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Maddie craned closer, placing a hand on Finn’s shoulder in an entirely natural state of curiosity. She leaned in and smiled when she saw the picture. “She looks just like you,” Maddie exclaimed.
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“Do you think so?” Finn studied the illustration. The fairy was indeed similar, at least in terms of size and complexion. Her eyes were green and her hair was long and red; her skin was pale as cream and her figure dainty. Her wings were made of leaves and spider’s web silk, and little specks of sand from the bottom of the river made them shimmer.
“Oh, yes.” Maddie begin to read aloud from the page. “Seraphim,” her voice was husky and reverent. “The most powerful and highest ranked of all the angels.”
Seraphina smiled. “Yes, and faeries like to borrow from the Seraphim from time to time,” she nodded towards the picture.
“You are an angel,” Maddie said, turning to study the woman curiously.
“No,” she shook her head sadly. “But it was very important to my mother than I be named for them.”
“Oh, why?” Maddie’s hand still rested on Finn’s shoulder, and Finn understood the sensitivity in the young girl. She didn’t want to do anything that might suggest she wished to discourage their friendship.
“Well,” she said earnestly, her eyes seeking Maddie’s. She forced herself to ignore the similarities to Caradoc’s. “My mother died only a month after I was born.”
“Oh,” Maddie exclaimed, clasping her spare hand to her mouth. “That’s very sad.”
“Yes,” Finn agreed. In so many ways, but none of them bore discussion at that point. “She liked to think that she would become an angel, and through my name, I might also.”
Maddie exhaled a breath slowly. “That’s lovely.”
“Yes.” She smiled. “But the name is quite cumbersome, which is why most everyone calls me Finn instead.”
“It’s the same with my name, Madison,” she said ingeniously. “You can call me Maddie, by the way.”
“Thank you, Maddie.” Finn reached up and squeezed Maddie’s hand. “You want to know the real reason I became a chauffeur?”
Maddie nodded earnestly.
“Because I love to read. I always have. When I was your age, I used to lie for hours with a book in my hand, imagining I was anywhere but London.”
“Did you really?” Maddie crinkled her nose again. “I’ve never met a grown up who liked to read.”
Again, Finn’s heart crumpled. “My father is just the same as me. We didn’t even own a television set when I was growing up.”
“A television …do you mean a TV?”
“Uh huh,” Finn agreed dolefully. “We didn’t need one. We used to read and read and read, and when we weren’t reading, we were in his garage playing with the cars.”
“What was your favourite book? When you were my age?”
“Hmmm,” Finn studied Maddie cautiously. “Are you ten or eleven?”
“I’m nine,” Maddie grinned, evidently pleased by having been thought older.
“Right. When I was nine, I just adored The Chronicles of Narnia. Everyone raves about The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, of course, but it was The Magician’s Nephew that used to captivate me every time I read it.”
“I don’t know them,” Maddie said urgently. “Show them to me.”
Finn smiled. “Well, I suspect you’d have read them if you had them here.”
Her pretty little face fell. “Oh, yeah.”
“But how about I find a copy for you?”
“Would you really do that for me?”
