The Cottingley Secret

  Her dreams brought alive happy memories of a time when she had laughed and loved, when she’d fought for what she believed in. They reminded her of what she’d once wanted and who she once was. It was her dreams that now urged her to wake up from a reality she no longer believed in.

  ON HER LAST morning at the cottage, Olivia woke early. Everything felt visceral as she dressed and made her way downstairs: the brittle cold of the kitchen tiles, the rattle of bubbles as the kettle came to the boil, the bitter aroma of coffee as the water hit the freeze-dried granules.

  She cupped her hands around her favorite mug and stood at the window. She’d always been an early riser, her otherwise lazy body instinctively aware that it was a privilege to be awake at dawn to watch as the sky turned from navy to gray, lavender to violet and rose. Pappy would often join her, just the two of them and the winding thread of tobacco smoke from Pappy’s pipe as they watched the world wake up. Those were some of Olivia’s favorite moments. Catching the start of a new day when nothing was yet done, and everything was possible.

  After dressing, she worked her way methodically through each room of the house, taking one last look, pulling the curtains, closing the door on all that once was. She paused at Nana’s dressing table, gazing into the mirror, searching for the younger Olivia in the glass. What would she say to that lost and frightened child who’d once stood here, more alone in the world than she had ever imagined it was possible to be? Would she tell her to believe in fairies, or would she say there was no such thing? Or would she simply tell her that whether you choose to believe in something or not, the joy is more often in the wondering than in the knowing?

  In the back of a drawer at the bottom of the dressing table, so hidden she almost missed it, she found an old Instamatic camera. She checked the exposure reader. It still had film in it. Her mam always carried an Instamatic camera in her handbag, forever snapping away as Olivia played, catching her off guard. As she slipped it into her pocket, Olivia wondered what secrets this camera might reveal.

  Turning to leave, her leg banged on the edge of the dressing table. She heard a rattle, and only then did she notice a narrow secret drawer beneath the mirror. Her heart thumped as she pressed against it and it sprang open.

  She knew what was inside even before she saw it.

  The silver photo frame.

  She lifted it out, remembering that night when she’d grasped it so tightly beneath the bedcovers, smooth and cool to the touch. Beneath the dusty glass, the familiar photograph of the little girl and the fairies looked back at her, the little girl she now knew was Frances. That playful smile at her lips. So many questions, still unanswered.

  She put the photo frame into her bag, pushed the drawer shut, and left the room, closing the door softly behind her before she walked downstairs and out the front door. The cottage released a long sigh as it fell into a peaceful slumber behind her, the wrought-iron gate squeaking a reluctant good-bye as she closed it for the last time. Her heart broke at the finality of it all, but she knew it was the right thing to do—the only thing to do to save the bookshop.

  The morning light was clear and melodic, lending everything a bright-edged quality as she made her way down the hill, the breeze at her back, pushing her on to find the next chapter of her story. As she walked, she thought about the photograph in her bag. Whatever secrets it held, she was certain that Frances would tell her, in her own words, in her own good time . . .

  NOTES ON A FAIRY TALE

  Cottingley, Yorkshire. September 1917.

  Our fairy photograph became something of a party trick over the summer, displayed with excessive theatrical flourish by Aunt Polly at her musical evenings and whenever the Bradford relatives came for Sunday tea. It was a source of great amusement and intrigue, the print Uncle Arthur had taken from the plate passing around eager hands so that everyone had their turn to study the image and decide if the fairies were real, or if not, how on earth we’d done it. Elsie and I played along, spinning ever more elaborate tales about how we’d found the fairies and what they looked like and how Elsie had taken the photograph. The trick had done its job, and although Mummy still fussed when I got my petticoats wet, she didn’t worry quite as much about me playing at the beck.

  But as the weeks passed, Elsie and I grew tired of the teasing and speculation, and I began to wish the photograph would disappear and be forgotten about. Aunt Polly, especially, kept talking about it, pulling at it like an errant thread in her needlework to be unpicked. I heard her discussing it with Mummy while I was outside, their voices drifting through the open window.

  “What do you make of the girls’ photograph, then, Annie?” Aunt Polly asked. I recognized the tone of her voice. Slightly too curious. Slightly meddlesome.

  “I don’t know, Polly. Honestly, I don’t. Frances says it’s real, and she isn’t one for telling lies.”

  “Arthur still thinks it’s a trick of some sort, but I’m not sure. You know as well as I do that folk have been talking about fairies in Cottingley since we were young girls.”

  “That’s just folklore, Polly. Old tales told around the fire on winter nights.”

  “What about the Hogan child? That’s not folklore, is it?”

  Aunt Polly pulled the thread further, teasing and tugging to see what might be revealed. My skin prickled at the mention of the Hogan girl. I thought of the look in Mrs. Hogan’s eyes, the hushed silence of the cottage in the woods, the absence of the chatter of children.

  “Poor little mite. She must have fallen down an old mineshaft, as they said. I don’t for one minute believe she was taken by the fairies. That’s the ramblings of a mother grieving for her child, and I can’t say I blame her for that.” I could hear the click clack of knitting needles as they worked furiously on more comforts to send to the troops. “Still,” Aunt Polly continued, “I’m sure there are stranger things than fairies in the world. Things you and I will never understand, at any rate.” A chair scraped against the floor as she stood up. “There’s a meeting of the Theosophist Society in Bradford next week. Will you come with me?”

  I heard Mummy sigh. “Oh, I don’t know, Polly. Are you sure it’s wise to be getting involved with the likes of all that? Arthur says it’s black magic and conjuring the dead.”

  Aunt Polly snorted with laughter. “Arthur Wright wouldn’t know how to conjure the dead if he was surrounded by corpses. Don’t mind him. Come with me. You might learn something. We both might. Don’t pretend you’re not as intrigued by that photograph as I am. It must be real. What other explanation can there be? If fairies can exist in another world, maybe our loved ones can too. If I’d lost my son in France, I know I’d rather believe in the possibility of seeing him as a spirit than never seeing him again. Wouldn’t you?”

  “I suppose so.” After another moment of quiet knitting, I heard Mummy agree. “I’ll come to your meeting, then, but only on the condition that you put that silly fairy photograph away and forget all about it. You’re worse than the girls. And they’re bad enough.”

  Elsie stayed home from work again the following week, suffering from hay fever or a summer cold or “lazy-itis,” as I heard Uncle Arthur muttering one day. When she was well enough, she loved to come up the beck with me, where we spent hours building dams or sketching the wild poppies and bee orchids or just talking and making up new adventures for a story we were writing. We didn’t discuss the photograph much, or the fairies. If the photograph of pretend fairies was our secret, the real fairies were mine.

  I saw them when Elsie wasn’t with me, most often on the warmest days when they appeared to be busiest, tending to the flowers on the riverbank and in the hedgerows. Like the right notes played to make a chord on Aunt Polly’s piano, we resonated in peaceful harmony, the fairies and I. I played my games. They got on with their work. It was the most ordinary extraordinary thing. The sort of thing you never forget, no matter how many years weave themselves between the present and the past.

  As the weeks slipped by an
d the golden days of summer turned toward the amber days of autumn, the fairy photograph was brought out less often, until I thought it forgotten about altogether. Only once did I see Aunt Polly take it from the drawer when she thought nobody was looking. Only once did I do the same, studying my face, that distant look in my eyes, captured by the camera as I’d glanced over Elsie’s shoulder to follow the glimmer of something far more interesting than a paper cutout. As I stared at myself, it was like looking into my past, because I knew that even when I was old and gray like my grandmother, or fretting about the laundry being mangled like Aunt Polly, part of me would always be that nine-and-a-half-year-old girl, playing with the fairies at the bottom of the garden. The photograph had captured that moment forever. It was a thought I carried with me as I fell asleep at night, drifting away beyond the bedroom window to chase my dreams of fairy glens and a little girl with red hair who entwined white flowers among the curls in my hair, and sang songs to me of the Little People.

  Yorkshire’s autumn was as great a gift as Yorkshire’s summer. I loved watching the rusting of the leaves while the dales mellowed to shades of ochre, and rose hips and blackberries grew deliciously fat on their branches. The morning mists were mystical and magical to me, and the rose-glow of the evening sun lent the sky a hypnotic light that matched any Cape Town sunset.

  It was harvest time: a time for thanks and prayer and reflection, but a time also tinted with sadness for the mothers and fathers who had lost loved ones in the latest offensives in Ypres and Passchendaele. The war was unceasing and cruel. I saw the telegram boy visit the same house three times in as many days, each chilling knock at the door bringing news of another son lost, until there were no more telegrams to deliver. No more sons to mourn.

  In those honey-dipped days, I felt Daddy slip further away from us. I couldn’t even seek solace in the fairies since they had gone from the beck with the passing of the summer. Worst of all, Mummy said we had outstayed our welcome at 31 Main Street, that we were starting to get under everyone’s feet and it was time for us to look for a house of our own. With no end to the war in sight, she felt it best for us to start making alternative arrangements sooner rather than later.

  Aunt Polly wouldn’t hear of such a thing and said whatever would the neighbors think if she couldn’t give her own sister and niece a roof over their heads? Uncle Arthur was more sympathetic to Mummy’s point of view, saying, “If our Annie feels she’d be happier in a place of her own, then who are we to stop her?” Aunt Polly told him to shush and mind his own, that this was a matter between sisters and nothing for him to be concerning himself with. In any event, I was relieved when it was agreed that we would stay at Number 31 until the war was over and Daddy was back. I’d grown very fond of Aunt Polly and Uncle Arthur, and couldn’t imagine not seeing Elsie every day. She’d become everything to me: sister, friend, confidante, coconspirator. Elsie was a spark to my guttering flame. With her, I was a brighter, better me. With Elsie, anything was possible. With Elsie, you never quite knew what was coming next.

  “We need another photograph, Frances.” Her words fell on me like lumps of rock as I lay in the bed beside her. “This time you can take one of me.”

  I didn’t like the idea. The more I’d studied the first photograph, the more fake the fairies looked. I could hardly believe anyone thought they were real. “What if we get caught, Elsie? Isn’t it best to forget about the photographs now?”

  “You’ve heard Mummy and Daddy talking. They still doubt the photograph, even though they don’t know how we could have faked it. If we took another, we would really convince them.” She sat up in bed, her hair silvered by the light of the full moon streaming through the window. “Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud. It’ll be fun.”

  I had reservations but I supposed it was only fair for Elsie to be in a photograph since she’d taken the first one of me. And so it was agreed. Elsie would start work on a new cutout the next morning. I asked her if she needed Princess Mary’s Gift Book, but she said no.

  “This one will be different. It’ll be a surprise.”

  It was more than a surprise. When Elsie showed me the new cutout, I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t a fairy but an odd little man.

  “What is it?” I asked, peering at the strange-looking creature.

  “It’s a gnome, silly. They’ll be expecting us to take another photograph of fairies, so we’ll surprise them with this. They’ll be more likely to believe us if we photograph something different. Come on. We’ll take the photo in top field. They won’t be expecting that, neither.”

  It was a misty Saturday morning, far from ideal conditions for photography. I winced when Elsie asked Uncle Arthur if she could borrow the camera again. His “no” was quickly brushed aside by Aunt Polly, who came to our rescue again, telling him not to be a spoilsport and to let us have the camera for half an hour.

  “Up to summat, you mark my words,” he said as we put on our boots at the back door.

  Aunt Polly said that we might very well be up to summat, but at least we were up to summat outside and not under her feet and that he shouldn’t be complaining.

  “Up to summat, you mark my words,” Elsie mimicked as we ran through the garden. I laughed so hard I thought my sides would burst.

  It was an unusually still day. No breeze. No clouds. Not the faintest swaying of grass or fern. I picked campion for my flower press while Elsie sat down in the field and arranged herself and the cutout, using a hat pin as before to position the “gnome,” as she called it. She looked pretty in the bridesmaid dress she’d worn for our cousin Judith’s wedding the week before. It was one of Mummy’s designs, beautifully stitched as always. I had one to match but hadn’t wanted to wear it to play outside, knowing how prone I was to slipping and falling. Elsie also wore her favorite hat and had left her long hair to fall in loose tumbles around her shoulders. I peered nervously at her through the camera lens, terrified that I would get it wrong and spoil the one plate Uncle Arthur had given us.

  Elsie patiently explained how everything worked until I felt better about it. “Is the camera ready?” she asked.

  I checked everything again. “Yes. I think so.”

  Elsie reached out her hand so it looked as if the gnome was going to hop onto it. “Go on, then. Press the lever.” I hesitated. “Today, preferably.”

  I checked one last time that the pointer for the exposure time was set at the correct number for the distance between Elsie and the camera. On the count of three, I pressed the lever.

  Elsie gathered up her skirts and the “gnome” and rushed over. “Come on. Let’s ask Daddy to develop it right away.”

  She was all excitement and enthusiasm, but I was uninspired by the whole event. The cutouts had been harmless fun the first time. This I wasn’t so sure about. “I’ll stay by the beck for a while,” I said. “You take the camera back. I’ll follow you in a bit.”

  Elsie didn’t question or try to persuade. She wasn’t that sort of girl. “Promise not to tell?”

  “Promise not to tell.”

  “Ever?”

  “Ever.”

  Elsie pushed the hat pin into the ground and ran off through the field, leaving me to dispose of the cutout. I did the same as last time, tearing the paper into pieces and tossing them into the stream, before settling myself on the willow bough seat, hoping for my real little friends to appear.

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been there when a voice made me jump.

  “What you up to, then, Frances Griffiths?” Mavis Clarke stood on the opposite bank, arms folded, face screwed up in smug satisfaction.

  “Sitting,” I replied, trying my best to sound bored. “Why? What’s it to you?”

  “What were you and Elsie doing up in top field?”

  My heart thumped in my chest. Had she seen us? “None of your business, nosy parker.”

  “Up to no good, you two. That’s what. And when I find out, I’ll tell on you both.”

  I swung my legs beneath
the willow branch and tried to sound nonchalant. “Tell. See if I care.”

  But I did care. Very much. If Mavis Clarke had seen what we’d done, she would tell everyone. And then we would be in awful trouble. She stuck her tongue out, laughed, and stomped off upstream, beneath the stone bridge, toward the quarry, where I hoped she would fall in and never be seen again, like the poor Hogan girl.

  As soon as Mavis was out of sight, I jumped down from the branch and ran back to the house as quickly as I could. I had to tell Elsie not to develop the plate.

  But I was too late.

  She was already waiting for me on the back step, a great smile on her face. “It worked!” The excitement made her voice all shrill, like Aunt Polly’s. “The photograph came up!”

  She showed me a funny-looking image. It wasn’t half as nice as the one of me with the fairies.

  “Why does your hand look all big?” I asked.

  “Daddy thinks it must have been overexposed.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He still thinks it’s a trick, but Mummy thinks it’s real.”

  I grabbed Elsie by the elbow and walked with her back down the garden. “I think Mavis Clarke saw us. She was down by the beck, all sneering and know-it-all.”

  Elsie laughed. “Well, Mavis Clarke can get knotted. Everyone knows she’s a troublemaker. Nobody would believe her even if she said something, which she won’t. I’ll make sure of it. Come on. You can show Aunt Annie the new photograph.”

  The photograph of Elsie and the gnome was discussed at length over tea. The same speculation and questions from the adults, the same assertions from Elsie and me that it wasn’t a trick, that we had seen a gnome in the top field. The words scratched in my throat like a bad dose of the mumps, choking me with my lies. I watched Mummy from beneath my fringe, which was badly in need of a cut. She didn’t say much about the photograph. She was often quiet these days, her words squashed away by all the worry brimming inside her.