Page 49 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

‘She’s not a dragon. The reason we’re here is because she’s human!’

‘And she can’t be both, you endless clodpoll of an arse?’

Frida snorted out a laugh, then covered her mouth with a hand when Dozy glowered furiously at her. She didn’t have time to recoil however as seconds later, a tiny spider launched themselves from the folds of Dozy’s jumpsuit. In the faint bioluminescent light of the webs, she could see the shine of the spider’s tiny eyes as they lunged across the room and landed soundlessly on the back of her left hand. She bit back a squeak, trying to hold perfectly still.

‘Hello,’ she whispered.

Hamish’s foster brother had a pet jumping spider named Jonas. Like Jonas, this spider was no bigger than her thumbnail. A male, she guessed, from the size of him. Pedipalps like boxing gloves. But his whispery, glittery voice vibrated through her like taut threads being plucked. ‘Hello, not quite a dragon, not quite a human.’

She grinned. She couldn’t help it.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked, tilting his black and white speckled head.

Dozy rolled their eyes from the corner.

‘Frida Rose,’ she answered. Somewhere, far in the distance, she had the sense of a web tightening around her. Frida Rose? Is it you? A long way away, words like crunching leaves. She felt a shudder run through her.

‘Oh, that is a lovely name,’ the spider cried, pulling her attention back as he scuttled back and forth across her hand. ‘My name,’ he said with pride, ‘is Behemoth Artilius Twirel Night Weaver the Tenth.’

‘He answers to Moth,’ Dozy cut in with another scathing eye roll.

Moth tsked. ‘Only because you’re uncultured, Dian.’

Frida burst out laughing. It earned her another withering look from the fairy, but it was worth it as Moth scampered away, vaulting the high jump from crate to crate until he landed with a squeak back on Dozy’s shoulder. Even across the room, she could hear them bickering. Then, she blinked. Dian. The spider had called the fairy Dian.

‘Is that your name?’ she whispered. ‘Dian?’ Even as she said it out loud, it seemed to slot into place in her mind, like it had always been there.

Dozy – Dian – closed their eyes, long green eyelashes, so dark to be almost black, falling over their cheeks. Moth chuckled, like a ticking clock on speed. Then, making Frida’s head soar, he took a flying leap back across the room, onto Frida’s shirt collar.

‘Pay them no heed,’ he stage-whispered, darting up her neck until he was nestled in the shell of her ear, and she had to concentrate very hard on not squealing. ‘Dian takes a long time to be nice to new people. It’s nothing against you, Frida Rose.’ He gave a forbearing sigh. ‘People born from the roots of trees can be like that, sometimes.’

The roots of trees? Frida snuck an awed look at Dian, despite herself, and for a split second, they caught each other’s eye. Frida could hear the tap-tap of their piano-playing hands against their knees, their forest-mottled skin blending with the pooling shadows. Dian flushed and quickly looked away, back at the floor.

The spider continued conspiratorially, ‘Also, Dian isn’t their true name. Fairies keep their true names secret, like squirrels hoarding shiny nuts. Their names hold immeasurable power. I’m their dearest companion in all the world, but even I do not know their true name.’

Dian made a disgusted noise in the back of their throat. ‘You’re my worst companion in all the world at this particular moment.’

Frida couldn’t help smiling. It was exactly the kind of thing she said to her best friends. The thought of Antony and Hamish pinched – but for a moment the familiar banter made her feel less alone. And Moth’s pit-like, front-facing eyes were oddly kind.

‘Dian is short for guardian,’ the spider whispered. ‘For however much it pains them, they are the guardian of the hawthorn tree, from which they were born, and me and my ancestors are the guardians of them. It is poetic, I think.’

Dian was staring despairingly at the ceiling, looking as if they were considering how bad it would be, really, if they squashed the spider by mistake. ‘You wouldn’t know poetry if you jumped on it, Moth.’

Moth sniffed. ‘That’s rude.’

But Frida wasn’t listening. The hawthorn tree. The familiar name sent dread spider-walking down her spine. In her mind’s eye, she saw the LEZ’s Hawthorn of Higgleton Common, hulking out of the meadow like a shipwreck. Burnt from Lucky’s lightning. Surrounded by the shards of a Coffin. Did she not need to wonder anymore how the fairy had become trapped inside? Was the LEZ’s Hawthorn the tree from which they’d been born? She felt she knew the answer, as surely as she knew her own name, and she didn’t like it one bit. But Dian and Moth had no idea. No idea that in the future, a commuter trainline worth sixty billion pounds was spearing straight for them. Suddenly, it felt as if there wasn’t enough air, and it had nothing to do with being trapped in a cellar.

What was she was supposed to do? She opened her mouth to tell them everything, but even as she did so, the world seemed to twist. It felt as if she was standing before a younger version of herself, unaware that in her future, her mum was going to die in a terrible, painful way. Her mouth snapped shut.

‘Are all fairies born from trees?’ It was something to say, anything other than the truth clawing up her throat. The moment she said it though, she flushed, for it felt too intimate a question, but Moth answered immediately.

‘Of course,’ he said fondly. ‘It’s in their nature.’ He bounded up and down her arm. ‘Take heart, for Dian is not as knotty as some of the others. They may prickle sometimes, but their heart is soft.’ The spider cocked his head and gazed up at her, unblinking and solemn. ‘Like a berry. Squishable. You’ll find out, I think.’

‘Oh, by the rain and sky . . .’ Dian swore under their breath.

‘Anyway,’ said Moth, escalating into a spider shout. ‘We’ve got no time for your sulking.’

Dian glared. ‘I’m not sulking.’