“I just—” I say.It’s too late, Seraphine. You’re too late.“I wanted to talk to Michael... But not if—”
Michael’s demeanor has relaxed since Joel’s appearance. His anxiety gone, he beams suddenly, wagging a finger at me.
“Oh, I remember you,” he says. “Seraphine Mayes. The little sprite.”
Joel opens his mouth, a horrified expression forming as he looks from Michael to me, but I interrupt him.
“It’s okay. Honestly.”
I meet Joel’s gaze for a second, and he seems moderately reassured, his shoulders relaxing slightly. He indicates a pair of wooden chairs.
“Well, have a seat in the shade, if you’re sure. I’ll get you a drink.”
He disappears inside again, and my breathing steadies. Michael is already settling himself into his chair, huffing and puffing, and I perch on the other one.
“These are lovely,” I say, nodding at the profusion of pink impatiens that spill from a terracotta pot on the table between us, but Michael doesn’t appear to hear.
“Oh, Seraphine Mayes,” he says. “She can bear a grudge, that one, that’s for sure. Everything’s always someone else’s fault.”
I clear my throat, checking over my shoulder, hoping Joel didn’t hear that.
“I’d really like to hear about the day we were born, Mr. Harris. The Summerbourne sprites? Do you remember my mother, Ruth?”
Michael leans forward with a grunt, to pinch a dead flower head off a plant, but he smiles as he leans back, rolling it between finger and thumb.
“Oh yes, she were a good woman, Ruth. Kind. Helped me out no end when I had this young’un to look after.” He points his chin at Joel, who has reappeared with two tall glasses of lemonade. “Such a tragedy, her going over the cliff like that.”
“Grandad, please,” Joel says, placing the glasses on the table.
“It’s okay,” I say.
Joel steps back into the cottage and returns with a third chair and a glass for himself, and sits a little apart from us. I twist in my seat to face Michael.
“Go on, Mr. Harris,” I say. “Can you tell me about that day? About what happened to Ruth, and what happened to her babies?”
Michael shoots me a sly look then. “Ah, about the sprites, is it? Ruth’s baby got stolen, and the fairies took pity on her and gave her little sprite twins. What d’you think of that, then?” He sits back, looking pleased with himself.
One baby stolen? This doesn’t even match the story Pamela told me.
“But, Mr. Harris. It’s a—an interesting story. But what really happened? There’s no such thing as fairies.”
I give him a tentative smile, but his face darkens.
“Don’t you be so sure, missy. I seen witches at Summerbourne. Witches that hang in trees and steal babies. I burned their cloaks, you know. Those twins weren’t right.”
Joel makes a noise in his throat, but I speak first, leaning closer to Michael.
“Which twins weren’t right, Mr. Harris—me and Danny? What do you mean?”
“Summerbourne ent never allowed to keep its twins,” Michael says, and his gaze drifts to the end of the lane and the Summerbourne chimneys that can just be glimpsed over the hedgerow. “One of them, or the other of them, maybe. But not both. Ruth and Robin—the fairies couldn’t let them both live, could they? And—what was his name?—the little blond boy who toddled right over the edge of the cliff.”
“Theo,” I whisper.
“That’s it,” Michael says.
“And what about us, Mr. Harris? What about Danny and Seraphine?”
“That weren’t right,” he says slowly. “Oh, that family, theywanted their twins again. But what they did weren’t right. I saw the midnight woman come.”
