Fairy Treasure

by Gwyneth Rees

  ‘Sometimes your friends run out on you,’ Connie pointed out, thinking about Emma.

  Mrs Fitzpatrick nodded. ‘That’s true! Mine have nearly all died on me over the past ten years. Very inconsiderate of them!’ She smiled wryly. ‘The good thing about coming to live here is that it gives me the chance to make some new ones. At least that’s the idea. I’ve been getting on pretty well with Hester over there.’ She pointed to an old lady sitting on her own in the shade, knitting. ‘She likes to keep herself to herself a lot of the time, like me, but in the evenings she’s always ready for a game of Scrabble.’

  When the nurse returned soon afterwards, with the bluebells neatly arranged in a big blue vase, Uncle Maurice was with her.

  ‘Hi, Uncle Maurice!’ Connie greeted him.

  Mrs Fitzpatrick looked up and didn’t bother to hide her astonishment when she saw Uncle Maurice’s eyebrows. ‘Good grief!’

  ‘Good morning,’ Uncle Maurice replied, ignoring Mrs Fitzpatrick’s gaze as he grunted at Connie. ‘Ready?’

  Connie nodded.

  Uncle Maurice reluctantly shifted his eyes over to the old lady and asked, awkwardly, ‘How are you then? All right?’

  Connie thought that her uncle’s manners could do with a bit of brushing up – but then so could Mrs Fitzpatrick’s.

  ‘I am very well, thank you. And since you’re here, I may as well inform you that Bluebell Hall has been sold and that you will therefore have to vacate the flat by September at the latest. That’s when the new people want to take possession.’

  ‘The house is sold?’ Connie gasped. ‘Who to?’

  ‘A couple who went to see it the other day. They want to turn it into a country health club apparently.’

  ‘But what about all your things? What about the library?’ Connie asked, thinking of Ruby.

  ‘There’ll be an auction. Everything will have to go. The books too.’ Mrs Fitzpatrick sighed wistfully. ‘Those books were my father’s pride and joy.’

  Connie nearly cried out, But you can’t get rid of the library! Ruby hasn’t finished sorting out the books yet! But she just managed to stop herself. After all, if they found the ring then Ruby could go back home again straight away in any case. And now that Connie thought she knew where the ring had had its happiest moment, all she and Ruby had to do was find the oak tree that marked that spot in the grounds of Bluebell Hall.

  ‘I’m so excited,’ Ruby said, as she and Connie set off across the rough grass behind the house, towards the old oak tree.

  It was quite a trek through long grass – the grounds of Bluebell Hall were huge – and Connie wasn’t able to go as fast as Ruby, who soon started to complain that her wings were getting tired from having to fly so slowly.

  ‘Go on ahead if you want,’ Connie said. ‘I’ll meet you at the tree.’

  ‘I won’t be able to tell which one it is. I don’t know what an oak tree looks like.’

  ‘I thought fairies knew things like that.’

  ‘Flower fairies do – they’re crazy about nature and all that outdoor stuff – but we book fairies have always got our heads stuck in a book, so we don’t know so much about plants and flowers and things.’

  The two of them carried on together. After a while Ruby rested on Connie’s shoulder, which was no problem for Connie, since fairies don’t weigh anything.

  Eventually they came to the tree that Mrs Fitzpatrick had described.

  ‘Imagine . . .’ murmured Connie. ‘Two hundred years ago, that man and lady met at this spot and he gave her the ruby ring.’

  Ruby didn’t reply. She was too busy flying round the trunk of the tree, looking for places where a ring could be hiding.

  ‘I’ll look at the bottom of the tree,’ Connie said. ‘You’d better fly up and start looking in its branches.’

  They hunted high and low all afternoon without finding anything.

  Connie had to go back for tea at six o’clock, but Ruby said she would carry on looking for a while longer as she hadn’t finished checking the topmost branches yet. They arranged to meet after dark that night in the library.

  When Connie got back to the flat, her aunt and uncle were already tucking into their beans on toast. There were custard tarts for afterwards, which Uncle Maurice had bought that morning in the village. Custard tarts were a favourite of Aunt Alice’s, and she was in a very good mood with Uncle Maurice because he had remembered that.

  Connie asked after Aunt Alice’s boarding-school pupils and Uncle Maurice’s dragons and, when they asked what she had been doing that afternoon, she replied, as casually as she could, ‘Nothing much. I went for a walk to see how big the grounds are.’

  ‘Big, are they?’ Uncle Maurice asked, displaying a mouthful of half-chewed beans.

  Connie nodded.

  ‘I dread to think what those fitness fanatics are going to do to them,’ Aunt Alice sighed. ‘Dig them up and build a whole load of tennis courts and swimming pools probably.’

  Connie hadn’t yet told Ruby that Bluebell Hall was about to be turned into a health club. But if Ruby still hadn’t found the ring by the time Connie met her tonight, she was going to have to, and she dreaded to think how Ruby would react.

  ‘I wonder when they’ll put the contents of the house up for auction,’ Aunt Alice continued. ‘I wouldn’t mind having a look at some of those books.’

  ‘Why don’t we just pop in through the window like Connie did and have a browse?’ Uncle Maurice suggested.

  ‘We can’t do that!’ Aunt Alice snapped. ‘That would be trespassing.’

  ‘Well, go and ask our dear landlady first then.’ He waved a forkful of soggy toast at his niece. ‘You were getting on famously with her this morning, weren’t you, Connie?’

  Connie nodded. ‘She was a bit fierce to start with, but she got friendly really quickly when I gave her the flowers.’

  Uncle Maurice’s face suddenly changed. ‘That’s it,’ he muttered, throwing his fork down on his plate. ‘That’s perfect! Horatio must be given flowers!’ He pushed back his chair and jumped up, bending over to kiss Connie on top of her head. ‘You’re a genius, Connie.’ And he raced off up to his study.

  Connie looked in surprise at Aunt Alice. ‘Who’s Horatio?’

  ‘His dragon – the one who likes jelly babies. He’s been trying to think of a way for the boy in his book to make Horatio change from being fierce to friendly. I expect he’s just decided that the way to tame a dragon is to give him flowers.’ She laughed and reached out for a custard tart.

  ‘Just like fairies like to be given chocolate,’ Connie murmured, before she could stop herself.

  Her aunt gave her a fond look. ‘We’ve really got your imagination going while you’ve been staying with us, haven’t we? Maybe there’s going to be another author in the family!’

  Connie shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’ Personally, she found it hard enough to sit down long enough to do her homework for school, let alone write a whole book.

  When the tea things were cleared away, Aunt Alice suggested a game of Scrabble, which Connie had never played before. By the time they had finished, it was getting late. Connie went upstairs at her usual time and got into bed without getting undressed. Now all she had to do was wait for her aunt and uncle to go to bed too. Aunt Alice never stayed up late and Connie heard her come up not long after she had turned off her own light. But Uncle Maurice remained in his study. Connie knew that her uncle could work late into the night if he was in one of what Aunt Alice called ‘his writing frenzies’. Aunt Alice never had writing frenzies herself and she was quite envious of Uncle Maurice’s. In the end, Connie got fed up with waiting and decided to leave the house while he was still awake.

  Connie crept downstairs and outside, noticing that the fairy bluebells, which had disappeared during the day, were back again.

  She hurried round to the library where Ruby was at the window waiting for her. ‘I didn’t find it.’ Ruby sounded anxious. ‘It must have had an even happie
r moment that we don’t know about yet. You’ll have to go back and speak to the old lady again. There must be some other stories about the ring she can tell you.’

  ‘OK,’ Connie quickly agreed. ‘But listen, Ruby, there’s something else . . .’ And she told the fairy how Bluebell Hall was about to be turned into a health club. ‘All the books are going to be sold or got rid of. So there’s no point in you sorting them out.’

  Ruby looked stunned. ‘I have to sort them out,’ she said. ‘The fairy queen can’t change the punishment spell she put on me. She made it so that the only way I can get back into fairyland is if I return the ring or my task is done. If I can’t do the task or find the ring, then I’ll never be able to go home again.’

  Connie was shocked. She somehow hadn’t imagined that fairy law could be so harsh. ‘Well, you’ve still got a month or two left. If you read non-stop, couldn’t you get through all the books in that time?’

  Ruby let out a bitter laugh. ‘Fairies read fast, but not that fast! I’ve counted all the books in this library. There are two thousand, one hundred and eighty-six. If I read one book a day – and that’s fast reading – it will still take me nearly six years to read all of them.’

  Connie stared at her. ‘But what will happen to you if they close the library and you can’t go home?’

  ‘I’ll be a lost fairy in your world, I suppose – flying about on my own and never having a home to go to ever again.’ Ruby was looking very pale now.

  ‘But that’s terrible! We have to find the ring before that happens! I’ll go back and see Mrs Fitzpatrick tomorrow. I’ll ask her more about the ring’s history. Then we’ll look in every place where it sounds like the ring might have been happy.’

  Ruby bit her lip. She looked like she was about to cry. ‘Do you really think we can still find it?’

  ‘I’m positive we can!’ Connie replied firmly. She briefly remembered what her uncle had told her about how it was doubtful people who found fairies, not positive ones. But that was fairies, not rings. And, in any case, she doubted that the rule applied to people who were only pretending to be positive to cheer up their friend.

  Connie woke up late the next morning. By the time she got dressed and went downstairs, her aunt and uncle were both writing. Her aunt worked at the table in the living room during the day and Connie saw that she was making slow progress this morning. She could tell this by the number of screwed-up sheets of paper littered around the floor, and by the packet of chocolate digestives on the table beside her that was already almost finished.

  Aunt Alice was dropping biscuit crumbs over her keyboard as she read on the screen the last paragraph she had typed. ‘Hopeless!’ she hissed, pressing the delete button and getting rid of the whole thing. Then she noticed Connie standing there. ‘Oh, hello, darling. I’m not having a very good writing day, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why don’t you come to the village with me?’ Connie suggested. ‘I want to go and visit Mrs Fitzpatrick.’

  ‘What? Again?’

  ‘Yes.’ Connie had already planned what she was going to say to explain herself. ‘The nurse said she hardly ever gets any visitors. Anyway, it’ll be good for me to walk to the village. Mum says everyone should do at least half an hour of exercise every day to keep themselves fit.’

  ‘Does she?’ Aunt Alice, who never took much exercise, looked like that was the last thing she felt like doing. ‘Perhaps you’d better go then if —’ She broke off, suddenly looking less certain. ‘I don’t know though. Would your mother let you walk as far as the village on your own?’

  Connie hesitated. Her parents hardly let her go anywhere on her own, even though they were sympathetic about the fact that she wanted to. Her mother was always saying it was a shame Connie couldn’t have the freedom that she’d had in her own childhood, but that it just wasn’t safe to let your children go wandering off alone these days.

  Aunt Alice suddenly jumped up. ‘Do you know what? I think I will come with you! I’m not getting anywhere with this. What I need is a complete break. But we won’t walk, we’ll take the car. I want to get some shopping. I can go to the supermarket on the other side of the village.’

  ‘OK,’ Connie said. ‘Can you drop me off at the old people’s home on the way? Then you can come and pick me up on your way back.’

  ‘Of course – and I might even come in and say hello to Mrs Fitzpatrick myself. I can ask her about the auction then.’

  ‘Oh, and can you buy me some chocolate when you go to the supermarket?’ Connie asked. ‘Some chocolate buttons or something?’

  ‘I like those new giant chocolate buttons myself,’ Aunt Alice said. ‘Shall I see if they’ve got some of those?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Connie said quickly. ‘I want the normal ones, please.’ She knew that even an ordinary-sized chocolate button would be gigantic for Ruby.

  Her aunt made Connie some breakfast before they set off, then she drove her right up to the front door of Mrs Fitzpatrick’s nursing home and waited until a nurse opened it before giving her a wave and leaving her there.

  Connie was taken through to the lounge this time where Mrs Fitzpatrick was sitting by the window, holding a magnifying glass to her eye as she peered at the small print in the newspaper. ‘They should make large-print newspapers,’ she complained grumpily, setting the magnifier down as Connie came over to her. ‘Another visit? Didn’t I bore you enough the last time?’

  Connie shook her head. ‘You didn’t bore me at all. I really liked it when you told me that story about your ring yesterday. I came to tell you that I found that oak tree. I went there yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Did you?’ The old lady smiled and Connie saw that, despite seeming grumpy, Mrs Fitzpatrick was pleased to see her. ‘Did you make a wish?’

  ‘Oh no. I asked Ruby and she said it isn’t a real wishing tree. So I didn’t bother.’

  ‘Who’s Ruby? Knows about these things, does she?’ There was an edge of sarcasm in Mrs Fitzpatrick’s voice and Connie realized she’d offended her.

  ‘Well, yes,’ she murmured, flushing.’ She knows because . . .’ Connie stopped herself from finishing. She didn’t know how the old lady would react if she told her that Ruby was a fairy.

  ‘Well, at least you’ve got a friend to play with,’ Mrs Fitzpatrick sighed. ‘That’s good. Friends are so important. Is Ruby your best friend then?’

  Connie swallowed. ‘Not exactly. My best friend’s called Emma, but she lives in Canada.’

  ‘Canada? Well, that’s no good, is it? You’d better find a best friend who’s nearer than that, hadn’t you?’

  ‘No . . . I mean, yes, I suppose, but she’s only just moved so . . .’ Connie struggled to steer the conversation back to the topic of the ring. ‘Anyway, I went with Ruby to see the tree and now I think I’d like to . . . to—’ Connie was trying to think up a good reason for being so interested in the ring, when she remembered her aunt and uncle – ‘To write a story about the ring and everything that’s happened to it. So I was thinking if I asked you, you could tell me the whole of its history.’

  ‘I see.’ Mrs Fitzpatrick looked amused. ‘You know, you remind me of my older sister, Annabel. She was always interested in history. My mother told Annabel everything she knew about that ring so she’s the one who was the expert.’

  ‘Can I speak to her then?’ Connie asked, eagerly. ‘Does she live near here too?’ Aunt Alice had told her that Mrs Fitzpatrick didn’t have any relatives, but that couldn’t be true after all.

  ‘She’s dead now, I’m afraid. She died fifteen years ago.’ The old lady shook her head sadly, looking at Connie as if trying to decide whether to tell her something else. ‘That ring was always handed down to the oldest daughter of the family. My mother intended it to go to Annabel. When our mother died quite suddenly while we were still young – I was only seventeen and Annabel was a couple of years older – my father gave half of my mother’s jewellery to me and half to my sister, and it was my half that contained the ring.
Annabel pointed out that our mother had wanted her to have it, but my father saw how much I wanted it for myself and claimed he didn’t know anything about it. I was always his favourite, you see. So I got to keep the ring and Annabel was very angry with me and refused to tell me any of the stories about it, even though I was interested now that the ring was mine.’ Mrs Fitzpatrick stopped talking and looked very far away.

  ‘What happened after that?’ Connie prompted her.

  ‘Over the years we became more and more distant. After she got married she went to live in London and I stayed at Bluebell Hall with my father. I was still unmarried and living at home when our father died, and he left the house and all its contents to me. Annabel was very hurt about that and she never spoke to me again afterwards. I invited her and her family – she had a little girl by that time – to my own wedding a few years later, but she didn’t come. I heard news of her over the years through a cousin who kept in touch with both of us. Apparently Annabel’s daughter became a teacher and married another teacher and they had a daughter who they named Eliza after my mother. My cousin died a few years back and the last I heard of my sister’s family was that her daughter wasn’t in very good health and had gone to live at the seaside. Eliza’s daughter – that would be my great-great-niece – was working as a librarian somewhere in London.’ She paused. ‘I was interested to hear that she was a librarian because we were always a bookish family. You’ve seen my father’s collection of books in the house, haven’t you?’

  Connie nodded. ‘But don’t you know any more about the ring than that? Didn’t your mother or sister tell you anything?’

  ‘I told you. I wasn’t interested enough to ask questions before my mother died, and afterwards my sister and I didn’t get on. Annabel might have handed down the stories to her own daughter – I don’t know. I wish I’d given that ring to Annabel. We might have been closer then.’ She sighed. ‘I was going to try and make things right by leaving it to her daughter in my will but now that I’ve lost it, I can’t even do that.’