The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,100

I said, ‘I must go and check the River Walk!’

‘Leave the bags full of prunings and I’ll take those down to the compost heap in the morning,’ he said, and we walked back together to the Potting Shed to clean and put away the tools I’d been using.

Gertie and James were just leaving for home, though Charlie had dashed off earlier. But then, as Gertie said, he was only of use in a garden if there was someone there to tell him what to do.

‘He doesn’t know a dandelion from a dahlia, but he’s cheerful and willing.’

‘He seemed to like the Poison Corner,’ I said. ‘He calls it the Triangle of Death.’

‘He’s still such a boy,’ she said indulgently.

I thought Ned might vanish into his office, but instead he ignored the eternally ringing phone and said he’d walk up the river with me.

‘I need the exercise.’

‘Gardeners get exercise all day,’ I pointed out.

‘You know what I mean – a good walk is different.’

I did know and after collecting the stick and bag, we set off together. It was much later than usual and the last of the visitors had long since vanished. Dark shadows lay across the path like splashes of ink and, for once, I felt glad of the company.

23

Celestial

‘You didn’t mind my coming with you, did you?’ Ned asked after a few minutes of silent walking.

‘No, not at all, though I have been up to the falls at dawn when I did want to be alone. Anyway, I’d have told you straight out if I didn’t want you to come.’

‘So you would,’ he agreed. ‘Were you communing with the angels, or fairies, or whatever hangs out up here?’

His voice didn’t sound teasing, but quite serious and then he added reminiscently, ‘Dawn’s a good time of day to do that – I often did when I was staying here with my uncle and aunt in the school holidays. Theo made me promise not to go near the edge, where the rock is slippery, but Aunt Wen just said that if something with wings tried to lure me through a door into the rock face, I should decline politely. I was pretty sure she was joking.’

‘Did you ever see or hear anything … unusual, or hard to explain?’

He looked at me sideways, through those amber-brown lion’s eyes. ‘I sometimes thought I heard voices and faraway laughter. And once I was certain I’d caught sight of something … winged.’ He shrugged. ‘When I looked properly, there was nothing there.’

‘Yes, that’s how I’ve felt too, and the impression of a presence and wings is very strong. It’s nothing to do with birds, because they all seem to go still and silent when it happens. But you can’t pin anything down; it could easily be imagination and the effect of light through the leaves and spray, couldn’t it?’

‘Quite possibly, but some places do have an aura about them, almost as if they were portals to another world, and this is one of them.’

‘But if there are winged creatures,’ I said, ‘are they angels or fairies? I think Elf and Myfy are more of the angel persuasion.’

‘Actually, they think fairies and angels are one and the same thing,’ he said. ‘Not the cutesy Cottingley type of fairy, but taller, feathery winged and looking like the angels flying about in the top of the stained-glass window in St Gabriel’s church.’

‘I really must see that when I have enough time. I should start making a list of all the things I want to do, if I ever have a day to myself. Perhaps the angels in the window impressed themselves on the imagination of that little girl in the old story, so that her imagination conjured up one here by the falls?’

‘Or maybe she fell asleep and dreamed it all, but we’ll never know. And the Victorians preferred their fairy folk dancing about, weaving flowers into crowns, or whatever harmless nonsense they could think of.’

‘Some of the Victorian fairy books, especially the ones with the Rackham illustrations, were pretty scary, though,’ I said doubtfully. ‘Myfy’s paintings in the café-gallery are a bit unsettling too, now I’ve had a closer look.’

‘It’s amazing how much you think you can see in her paintings that really isn’t there at all,’ he said. ‘Much like the effect up here, by the falls.’

We’d lingered there a lot longer than I’d realized and when we set off back, it was hard to see any litter under the dark bushes, but I collected