Thanks to purple-roses-words-and-love for betaing. The final chapter, guys!
"No Mum yet?" Patrick asked as he ran up the hill towards his son.
Timothy shook his head, huddling closer in his coat. The wind had picked up, and now that the sun had dipped low in the sky, painting it orange and purple and pink, the temperature was dropping rapidly.
"Here." Patrick pulled a sandwich from his pocket and a scarf from his doctor's bag.
"Thanks, Dad," Timothy murmured, slinging the scarf around his neck with one hand whilst using the other to bring the food to his mouth. "You're back faster than I thought."
"Don't tell your mother, but I drove a lot faster than is strictly allowed," Patrick confessed. He had emptied the picnic basket in the trunk and put Teddy inside with an abundance of blankets, putting him on the ground of the car at Angela's feet. It had hardly been the safest way to transport both children back. He had thought about asking Timothy to come along and hold the baby before deciding that dithering was not going to get them home any faster.
"How are Ange and Teddy?" Timothy asked, putting the last bit of sandwich in his mouth.
"Trixie is watching over them now. She was about to give Teddy a bottle when I left." He had wanted to take some time to comfort them, to tuck Angela into bed, but there had been no time. He had gathered some blankets, his doctor's bag, a thermos with hot tea, and some sandwiches, and had driven back as fast as he could.
"Were they terribly upset?"
"Angela stopped crying when Trixie promised her a bedtime story, but she was awfully quiet on the way home."
Patrick curled his hands into fists to get the blood flowing. The wind was laced by the sharp tang of frost, and nipped at his fingers till they felt like icicles.
"Dad, what do we do now?" Timothy asked, turning his face towards him. "Do we go into the woods and look for her? Do we need to go to the police station and report her as missing, and ask them to help us find her?"
"I don't think we have time to go to the authorities and explain the situation, not now that the weather is turning so cold," Patrick sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "I think two things might have happened: your mother has hurt herself and hasn't come back because she can't, or she has lost her way and hasn't found us yet. Maybe both." He didn't know which of those alternatives were scarier. She had to be found, and soon; the cold was coming on fast, ready to bite. She must be hungry besides, and thirsty.
"What if she has hurt herself, and we can't get her out?" Timothy asked, voice low, eyes trained on the swaying trees.
"Let's deal with the situation we find," Patrick decided, clutching his bag tight. He handed Timothy a torch and switched his own on. Two thin beams crawled over the springy hill, pale and faint.
"Stay close to me, Tim," he said as they reached the edge of the forest. The trees cast impossibly long shadows in the setting sunlight. They were sharp and jagged and very dark. The torches sliced them apart like knives, but only temporarily.
"Shelagh? Shelagh, can you hear me?" he called out. His words bounced between the bracken, between the trunks, and came back strangely distorted, like misshapen echoes. He tried his best not to shiver.
"I can't believe Angela voluntarily went in," Timothy said, "This place… it scares me, Dad."
"I don't like it much either, son," Patrick confessed.
"How could we ever have picked it as a fairy tale place for a picnic?"
"It looked different on photographs. Less…" –magical? Ominous? – "wild."
The trees encroached evermore upon the path the further they came. Brambles snaked tendrils over the packed earth, their thorns sharp and as large as teeth.
"Mum?" Timothy called, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Mum, where are you?"
Are you?
Are you?
Are you?
His words came back sounding harsh and strange, like pebbles flung at them. It sounded as if someone was laughing at them, and Patrick was sure he saw a pale face with large eyes and dark hair in the harsh light of his torch once as he swept the beam over the thick bracken, but when he brought it back, there was nothing there.
"Have you noticed there are no birds here?" Timothy asked, knotting his scarf with trembling hands.
"Maybe they've all gone to sleep now that the day is over. Shelagh? Shelagh, if you can hear us, please answer us, darling!"
Patrick ripped his trousers on a particular vicious thorn, and cursed loudly.
"Dad!" Timothy looked at him with huge eyes.
"Sorry. It's just that… I'm worried," Patrick said, resisting the urge to stomp on the brambles that were now dressed in a piece of fabric that wasn't theirs.
The sun had set, and darkness fell fast, sneaking up on them like a predator.
They walked on.
Once, Patrick thought he saw her, saw his Shelagh, and sprinted towards her. He placed his hand on her pale form, only to realise that it was a piece of wood vaguely shaped like a woman. It was wet and rotting, like a tooth, and his hand came away with a strip of bark clinging to it, fingers coated in grime.
He cursed under his breath, and turned back.
For one heart-stopping moment, he could not find the path.
His heart hammered in his chest. Sweat prickled underneath his armpits, at his hairline. He wildly swung his torch, slicing at the night with the pale, cold light.
"Dad?"
The beam of his torch fell upon Timothy's white face, on his eyes with dark circles underneath.
Patrick let his breath escape between his lips. "Here!" he said, and jogged back to the path, trying not to break out in a full run, even though he was suddenly afraid that something was behind him.
"I thought I lost you!"
"I'm sorry. I thought I saw your mum."
"We shouldn't lose the path," Timothy said.
"Maybe we should throw breadcrumbs," Patrick tried to quip, but it sounded strained.
They walked on, calling out to Shelagh, the only reply they got the twisted echoes of their own words.
The moon climbed the sky, and stars could be seen between the skeletal branches overhead. A clear night meant colder temperatures, but at least they could still see the path as it bathed in the starlight, in the slices of their torches.
"I don't know what I am going to do if we don't find her," Patrick said after a while.
"We'll find her," Timothy said.
Patrick gave him a small smile. He wished he still had that youthful optimism, or at least his son's grim determination. When Marianne had died, Tim had often awoken in the middle of the night, screaming. Patrick would rush to him and hug him, offering is son to come and sleep in his bed so he wouldn't be alone, so he wouldn't be frightened. Timothy doggedly refused. "I'm not a child anymore. Only babies sleep with their parents," he would say, and even though he clutched Cuthbert to his chest with a small hand, a child's hand, he would not stir from his bed, preferring to stare at the whispering shadows on the wall till morning came.
Neither of them had gotten much sleep in those days.
It had all gotten better when Shelagh entered their lives, of course. His Shelagh, fiery and determined and kind.
God, I know I am a sporadic believer at best, but if you hear this: please give her back to me, he thought, hating himself for praying. But this was a godless place, and he'd rather call his wife's God here than those strange creatures Angela insisted peopled these woods.
"We can't stay out here and search the entire night. If we don't find her soon…" he said.
"Hush!" Timothy said, pressing his finger against his lips.
"I don't like this possibility either, but…"
"Dad, be quiet!" Tim hissed, cocking his head as if he heard something.
Patrick frowned, then listened, eyes slipping sideways as he focussed entirely on his hearing. At first, there was only the moaning of the trees around him, the swish of twigs rattled by the wind. Then, very softly, he heard someone call: "Ivy?"
He couldn't be sure it was her, but who else would be in the forest at this time? His heart beat a painful tattoo in his chest, pumping his blood through his veins till it roared in his ears, taking away all other sounds.
"Shelagh?!" he shouted.
"Mum?" Timothy aimed his torch at the road ahead.
Faintly, almost so hushed that it could have been his imagination, could have been the wind, he heard: "Timothy?"
"Shelagh, it's us!" Patrick yelled, breaking out into a run. He stumbled over a root and ripped the other leg of his trousers, but he didn't care. Timothy was close behind him; their feet pounded the sandy road almost in counter-rhythm.
"Patrick?"
"Keep talking!" he shouted, nearly tripping again. His chest was heaving by the time his torch fell on Shelagh's face, relief making him giddy.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the bright light, raising her hand to block it.
Patrick dropped down beside her. He wanted nothing more than to drape his arms around her, to pull her close and never let go, but he had to see if she was hurt first.
There were worry lines between her eyebrows as she looked at him. He wondered how much of him she could see in the darkness, without her glasses. She was pale, and there was a smear of earth on her cheek.
He placed his hand against her forehead. She shivered, then melted against his hot palm.
"Are you hurt?"
"I twisted my ankle, and I am tired, and very, very thirsty."
It could have been so much worse…
"You must have been so scared," he whispered, shrugging out of his coat and draping it around her. He buttoned it close, noting how her dress was wet and filthy.
"Mum!" Timothy flopped down beside her and took her hand, squeezing it very tightly.
"Timothy!"
"We thought you were gone," Patrick said.
"I thought you were never going to find me," she said, voice raw. She pressed her free hand against her mouth as a sob tore through her.
"Well, we're here now," Timothy said, stroking her hand. The back was red with scratches, as if she had fought with brambles and lost.
"Here," Patrick said, taking the thermos from his doctor's bag. He poured some tea in the cup, then guided it to her mouth. She took small sips, sighing as the liquid warmth nestled itself in her belly.
Timothy fished her glasses from his pocket and gave them to her.
"God, I've missed them," Shelagh whispered as she put them on, blinking owlishly.
"We've missed you," Patrick said.
He took her foot in his hand. She had lost her shoe, and her stocking hung in tatters. There was some crusted blood just below her knee, but it looked like no more than a scrape. Her ankle was a different story; the flesh was swollen, and bruises bloomed there. They looked oddly washed out in the light of the torch.
Shelagh let her head drop back and hissed as his thumb pressed into a particular dark bruise.
"Does it hurt?" Timothy asked.
"Nothing I can't handle," she said through gritted teeth, smiling at him.
"You can't walk on it. No wonder you didn't come back," Patrick said.
"You must have been so worried, and the children too… Where is Angela? And how is Teddy?" Shelagh asked. Her lips were chapped.
"At home. Trixie is looking after them," Timothy said.
She opened her mouth to say something, but Patrick placed his hand against her cheek and stroked a stray tear away with his thumb. "Let's get you out of these infernal woods before we tell you everything, alright? I have blankets in the car, and some food."
"But we can't go. There was a little girl here. I can't leave her here, even if she knows these woods a lot better than I do." Shelagh got up, curling her hand in his shoulder as she leaned on him. "Ivy?" she called.
"Shelagh, don't!" Patrick said.
She stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn't flung his arms around her.
"I'm a bit dizzy," she murmured.
"You haven't eaten, and you are dehydrated," Timothy said.
"Finished that copy of The Lancet, did you?" she asked, giving him a small smile.
"I read it twice," Timothy said, thrusting his hands in his pockets, "And I'd very much like to read it again, though maybe not tonight."
"It'll be tomorrow soon enough," Patrick said, looking at his watch. "What do you say, Shelagh? Time to get home?"
She looked over her shoulder, face fraught with worry. "But that little girl…" She shook her head, as if getting rid of a bothersome thought. "Never mind."
Patrick took her in his arms gently, afraid of hurting her further. She smelled of milk and pines and perfume.
Timothy picked up the torches and the bag and went ahead of them, illuminating the road.
"Are you going to carry me all the way? You'll just throw out your back, darling," Shelagh murmured, placing her face against his throat.
"It'll keep me warm. Who would've thought that you would be a coat thief as well as a shirt thief?" he grinned, kissing her temple.
She smiled. "You gave it to me voluntarily, darling." She touched the back of his neck with an icy hand. "I mean it. You will just hurt yourself. I can limp."
"Do you honestly think I will let you limp your way to the car after I've left you here for hours? Do you think I will let you go now that I've found you again? Because you don't know me very well if you think that, love," he said.
"No," she murmured, "No, I don't."
Patrick put Shelagh on the backseat, so she could keep her wounded ankle up. He covered her in blankets, and gave her a sandwich and the rest of the thermos to wash it down.
Timothy told her what had happened to Angela as they drove home. Shelagh answered their questions about her own misadventures as best as she could. She told them how she had chased after Angela, but had lost their daughter, how she had tripped over a root and hurt her ankle, making it impossible to go back.
"But you were on the path when we found you," Timothy pointed out.
"I climbed back up."
"With your ankle all swollen?" Timothy asked, eyebrows raised so high they almost met his hairline.
"I had help. There was a girl called Ivy, and she helped me."
"Angela mentioned a girl called Ivy, too. She said she wasn't nice at all, but scary, with feet that looked like hands."
"She had strange feet, yes."
Patrick suppressed a shudder. "No such thing as children with four hands," he murmured.
"Maybe I'm just confused," Shelagh agreed, voice low.
They didn't talk again till they came home.
Timothy helped his mum up the stairs as Patrick thanked Trixie and let her out.
"Is she alright?" Trixie asked, eyes very big and kind.
"A twisted ankle. She was cold, and slightly dehydrated too, of course, but I think it's nothing that time won't heal," Patrick said.
"I'm glad. It could have ended very differently, you know," she said, giving him a smile and stepping out into the street to where her bike was parked.
"Oh, I know," Patrick whispered.
He closed the door and rubbed his eyes. Part of him wanted to crawl back into the car and look at the sky, let the stars and the moon mesmerize him till he forgot that he could very well have lost his wife today.
Again.
Another part, stronger than the first, made him go upstairs and look at his children.
Teddy was sleeping, chest falling and rising steadily as Patrick rested his hand there for a moment.
Angela's hair was spread out like a fan on her pillow, glowing like gold in the light of the hallway that slipped into her room. She opened her eyes as he came in, and blinked groggily.
"Daddy?" she whispered.
"Yes, Angel girl. I'm sorry I woke you. I just wanted to say that Mummy is back, and she is alright." He sat down on the edge and stroked her head, fingertips fanning out against her scalp, pressing lightly.
"I know," Angela murmured, rubbing her eyes with two chubby hands.
"You did?"
"She came to kiss me goodnight. She smelled like the woods. I was afraid it wasn't her for a moment, but she smelled like milk, too, and she touched my head like only you and Mummy do, so then I knew it really was her."
"Ah," Patrick said.
"I told her about Ivy. She said she met her, too."
"Did she?"
"Yes. I told her I thought Ivy was mean and scary, not like Juniper and Anemone and Evergreen at all."
"And what did your mother say?" Patrick asked.
"That she was a fairy girl all right, but she was just lonely, and she didn't mean any of it that way. She said it was good I didn't give her my real name, and that I gave her some bread. She said she was proud of me."
"Of course she's proud of you, Angela. I'm proud, too," he said. He kissed her forehead, and was about to close her bedroom door, when she asked: "Daddy, are you upset with me?"
"Upset with you?"
"For talking about fairies, and for making Mummy go missing," she said, not looking at him. She put Cuthbert the Second against her face, inhaling his scent.
"Oh, Angela, of course not." He sat down next to her again.
"Mummy said I should not talk about fairies with you anymore. She says you find it upsetting," she whispered, voice muffled through Cuthbert's ear. "She says you don't believe in them."
Didn't he? He could chalk Shelagh's rambling about them up to confusion caused by dehydration, but how, then, could he explain that both his wife and his daughter talked about the same fairy? They had never mentioned this particular fairy girl before.
Patrick sighed. "Come here, you."
She sat up and curled against his side. He tucked her under his arm and kissed her head, still warm from sleep.
"Do you remember what we said about God?"
She nodded. "Mummy says He's there, but you can't see Him, and that some people need to see to believe. She says that you don't always know about God for sure."
"And does that stop her from talking about Him, and believing in Him?"
Angela shook her head.
"I think it might be the same thing with fairies, Angel girl. I have never seen one, so I don't know for sure whether they exist. Maybe they do. Maybe, one day, I'll see one, and I know you and your Mum have been right all along. In the meantime, just don't wander off again without telling us." He kissed her head once more.
"I didn't mean to, Daddy, but she made me. Ivy made me," Angela said, curling her hands into Cuthbert's matted ears.
Patrick wondered what it was like to believe like that with all your heart.
"Well, we won't go back to that forest any time soon, don't you worry," he said, and tucked her in again.
"Goodnight, Daddy," she whispered, eyelids fighting a losing battle against sleep.
"Goodnight, darling girl," he said.
Timothy was already in bed, sprawled on his belly, soft snores issuing from his mouth. Patrick grinned, and pulled a blanket over him, stroking his hair. His son had made him proud today. He had kept a cool head when Patrick had felt like weeping, and had waited for hours at the gnarled oak without complaint, probably only with the occasional eye-roll. Tim was a man now. Well, almost.
He found Shelagh in the bathtub, hugging her knees to her chest. Her dirty clothes lay in a heap next to the bath. Her glasses perched on the sink, already misted over. She had washed her hair, and it lay plastered against her neck, one tendril curling against her throat.
"Shelagh?"
She looked at him, and gave him a weary smile. "The children are asleep," she said.
"Yes." He knelt down next to her and touched her shoulder. For a moment, he didn't know where to start, so many feelings mingling in his belly that he didn't know what he felt at all.
"You must be tired," she said, pushing his floppy hair from his forehead with a small hand.
He enveloped it with his own, then kissed it and pressed it over the cavity where his heart beat for her.
"Shelagh, I am so, so sorry. This should have been a fun day, and instead it turned into a nightmare."
She looked at him with moist eyes, then cupped his face. "You don't have to apologise, Patrick. It is not your fault; it is mine."
He knit is eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, Patrick," she sighed, "I should have been honest with you. I should have talked to you about my childhood instead of tucking it away and pretending all was well. I can't help but feel that you wouldn't have done all of this if you hadn't felt as if I was hiding something from you. I should have told you I was a lonely child."
"But Shelagh, I knew that."
She blinked in surprise. "You knew?"
"I guessed there was a very real possibility, in any case. That's why I wanted to give you this day: so you could make a new memory with fairies, one that was happy."
"I didn't know," she said.
"Why didn't you want to tell me, darling?" Patrick asked, stroking her knuckles. There were dark circles underneath her nails.
"Because I didn't want you to pity me," she murmured, voice low, eyes trained on the cake of soap that glistened in its holder.
"Shelagh, didn't you want me to take care of you?"
"I don't know," she confessed, rubbing her eyes. "It's not that I don't think you are capable to help me when I need it; it's just that I prefer not to need help at all, because if I don't need help, it means nothing is out of sorts. It means I am doing fine, and I am not hurting, or at least I'm not hurting so much that I can't manage."
He remembered when the doctors had told her of her infertility, and he had tried his best to look after her. She had been up and about as soon as she could, insisting on doing housework even though the red line on her abdomen had been more wound than scar. She had wanted things to go back to normal as soon as possible. Patrick suddenly felt like an absolute fool for not realising it sooner.
He stood, and pulled his tie off, fingers stumbling on the tight knot for a second before he managed to wrench the blasted thing free.
"What are you doing?" Shelagh asked as he pulled his jumper over his head and threw it down.
"Getting in the bath with you."
"But…"
"No complaints, Mrs. Turner. You need to put that poor ankle of yours up, and how exactly are you going to wash yourself in that position?" he said, voice serious but eyes twinkling.
"Patrick, everything will get wet," she softly scolded him, but she still scooted over so he could get in behind her and bracket her with his legs. The water was hot and soapy.
"Ankle up," he ordered her. He was pretty sure she rolled her eyes at him, but she did as he told her, and leaned against his chest. He slung his arms around her and kissed her temple.
"I thought you were going to wash me."
"All things in due course, or do you have an appointment with a certain fairy that lives in our garden?" he quipped.
She didn't laugh. "Today was very strange, Patrick," she said instead. "And I know you don't believe in fairies at all, but I would swear I met one today, even though I often think that the fairies of my childhood must have been figments of my imagination. "
"Maybe they do exist. Who knows?"
She sat up and turned around to look at him. "You don't believe that," she said.
He shrugged. "We learn new things about the world every day. Maybe one day we will find conclusive proof of whether fairies exist. Maybe we never will. Until then, we can't know for sure," he said.
"No," she agreed.
Patrick picked up a sponge and dipped it in the water. "All I know for now is that you've had a horrible day," he said, gently wiping the dirt from a bruise on her back.
"I'd like to see it more as an adventure," she decided.
"An adventure in Faerie," Patrick smiled.
He washed her shoulders, her back, her arms and legs. She had quite the collection of bruises, blooming purple and blue under her skin, and there were scratches on the backs of her hands, but she didn't complain once.
He fetched a chair for her to sit on as he towelled her dry, but she refused, telling him she wasn't that old or that wounded just yet. Instead, she leaned on the edge of the bath as he wiped away the beads of moisture that clung to her.
Shelagh hissed when he touched her breasts.
"Sensitive?" he asked.
"Teddy's feeding is long overdue. I wanted to wash first, but I'm afraid I'll have to wake him up before I can even think of sleeping."
"He won't complain. Trixie said he didn't much care for the tin of formula she brought."
Patrick knelt in front of her and kissed her belly. It wasn't as tight anymore as before her pregnancy, and there were red marks still. He wondered if they would turn silver in time, like the line from her surgery had done.
She carded a hand through his hair as he kissed the soft flesh. "No funny business tonight, Doctor Turner," she murmured, stroking the tip of his ear with her thumb.
"I wasn't planning to," he answered, brushing her hip teasingly as he slid the towel over her legs.
"I had hoped for some when I got up this morning," Shelagh confessed, the tip of her tongue between her teeth as she smirked at him.
"I bet you did," he laughed, and kissed her knee. "It is one of the perks of having a younger wife."
"Patrick?"
He looked up, and met her eyes, blue and liquid and soft. "Yes?"
"I'll do better next time. I'll let you take care of me when I need it."
"You already are doing better, love," he said. She smiled at that.
He got into his pyjamas, helped her into her nightdress, then carried her to bed, propping her hurt foot up with a pillow. Teddy was fussing when he handed him to her.
"Look at you, all grumpy because dinner wasn't to your liking," Shelagh said, and kissed his head as she pulled her nightdress down.
"I'll throw your dress and slip out," Patrick decided.
"You'll do no such thing. I've already ruined a pair of stockings and I lost a shoe. I'm sure that slip and dress can be salvaged," she told him.
"I'll let them soak, then, before everything smells of wet earth and sour milk."
He'd have to clean the bathroom tomorrow too, he reasoned, and ask Tim to pick up some groceries as he came back from school. They'd all have to pull a little more than their usual weight with Shelagh in no fit state to walk, at least not for a little while.
He picked the dirty garments from the floor to put them in the sink.
Something fell on the bathroom tiles with a soft, metallic clink. Patrick grunted as he squatted, hand closing on something small and cool.
"That looks like the one Angela got today," he murmured, rolling the silver charm between the folds of his palm. The little bell chimed merrily.
A sudden gust of wind howled around the house, carrying the sound of someone giggling. A shiver ran along his vertebrae. "Just the wind, "Patrick told himself. He dumped the dress and slip in the sink, trying not to look over his shoulder as he filled it with water. The back of his neck prickled, as if something was watching him.
He put the charm in his pocket.
Should he tell Angela he had found it? Should he tell Shelagh it had come from her clothes?
Patrick shook his head. No, he'd give it to his daughter in a few days, and claim it was a new one.
After all, there were only so many fairy-related adventures one family could go through in one day.
If you guys liked the vibe of this story, maybe check out some of my fairy tale retellings!