The Fairy Ring

F
or as long as she could remember, Frances’s parents had told her stories about England. But when she got there, the real England wasn’t like the stories at all. Frances could see that as soon as the ship pulled into the harbor.

It was only teatime, but night had already fallen. Frances had expected streetlamps and cheery windows with light showing through the curtains. Now all she could see was darkness.

It was something called a Blackout, Frances’s parents said. It would last all night, every night, until the Great War was over.

Frances and her parents walked down the gangplank and through the dark, cold streets.

They boarded a train, and it rattled through the night. Sometimes it stopped and soldiers got off. More soldiers got on, with their guns and helmets and heavy packs.

When morning came, the train pulled into a small station. The sign on the platform said
BINGLEY
, and Frances knew that was their stop. Frances’s father found a man with a horse and cart to take their trunks. He picked up the big leather suitcase that held their clothes.

Frances and her parents walked down Bingley’s Main Street, past little shops and a church made of grim, gray stone.

It wasn’t at all like the bustling streets of Cape Town, South Africa, where Frances had lived ever since she was a tiny baby. In Cape Town, her father wouldn’t have had to lug a big heavy suitcase. They could have taken a taxicab.

Snow lay in drifts along the pavement. Frances picked some up and was surprised to find it was cold. Her parents laughed, but how was she to know? She’d only seen snow on Christmas cards, where it looked as white and soft as cotton.

They walked to the trolley stop and waited in the cold. When the trolley came, it was one of those glorious double-decker ones, so
that
at least was nice. They rode it through the winter-bare fields until it stopped at a bridge guarded by a big, round tower that looked like a castle. The conductor called out, “Cottingley Bar!”

Cottingley, Yorkshire, England, was where Frances and her mother would be staying for a while — nobody knew how long. They would live with Aunt Polly and Uncle Arthur and Cousin Elsie in their house in Cottingley while Frances’s father was away in the War. He would be leaving for the battlefields in just two weeks.

A muddy lane led past a woolen mill that stank of grease and raw wool. Frances and her parents followed it up a hill, past a grand manor house, until they came to a village built of stone that seemed even grimmer and grayer than the streets of Bingley. Coal smoke rose from the chimneys into the cold air.

In Cape Town, the air smelled sweet and clear, like fir forests.

In Cape Town, women sold baskets of fragrant flowers that grew wild on the mountains.

Usually when Frances went places, she jumped and skipped and took the bottom four stairs at a bound. Usually she was always being told to “hush.” But today her parents didn’t have to tell her to walk quietly or hush.

They walked up the hill to the very edge of the village, and there stood a row of narrow houses all joined together. In the doorway of the very last one, Aunt Polly waited.

“Eeh!” she said, smiling widely. She had an odd sort of accent. A Yorkshire accent, Frances realized. She was the most beautiful woman Frances had ever seen.

Her hair was the same color as Frances’s mother’s hair: shining brown with touches of auburn and gold. She wore a beautiful, old-fashioned green dress that went well with her hair.

Frances remembered that first meeting with her aunt for the rest of her life. But oddly enough, she couldn’t remember the first time she met her cousin Elsie.

Memory is a funny thing sometimes. Maybe Frances didn’t remember because Elsie . . . well, Elsie was the kind of person who seemed as though you’d always known her.