Page 19 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
We had already crossed two small iron bridges over difficult areas and now the path took us onto a metal walkway that actually projected from a stone outcrop over the water, which felt perilous …
‘Iron. Victorian, like the turnstiles and bridges – they made these things to last, so long as you look after them, of course,’ Myfy called back over her shoulder. The bright tassels on her hood and the back of her coat swung out as she turned a corner and I followed, to find myself standing on a viewing platform below a thundering cascade of water that seemed to spring directly out of the rock face high above us.
‘The Fairy Falls,’ Myfy said, with a somewhat ironic inflection and we stood at the edge, looking up, the dark trees crowding down close on either side of the river and shutting out much of the light, so that it seemed a very mysterious and dark spot.
Spray dampened my face and my head was filled with the rushing of water, which sounded like beating wings …
7
Flights of Fancy
Eventually I pulled myself together and found Myfy looking at me in amusement. ‘There’s something about waterfalls that draws in and mesmerizes us all,’ she said. ‘This one has more legends around it than most, though. Some of it’s on the information board over there.’
I went over to look at the brightly painted board, which had a map of the falls with bubbles here and there, containing nuggets of old legends and information. There were also little ambiguous winged creatures near the top of the waterfall, which I thought were probably Myfy’s work.
Myfy, who’d followed me over, confirmed this. ‘I did the artwork and Elf wrote the info. She’s extremely interested in old legends and folk history and has had lots of articles published.’
She named a few esoteric-sounding magazines I’d never heard of and then added, ‘She’s written a book about the history of Jericho’s End, too, which was published recently.’
‘That sounds interesting,’ I said, thinking I’d google it later … among other things. I hoped Aunt Em’s ancient laptop was going to be up to that evening’s research.
‘Right, on we go,’ Myfy said briskly. ‘From here, the path is unmade and much more difficult, since it’s quite a climb, too. Although the sign warns visitors, they still attempt it wearing silly footwear. Elf’s forever treating people for sprained ankles and cuts and bruises – she did a first-aid course, but as far as I’m concerned, if they’re daft enough to goup there wearing flipflops or stiletto heels, they can deal with the consequences themselves.’
By now, I’d realized that Myfy, despite her long, dreamy and melancholy face, was a much tougher cookie than she had appeared at first glance.
‘I suppose most people now have a mobile phone and can ring for help,’ I suggested.
‘Not right up here they can’t, with the trees and the sides of the valley closing in like cliffs. You have to get much further down towards the turnstile before you can get any kind of signal.’
Myfy headed up the steep track like a mountain goat, but I followed more slowly, picking my way between huge rounded boulders and jagged, mossy rock outcrops. The waterfall thundered down on our left and we were close enough to feel the spray blown in our faces and the roaring in our ears. The valley was now little more than a cleft in the rocks, the branches of the trees interlacing high overhead.
Only shafts of light filtered through, mysteriously illuminating what felt oddly like an ancient and magical landscape. I had a feeling that something awaited me around every bend …
A final scramble up a series of rocky outcrops brought us out onto a wide ledge, bordered by an iron rail, next to the point where the river gushed from the rocks.
We were so much higher now and there were stunted trees – oak and ash and hawthorn – springing from impossible crevices. Some kind of ferny plant framed the mouth of the river, like a deep green moustache.
One beam of light illuminated a rainbow dancing above the falls … and then I caught a fluttering movement out of the corner of my eye, though when I turned there was nothing there … except a faint sound of melodic voices and laughter, half heard and then suddenly turned off, like a radio.
I found Myfy looking at me strangely. ‘You can feel it, too, can’t you? Not everyone can and most of those who do are children. But there’s old magic here.’
‘Hence the name Fairy Falls, though you did say at lunch that some people thought they were angels rather than fairies.’
Like Mum, I thought; she certainly had.
‘The old name was the Angel Falls,’ Myfy said. ‘The Victorians renamed it when Jericho’s End became a renowned beauty spot – they seemed totally soppy about fairies. Then, of course, there was all that Cottingley Fairy business later on, between the wars. Do you know about that?’
‘You mean those two young girls who fooled everyone with their fairy photographs? I’ve seen a film about it. They even got Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to believe the photographs were real, didn’t they?’
‘Silly man,’ she observed. ‘But then, we so often see what we most want to, don’t we?’
‘True.’
‘Anyway, it rather debased the whole idea of fairies, except as some twee legend to attract tourists, and no one living in Jericho’s End wants to publicize what’s really here …’
She paused, her long, melancholy face going dreamy again, literally away with the fairies – or, more likely, the angels.
‘The legends about fairies living in the valley do pre-date the sixteenth century, when a local child swore she’d seen an angel by the falls, just like the one in the window in St Gabriel’s, the old church on the edge of Thorstane. The window is a very early one, well worth seeing,’ she added.
