Here we go! Thanks to purple-roses-words-and-love for betaing.
Angela kept squeezing Timothy's hand with such force that her nails left little half-moons of white that quickly became red on his skin.
"Calm down, Ange," Timothy said, uncurling her fingers and rubbing the back of his hand.
"Don't hurt your brother, Angela dearest," her mother said from the front seat. She kissed Teddy's chubby cheeks and smiled at him. The baby gurgled happily, a little bubble of drool forming at the corner of his mouth.
"I am so excited!" Angela almost screamed, clasping her hands and flopping down with a huge grin on her face.
"It is just a picnic," Timothy said, placing his hands under her armpits and hoisting her up so she sat straight.
"The weather is absolutely gorgeous, though," their father said. He was right; the sun was high in the sky, burning away the small smudges of cloud till the sky was almost entirely blue. The first clusters of wildflowers had started to appear, and in the woodland bluebells reigned supreme. Trees were unfurling their new leaves. They were small and of such a pale green that they seemed almost yellow.
"I'm so excited!" Angela repeated, grabbing Timothy's hand and shaking it.
He sighed and put his copy of the Lancet down. "If I give you a present, will you promise to stop mangling my hand?"
Angela's heart beat so hard in her chest that she thought she would faint. "A present?" she asked, voice no louder than a whisper. She folded her hands as if in prayer and stared at him with big eyes.
"Here," Timothy said, digging a small box out of his pocket. He gently opened her hand and placed it on her palm.
"What's this?" her mother asked, twisting in her seat so she could look at her oldest children. "Did you buy Angela a present?"
"It's nothing," Timothy mumbled, cheeks flaming.
"What did you get your little sister?" their father asked without looking away from the winding country road.
Angela pulled the ribbon off and put it in the pocket of her little red coat. The box opened with a snick and revealed her charm bracelet. "A charm!" she exclaimed, and picked her bracelet up. A soft chime filled the car as a tiny bell left the velvet of the box.
"A silver bell?" their mother asked, blue eyes sparkling.
"The fairies in our garden wear little silver bells too!" Angela explained as she held out her wrist so Timothy could put her bracelet on.
"Do they?" their father asked.
"Yes. There are three of them, and they are called Juniper, Evergreen, and Anemone. They wear blue dresses made from flower leaves…"
"Petals," her father corrected her.
"Petals," Angela repeated, "dresses made out of petals and cobwebs, and they were hats when it is chilly, and they each have a silver bell around their necks. That's because they are good fairies, and…"
"Good fairies wear bells to keep bad fairies away," her mother said, voice soft and sad. She kissed Teddy's forehead and stroked his scalp with gloved fingers. "You do have to say 'thank you' to Timothy. It was a very thoughtful gift."
For a moment, Angela wondered if she had something wrong, if she had somehow caused her mother to adopt that pensive look she had seen before her mother had turned her face away, but the joy at receiving such a present was too big to allow room for anything else. "Thank you thank you thank you!" Angela launched herself at her big brother, cupping his face with small hands and kissing his cheek.
He blushed almost scarlet. "Sit down, Ange, or you'll hurt yourself," he said, gently tucking her underneath his arm. She curled against his side, stroking the little bell with her fingertip.
"You'll spoil your little sister rotten," her father remarked. She could see his goofy grin in the rear-view mirror.
"She won't get anything for Christmas," Timothy said.
"That's not fair! I won't…" she started to protest.
"He is only joking, Angela," her mother said, looking over her shoulder and smiling.
"That's right. This is a special day, and I think it should be commemorated with a charm," Timothy mumbled.
"One special day coming up," her father said as he parked the car.
"It is just a picnic," Timothy said, "so don't get your hopes up too much, Mum and Ange."
Angela turned to look at him, brows furrowed. "Is this why you wanted to know all about Juniper and Anemone and Evergreen? They like picnics in the forest, too," she said. Timothy had wanted to know all about her fairy friends these past few weeks. He had taken part in Angela's tea parties and had even allowed her to put a tiara on his head, as long as she kept telling him all she knew about Faerie.
"I wanted to know all about them because they are my favourite sister's friends," Timothy said, ruffling her hair.
She grimaced and pushed his hand away. "I'm your only sister!"
"Well, that makes you my favourite right away, doesn't it?" Timothy grinned.
"I think it is terribly sweet of you two to organise all of this," their mother said as she put Teddy's knitted hat back on his head, "Especially because none of us have their birthday anytime soon."
"I am a terribly sweet man," their father said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek before getting out of the car, trying not to slam the door so as not to startle Teddy.
"Ugh. You organise one trip to the forest and you immediately have to witness mushy stuff," Timothy said, rolling his eyes.
"Mushy stuff," Angela agreed, imitating his eye roll.
"I think a forest picnic warrants a kiss," their mother said, eyes sparkling.
"It isn't just a picnic; it is an adventure," Angela decided, "an adventure in Faerie."
They found a spot on a hill, shaded by a huge oak. They spread their blanket on the damp grass and parked Teddy's pram between the twisted roots.
Her father and brother had made sandwiches with cucumber and cheese, and others with jam. They had packed a china cup and saucer for her mother, too.
"You always had tea parties with fairies as a little girl, so we thought you might have another one now that you're a woman, and you can't have a proper tea party without an appropriate teacup," her father said.
Her mother gave Timothy a hug and a kiss on his cheek, then stepped into her husband's embrace.
"Are you happy?" her father murmured, chin resting on her head, arms tangling in the soft blue coat she wore.
"Terribly," her mother confessed.
"There aren't any proper fairy hills in England I think, but we thought that a hill with a big tree would seem magical, too," Timothy explained.
"Oh, but there's a fairy ring there," Angela said, and pointed to the ring of mushrooms at the base of the hill. They grew crooked and in strange pairs, their soft stems intertwining.
"Only go there when you've finished your lunch; we don't want you to eat anything in Faerie," her father said, giving her a wink.
"Don't go there at all," her mother advised her, tearing herself away from her husband so she could get Teddy out of his pram.
"Why not?" Angela asked, hopping from one leg to the other. Her new charm tinkled merrily. She wished she'd put on her new dress, the one that was the same blue as Juniper and Anemone and Evergreen wore, but her mother wouldn't allow it, afraid she would spill something on it.
"People get whisked away if they step into fairy rings, and we don't know who these fairies are," her mother said, sitting down on the blanket and putting Teddy in her lap, blowing on his chilly hands till he smiled goofily in delight.
"Are fairies pretty?" her father asked as he poured tea from the thermos into the china cup.
"Some are."
"In that case Timothy should definitely stay away; I don't think we'll ever see him again if he finds a pretty fairy," her father said.
"Dad!" Timothy flopped down and gave his parents a withering stare as they tried to stifle their laughter.
"I don't think I'd like to see you do mushy stuff, Timothy," Angela decided, "And I don't think it is polite, and you should always be polite to fairies, and give them some milk and some bread."
"I don't think they want teenage boys anyway," her father said, picking Teddy from his wife's lap and making silly faces.
"Why not?" Timothy growled before putting half a sandwich in his mouth.
"It is nothing personal, Tim. It is just so that fairies adore small children and babies, like Teddy."
"Are they going to take Teddy?" Angela asked, crawling onto her mother's lap.
"No, Angel girl. We're here, so they wouldn't dare," her mother soothed her, hands carding through her hair and stroking her scalp.
"I thought fairies also wanted women who were nursing, because they need them to feed their own offspring," Timothy remarked.
"What a ghastly idea," her father said. He frowned. "Well, Tim, it you and I must defend our women and baby Teddy here, because it seems to me that we've brought the people most likely to get snatched right to the fairies' doorstep. Put a piece of bread in your pocket, I'd say. Right, Teddy? Do you want a piece of bread, too? Do you?" he asked, taking Teddy's chubby fists in his hands and squeezing them. Teddy gurgled like a bubbling pot and smiled.
"It is a good thing that I'm no longer a baby, and haven't been one in a long time," Angela decided, wiping her jam-stained mouth with her hands.
They all laughed at that. Angela joined in, even though she didn't really understand what was funny about it; she was a big girl now, wasn't she? "I am practically grown up," she told her mother.
"I'd like you to stay my little girl just a wee bit longer," she replied, wiping Angela's hands and mouth with a napkin.
Angela slung her arms around her mother's neck and pressed her face against her throat. She was warm and full and happy, and a bit tired.
"You're not big enough to say no to a little nap, now are you? I could do with a little sleep myself. I think we all could," her mother whispered in her ear.
Angela shook her head, fighting against the cotton wool that clouded her brain and the heaviness that settled in her eyelids, causing them to droop like fading flowers. The currents of sleep tugged on her limbs, and she was not big enough yet to fight back. "Hm," she said, and sank.
She woke when a stray ray of sunlight tickled her cheek, then her eyelid. Annoyed, Angela rubbed her eyes, yawned, sat up, and stretched. Her coat rustled like wrapping paper. She brushed a blade of grass from her shoes, giggling as her bracelet jingled.
Timothy lay sprawled on the blanket, his copy of The Lancet spread on his face, as if he hoped the words would relinquish their hold on the page and rain down on his head, to seep into his skin and through there into his bloodstream, into his brain.
Her parents were curled up around Teddy, and both fast asleep.
"Poor dears," Angela muttered, imitating her mother.
"Hello," a soft voice said.
Angela turned her face towards the sound, and saw a little girl stand inside the fairy ring. She had eyes dark as coal, and hair that hung in limp ringlets.
"Hello," Angela answered, fiddling with her charm bracelet. The tiny bell tinkled again.
"Won't you come and play?" the girl asked, cocking her head like a bird.
"Are you here with your Mummy and Daddy, too?" Angela asked as she slowly walked down the hill towards the little girl.
"My Mummy died," the child said, then giggled.
"I'm sorry," Angela said. She halted in front of the fairy ring. The trees that stretched behind it whispered in the wind, the old wood moaning and creaking, the twigs curling and stretching, as if reaching for her. She shivered, and touched her charm bracelet again.
"That is a really pretty bell," the girl said.
Now that Angela was close she could see that the child wore no shoes, and that her toes were strange and long, almost as if they were fingers. It sent a chill racing along her spine, and she shivered and huddled a little closer in her coat. "Are you a fairy?" she asked.
"What's your name?" the girl asked instead. "My name is Ivy."
"A… Alice," Angela lied. Hadn't her mother told her not to give her real name to fairies? All of a sudden, she couldn't remember, but instinctively decided it was better to err on the side of caution.
"Come," the girl said, turning around and walking away, slipping between the rough trunks smoothly, like water.
Angela had no desire to follow Ivy, and yet her feet obeyed the girl without question. Angela stared at her shiny black shoes as they moved without her consent. "I want to stay here," she said. "I want to stay with my parents and my brothers."
"But I am much more fun. I have a little brother, too," Ivy said, snaking between the knotted trees, supple like a ribbon, those strange feet gripping tree roots like hands. It hurt to look at them too closely.
Angela looked over her shoulder, and couldn't see the hill anymore, or the tree, or the car gleaming like a beetle. The forest had swallowed her. The bracken brushed her legs, as if caressing its child.
I am going to walk with her for a little bit more, Angela decided. If she pretended that she did this of her own volition, maybe her feet would believe it, and would obey if she wanted to turn back in a few minutes.
"Ivy, where are we going?" she asked, and thought: I am going to walk just a little more. When she has answered me, I'll say I'd rather go back.
"To the cottage where my auntie and my little brother and my Mummy and I live. Well, where my Mummy used to live. She's dead now, of course," Ivy answered, clambering over a fallen trunk with those hand-like feet.
"I… I think I'd like to ask my Mummy if that is alright first," she said, and made to turn back, only her feet ignored her mind completely, and kept filling the strange footprints Ivy had already made in the soft, wet earth.
She couldn't help but whimper. Panic clawed its way up her throat, sharp like barbed wire. She didn't like this fairy who made her do things she didn't want.
"My Mummy is calling me. I should go back," she whispered. It wasn't a lie; she thought she heard her mother call out to her, but her voice was faint and far away. Maybe it was just the wind whispering or the leaves crackling as they curled up on themselves and then unfurled again.
"Please, Ivy, I don't want to…" Angela started, sentence interrupted by a sob. Her fingers and toes had gone numb with fear, and her voice was so soft that the trees above bent closer so as to hear. She put her hands in her pockets to warm them, and encountered a stale piece of biscuit, jagged like a shard.
Always be polite to fairies, and offer them some milk and bread if you can, her mother had advised her, and then they can hold no power over you.
This realisation fortified Angela, as did the knowledge that she'd faced scarier monsters. Hadn't she trapped the thing that lived under her desk with little more than a handful of marbles? Hadn't she conquered her fear of the behemoth that nestled underneath her bed, and made sure he could never hurt anyone by encircling him with Timothy's old train set?
The fear that made her throat thick and her limbs tight like coiled springs didn't leave her, but had to huddle in the shadow of grim determination. She was not going to be whisked away to Faerie, and she was not going to let this strange girl tell her what to do.
"Ivy, do you… do you want a biscuit?" Angela asked.
The girl turned around. Her eyes were black as ebony and shimmered, as if they were black stones the river had licked. "A biscuit?" she asked, and licked her lips. Her tongue was thin and very pink.
"Yes. It is very good. My Mummy made it," Angela said, trying not to crush the shard of biscuit. Her fingers were trembling as she held it up.
Ivy stopped walking so she could look at it better, causing Angela to stop as well. Her legs tingled, ready to run.
Ivy twirled a stray leaf between her toes. "That does look yummy. Do you have any milk?"
Angela shook her head.
"Well, I think a biscuit by itself will do nicely, too," Ivy said, flexing her toes. The joints popped like wood on fire. Angela did her best not to feel sick.
"You must… I will give you my biscuit, but then you must let me go back to my Mummy and my Daddy and my big brother and my baby brother," she said. The words came slowly and were heavy in her mouth, more like marbles then combinations of vowels and consonants.
"But I want you to come and play with me," Ivy pouted, scratching her arm with her foot.
"You won't get my biscuit if you don't let me go," Angela said.
Ivy shrugged. "Alright. I'd rather you come with me than have that biscuit," she said, voice hard, eyes dull, as if the river had spat them out and the sun had dried them.
Angela's heart thrummed and her blood roared in her ears, loud and insistent as the sea. "No!" she screamed, stomping her foot. Her bracelet jingled happily.
"I do like that bell," Ivy said, stepping closer, stretching out a hand-like foot to touch Angela.
"My brother gave it to me," Angela whispered, focusing her eyes on the whispering bracken so as not to have to look at those strange toes as they caressed the charms on her wrist.
"Oh, that is pretty!" Ivy said.
"Do… if I give it to you, and the biscuit, will you let me go?" Angela begged. Her heart ached at the very notion of giving this gift away, but her brain was merciless; she'd ache a lot more if this strange creature had her way.
"I don't know…" Ivy dawdled, rubbing her eyes with one hand and one foot.
"You have to promise to let me go!" Angela whined, stomping her foot. Tears were burning behind her eyes, ready to spill.
"You aren't polite," Ivy said, voice colder than ice.
"That bell is much more fun than I am," Angela hastily agreed, flexing her toes in the hope that the feeling would return to them.
"Alright. I'll take them," Ivy said.
Angela didn't hesitate. She threw her biscuit at Ivy's feet, managed to unclasp the charm in a heartbeat, and flung it as far away as she could. She didn't wait for the fairy child to respond, but fled as fast as she could, pure terror lending her speed.
Her feet flew over the springy forest floor. Branches tugged at her clothes, trying to keep her from running, but she pushed them away, snapped them between her small fingers. She cried out as one particularly vicious twig yanked at her hair, but she didn't stop, not even when she fell and scraped her hands and knees bloody.
She reached the hill and scrambled up, howling in fear. Her father was with her before she reached the top.
"Angela, what's wrong?" he asked, eyes large with concern, hands straining to assess damage and heal.
"I…" she started, but couldn't speak; sobs clawed up her windpipe and tore through her mouth, leaving no space for words. She shook her head, and slung her arms around his neck, eyes burning with tears.
She'd been afraid, so terribly afraid, but now she was safe again, even if she had lost her pretty charm…
"Shh, I'm here," her father said, picking her up and rocking her like he did with Teddy sometimes if he couldn't sleep. Maybe he had been right when he laughed about her notion that she hadn't been a baby in a long time. He cupped the back of her skull with one hand, fingers fanning out over her scalp.
"Your hands are all bloody," Timothy remarked. He rubbed her back, spindly fingers warm through the torn fabric of her coat.
She clasped his hand in hers. He kissed it, not even caring that her digits were dirty with blood and earth. She wished her mother was there, too, to kiss her other hand.
"Can you tell us what happened?" her father asked as he put her down next to the pram that contained a sleeping Teddy so he could dig into his bag and find some disinfectant and salve for her hurting knees and hands.
"There was a fairy, and she... she wanted me to come, and I couldn't stop walking. I didn't want to walk but I had to, and I couldn't tell her no because that would be impolite, so I offered her my biscuit and my charm and then she let me go, and her feet were all funny," Angela said, spilling the words like water. She sniffed, and rubbed her eyes. "Where is Mummy?"
"What?" her father asked.
"Isn't she here with you?" Angela asked, voice small.
Her father looked up, face fraught with worry, eyes dull with anguish. "Angela, do you mean that Mummy wasn't with you just now?"
She slowly shook her head.
"But she was with you for a bit, wasn't she? She said she was going to play with you, and that was an hour ago," he said.
Angela shook her head again, heart beating so hard that she was sure it would smash her ribs to smithereens. "I only ever saw Ivy," she whispered.
Her father's hand grew cold. "I'm sure she's just taking a walk," he murmured.
"But fairies like mummies," Angela whispered.
"Fairies don't exist," her father barked, but he didn't seem so sure anymore.
Angela started to cry again, face turning red.
"Hush, Angel girl. I didn't mean it," her father sighed, picking her up again.
"Dad? What's wrong?" Timothy asked, rocking the pram with Teddy in it. The baby started to mewl; it was time for his lunch.
"Your mother isn't here," her father said, every word slow like a slug, "And she wasn't with Angela. She's gone."