the waves but she does not sink.’
Mama couldn’t say anything at all for a moment. She just took my hand and held it very tightly. I thought I might never let go.
‘She does not sink, Hen,’ Mama whispered at last. ‘She does not sink.’
The moth fluttered again and this time Mama saw it too. It waited for a moment, as if gathering strength, and then it took off. We watched as it flew higher and higher. Its wings caught the last rays of the sun and then, just for a second, it was a flame – a tiny flutter of gold in defiance of the dying light.
Heartfelt thanks to my editor Rachel Leyshon for her wisdom, vision, patience and inspiration. I am so grate -ful to her and to the legend that is Barry Cunningham for having faith in me (and, more importantly, in Hen) right from the start. Thanks also to the rest of the amazing Chicken House team – particularly Laura Myers, Rachel Hickman, Elinor Bagenal, Jazz Bartlett and Kesia Lupo. Thanks to my fabulous copy-editor and proofreader for their eagle eyes, and to Studio Helen for creating such a beautiful cover: I cried when I saw the first drawing because it was just so perfect.
This book began with Luigi and Alison Bonomi and the Montegrappa First Fiction Prize. The Secret of Nightingale Wood wouldn’t exist if they hadn’t picked my manuscript from the pile. Huge thanks to both of them for all their warmth, hard work and unwavering support. Thanks also to Yvette Judge and Isobel Abulhoul at the Emirates Festival of Literature for making me feel like a proper writer from the very start.
I shall be forever in debt to Rachel Hamilton for saving my bacon with her insight and reassurance during several cutting crises, and thank you to Emily Steel and Paul Skinner for sharing their honest, writerly perspectives when I couldn’t see the Nightingale Wood for the trees.
Thank you to my husband and best friend Iain Martin for being such an encouraging early reader, for always telling me when I’m overthinking things, and for trying not to sing Guns N’ Roses too loudly when I’m editing. Thanks to the wonderful Stacy Donne without whom I would have been utterly lost on many an occasion. I am deeply and eternally grateful for the friendship of the beautiful and wise Louise Milner-Moore. Big, big thanks and buckets of love to Bronwen, Tom, Jeannine, Jen and all my other dear, dear friends, teaching colleagues, early readers, fellow writers and students – too numerous to mention here – for being so kind and so supportive of my writing.
Enormous hugs of gratitude to Mum and Dad for so many things, including reading to me when I was little and bringing me up in a house full of books. Thank you for putting up with all the exhausted grumpiness of a grown-up boomerang daughter who is always trying to do far too much at once. Ooh – and a belated thank you for those audiobook cassettes of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Secret Garden and The Jungle Book – I listened to them so many times when I was small that the stories must have soaked into my brain as I slept; The Secret of Nightingale Wood owes so much to these beautiful, classic tales. Thanks to my brothers Will and Pete Strange for being proud of me, for sage advice and for laughter along the way.
Lastly, thanks go to our little furry twit, Maddy Cat, and to our own bright star, Axl.
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The Secret of Nightingale Wood is being published in 2016, the 100th anniversary of The Battle of the Somme and The Battle of Jutland. It seems fitting to end this book by remembering all those who gave their lives in the First World War.
Text © Lucy Strange 2016
First paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2016
This electronic edition published in 2016
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Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
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Produced in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
Cover and interior design by Helen Crawford-White
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data available.
PB ISBN 978-1-910655-03-0
eISBN 978-1-910655-63-4
