The Wonder Tales

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

In which all is made Right.

One day a week or so after the Adventure of the Pear Trees (as Hattie liked to think of it), Hattie and Theodosius arrived at Moon’s house to find a naked woman lying upon the floor of the greenhouse.

‘Oh,’ said Theodosius, and stopped.

‘Don’t stare at her,’ Hattie chastened, aghast, and Theo turned around, his ears turning pink.

She was not altogether a beautiful woman, Hattie thought upon approach. Or then again, perhaps she was. It was difficult to tell, for every time Hattie blinked she saw something different: an elderly woman one moment, wrinkled of skin, her tangled hair thinning and grey with age. The next, a lissom, ageless lady, her hair luscious and silvery-white. Hattie could not determine which vision was the true one, if either of them were, but she set the matter aside, for the woman lay like a felled tree and looked distressingly dead.

‘Mistress?’ said Hattie, tentatively prodding the woman in the shoulder.

She was not dead, for she woke in a trice and blinked wide, silver eyes. Those eyes filled with tears an instant later, and she said, ‘Oh,’ as though she had seen something desperately profound and would never be the same again.

Hattie patted her shoulder. ‘There, there,’ she murmured. ‘I am sure it is not so bad as all that.’ She eyed the supine woman surreptitiously, looking for some clue as to her identity, and found nothing.

‘Oh, no!’ said the recumbent woman, with a damp, blissful smile. ‘Everything is perfect.’

She made no move to rise, but lay there beaming dreamily at the skies. Hattie began to wonder if she was entirely in her right mind.

‘Perhaps I can help you in some way?’ she suggested.

The woman sat up at last and combed her fingers through her hair, humming a fey little melody.

It began to seem to Hattie as though she had seen the woman before.

‘Mistress…. Mistress Winthrope?’ said she incredulously. ‘Dorothea?!’

Dorothea Winthrope laughed, and stood up. She moved with all the grace of youth, and perhaps a touch of the hesitancy of advanced age. Her hair was grey, and then silver-white, and grey again. ‘I was for a time,’ she agreed. ‘But I think I shall not be, any more.’

She glanced up into the skies, her smile widening. Then, to Hattie’s immense surprise, she gave a great leap and soared gracefully heavenwards. She caught the tip of her crescent-moon throne and swung herself aboard, collapsing into its welcoming arms with a vast sigh. Hattie felt it as a warm wind which swept through the house, clearing away the last of the dust and dirt and setting the muted panes twinkling.

‘Oh, there she is,’ said Theodosius, as though Moon had merely stepped out for a loaf of bread.

‘There she is!’ agreed Hattie, gazing in delight into the wide night skies, for the stars had all come out to welcome their mother home, and Moon’s silver light blazed across the firmament in response.

Then the news reached Sun, for she rose in a joyful flare of aureate lambency, hailing her sister’s return with such a scintillating aurora that Hattie had to cover her eyes. She stood rapt, listening to the glad chorus of starry voices when the light was too bright to see, and revelling in the sense of all being right with Faerie once again.

‘I suppose we can go home, Hat,’ said Theo after a while. ‘All is well again here, and Jerry’s waiting for you.’

Hattie’s heart sank a little, for the ending of the adventure struck her as rather a blow, however happy the outcome. ‘I will come back and visit?’ she said, half resolution and half question, for who could say how long the bridge would hold, or when Berrie Wynweald would become merely Southtown once again?

‘We will,’ said Theodosius firmly. ‘As long as the way is open.’