The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor
Dedication
For Frances and Christine, and everyone who believes.
And in memory of Nana Aelish Gaynor, who
left us on January 13th, 2017.
Epigraph
If the confidence of children can be gained, and they are led to speak freely, it is surprising how many claim to have seen fairies.
—SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
—ROALD DAHL
Prologue
Cottingley, Yorkshire. August 1921.
Fairies will not be rushed. I know this now; know I must be patient.
Stiff and still in my favorite seat, formed from the natural bend in the bough of a willow tree, I am wildly alert, detecting every shifting shape and shadow; every snap and crack of twig. I dangle my bare feet in the beck, enjoying the cool rush of the water as it finds a natural course between my toes. I imagine that if I sat here for a hundred years, the water would smooth and round them, like the pebbles I collect from the riverbed and keep in my pockets.
In the distance I can see Mr. Gardner, the man they sent from London, with his round spectacles and bow tie and endless questions. He peers around the trunk of an oak tree, watches for a moment, and scribbles his observations in his notebook. I know what he writes: remarks about the weather, our precise location, the peculiar sense of something different in the air.
Elsie stands on the riverbank beside me, her camera ready. “Can’t you ’tice them?” she urges. “Say some secret words?”
I shrug. “They’re here, Elsie. I can feel them.” But like the soft breath of wind that brushes against my skin, the things we feel cannot always be seen.
I know that the best time to see them is in that perfect hour before sunset when the sun sinks low on the horizon like a ripe peach and sends shafts of gold bursting through the trees. The “in between,” I call it. No longer day, not yet night; some other place and time when magic hangs in the air and the light plays tricks on the eye. You might easily miss the flash of violet and emerald, but I—according to my teacher, Mrs. Hogan—am “a curiously observant child.” I see their misty forms among the flowers and leaves. I know my patience will be rewarded if I watch and listen, if I believe.
Tired of waiting, Elsie takes her camera and returns to the house, where Aunt Polly is waiting to hear if we managed any new photographs. The others soon follow: Mr. Gardner, the newspaper reporters, the “fairy hunters” who come to snoop and trample all over the wildflowers and spoil things. My little friends won’t appear just to please these onlookers. They move according to the patterns and rhythms of nature, not the whims of so-called experts from London. Fairies, I understand. These men, I do not.
Glad to be alone again, I watch the pond skaters and dragonflies, listen to the steady giggle of the water, sense the prickle of anticipation all around me. The sun dazzles on the water and I squint to shield my eyes as the heat at the back of my neck makes me drowsy and tugs at my eyelids, heavy with the desire to sleep.
I press my palms against the bark, smoothed from decades of weather and countless children who have sat here. How many of them have seen, I wonder? How many of them have known? I wait and I wait, whispering the words from my picture book: “‘There shall be no veil between them, Though her head be old and wise. You shall know that she has seen them, / By the glory in her eyes.’”
And then . . .
The lightest ringing at my ears. The slightest movement of fern and leaf.
My heart flutters. My eyes widen with excitement.
A flash of vibrant emerald. Another of softest lavender-blue.
I lean forward. Draw in my breath. Don’t make a sound.
They are here.
Part One
The Bottom of the Garden
It all started with the very best of intentions . . .
—FRANCES GRIFFITHS
One
Ireland. Present day.
Olivia Kavanagh didn’t believe in happy endings. Life hadn’t worked out that way for her so far. At thirty-five, she had almost stopped believing it ever would. Almost, but not entirely, because there were moments—flashes—when she remembered who she used to be: someone who thought anything was possible; someone who believed in everything.
Often it was her dreams that transported her back to happier times, flickering sepia visions played out like a silent movie reel. Sometimes it was a remembered fragment of a favorite bedtime story—the púca and the sídhe, the Good People of Irish folklore who’d crept from the torch-lit pages of her books to inhabit the wildest places of her imagination. And on special days, her memories were stirred by the familiar refrain of a song her mammy used to sing to her, madly operatic and wonderfully silly. She would hear the voice on the wind, a faint whisper at first and then louder: “There are fairies at the bottom of our garden! / It’s not so very, very far away; / You pass the gardener’s shed and you just keep straight ahead— / I do so hope they’ve really come to stay.” It was always a welcome burst of light among the shadows that clouded Olivia’s heart.
She heard the song now as she stood on the headland, face tipped skyward to savor the warmth of the sun on her cheeks and the tangerine glow it cast against her eyelids. Rowdy gulls circled above as the wind sang to her, whistling through the stubby branches of the gorse that released its sweet coconut scent and stirred other memories from their drowsy slumber: picnics between rain showers, leaning into the wind and pretending to fly, laughter, love. She wrapped her arms around herself, embracing all these simple joys she’d once known. Like other children collected pebbles and shells from the beach, Olivia collected memories of her childhood, filling an imaginary bucket with the best of times. Yet she would gladly have emptied it for one more of her mammy’s special hugs, one more encouraging smile, one more whispered “I love you, Livvy.” Those particular memories were her greatest treasures.
Opening her eyes, she absorbed the familiar view: the chameleon sea, green then gray then blue; the distant peaks of the Wicklow Mountains; the rhododendrons below, painting the headland in a parade of purple and pink. She made a frame with her thumbs and forefingers, squinting through it to find the best light and angle and composition. Something else she’d stopped doing and couldn’t remember why. Her camera, like so many passions she’d once held, lay idle in a box beneath the bed. Where had she gone—that creative, independent woman? Where was she?