Page 89 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘Steve’s got a big basket of eggs in the Village Hut and a load of little coloured paper flags to mark each clutch,’ Elf said.
‘Doesn’t that make it too easy?’
‘No, because the children will be all eight or under, and most of them tiny tots,’ she explained. ‘We want to make sure they all get some, though we have extras, so we can top up the cellophane bags they put their hoard in at the end.’
I sighed, resigned to my fate. ‘OK, so I put on the bunny suit and hide the eggs all over the grounds, planting a little flag by each clutch.’
Elf nodded. ‘Yes. Then the vicar comes over and opens the hunt at eleven.’
I hoped I’d be back in the apothecary garden, working away by then, my part in the proceedings completed.
Elf invited Ned to dinner and included me, but I said I felt like a quiet night in and she didn’t press it.
Caspar was all for the idea and showed signs of interest in the strawberry ice-cream I sampled after dinner, though it seemed a very un-feline-like thing to want and I didn’t give him any. I expect he’dstuffed himself full in Lavender Cottage and was just being both nosy and greedy.
He watched me from the sofa later, as I had a good rummage around in the decreasing pile of belongings in the corner. I’d soon discovered I no longer wanted a lot of my own things that I’d left stored with Treena, but I found another of the braided rag rugs of Mum’s making, in soft shades of cream, pink and blue, which smelled of the lavender it had been packed with. I put that one down by the little armchair.
There was a box containing my school books, too, and every handmade card or little gift I’d given Mum as a child. I dithered a bit over those, then decided to keep them, putting them inside the small chest I was using as a coffee table.
Then I started on all the clothes I’d stored, though I couldn’t now imagine why I thought I – or anyone else – would ever want to wear them again. But I repacked them for the charity shop in Great Mumming, where they would probably send most of them for recycling.
There were now only two small cardboard cartons I hadn’t looked at, and I pulled them out before restacking the boxes of stuff to get rid of in their place.
They seemed to have been filled with Mum’s old paperwork and odds and ends like that, so I thought I’d leave them for another day and pushed them under the big bookcase.
I don’t know why Aunt Em had thought I’d want old utility bills and letters. Perhaps she’d meant to sort everything out a bit more later and never got round to it?
Over a cup of cocoa I had a riffle through the section of old photographs in Elf’s book, lingering over the black-and-white ones of the Fairy Falls, then abandoned that in favour of curdling my blood a bit more with Clara Mayhem Doome’s newest novel.
Lizzie
As soon as I could walk the distance, I went with my sister to sell our eggs around the village and since, once away from home, she liked gossip as much as anyone else, I was often left to my own devices outside in the street, to await her … in which way I sometimes came into contact with the village children.
I envied them their freedom to roam and to play … and they found in me a ready audience for tales of fairies and little folk, boggarts, goblins and even angels – for long ago, I learned, an angel had most miraculously appeared to a local child, when she was playing by the falls above the village.
This seemed to me a wonderful thing, and godly, so that I wondered my parents had not mentioned it, but when I said so to my sister Martha, and begged her to take me to this miraculous spot, she said it was but the Devil’s work to put such ideas into idle children’s heads and if I knew what was best for me, I would not mention the matter at home.
When I ventured to say that the children had told me there was a picture of the Angel Gabriel in the church window in Thorstane, she just snorted and I took the hint and said no more.
But I thought about it, as I trudged with her up the long, steep village street with our basket of eggs, and how I would like to go to the waterfall, and perhaps see a shining angel for myself.
I learned later that the three cottages along a rough track at the very top of the village were called Angel Row, since they were near the source of the waterfall.
Of course, I took every opportunity of asking the children for more details of the angels and fairies and learned that there was a rough path down to the falls, just beyond Angel Row, and if you continued on it, you came out by the old stone bridge that led to a row of cottages and the black and white house, where lived the Graces, distant relatives of the Lordly-Graces at the manor, Risings.
I was soon deemed strong enough to deliver the eggs alone, though my small legs and frame found carrying the full heavy basket hard work, so that my spirits lifted as the basket emptied on my ascent of the hill.
27
Rabbiting
I popped up to Toller’s general store, which seemed never to close, even on Easter Day, for some supplies first thing in the morning (they have bothpain au chocolatand croissants!), before Ned and I went over to the Village Hut.
Steve had already opened up and was pinning some of the bunting, which had been returned after the garden opening ceremony, along the fence.
In one of the small back rooms, used as a dressing area when they were staging pantomimes, I donned the all-in-one bunny costume, and zipped it right up. It was quite a good fit, but in the mirror I could see my heart-shaped face surrounded by brown and white fake fur and topped with big, floppy ears, and I didn’t think it was a good look.
Elf was waiting outside when I emerged and drew whiskers on my face with her eyeliner pencil, as the finishing touch. It certainly finished Ned off, because he couldn’t keep his face straight.
