A new story? In this year of our lord 2023? Well, I actually wrote this last summer to pitch to magazines. BUT STILL. Here you go. No blurb because you have this wonderful illustration by my friend Tatchiana Michaela, a Bristol-based illustrator (who is open for commissions if you’re interested!). As per, it was available on Patreon for a few weeks first.
Until it turned out to be magic, Estelle did not like the new house. It was too big—three times the size of the old flat if Estelle’s calculations were correct—and the pipes gurgled, and the carpets smelt funny.
‘It just needs an air, some cleaning and some love,’ Estelle’s mother insisted. Indeed, she spent most of her time since they moved in scrubbing, vacuuming and polishing various surfaces. Estelle helped a bit, but the only part of the house she really liked was the garden. It was huge, with a murky pond and old bat boxes, the lawn full of plants and flowers long since gone to seed. It was so much better than the tiny balcony in the old flat that when Estelle first saw it, she forgave her mother entirely for moving them miles away from their friends and into a house with noisy pipes.
It was at the bottom of the garden on a late August morning that she found the clock, and life got interesting.
The sun was high and bright as Estelle lurked near the back fence, her mother having a cup of tea with one of their new neighbours. Estelle took her time inspecting all the different flowers, trying to figure out which were planted and which merely appeared, when her toe brushed against a small, decorative clock. It was wooden, the sort you saw on antiques programmes but not in real life, with patterns carved into the wood and heavy metal hands pointing to painted numbers. Its hands were stuck at ten past five. No, ten past four. Estelle was still learning Roman numerals. Maybe it was so small that it had gotten lost when the previous owners moved out.
As Estelle examined the clock, she felt a strange kind of thrill in her stomach—excitement, the sort she had been lacking since their move, the sort that thrummed with adventure. The sort that promised—and she knew she was too old for such things but didn’t care—magic.
Estelle showed the clock to her mother. ‘You can keep it if you can get it working,’ her mother said. ‘Put that toolbox to good use.’ Estelle had requested and received a toolbox the previous Christmas but was generally restricted to tinkering with boring household items, like shelves.
Up in her bedroom, Estelle inspected the clock for a battery compartment, or a cover for a pendulum or cogs. She could see neither. She wondered if the clock was so old that it predated both electricity and mechanics. In that case, how did it work?
Ah, there! A seam where she would expect a battery compartment, almost hidden in the polished wood. Estelle pushed at it, in case there was a spring mechanism. Nothing happened. She dug her nail into the seam, in case there was a pull mechanism. Nothing happened.
She left the clock on her desk and went to see if her mother had brought out the biscuit tin.
Late that night, Estelle awoke to a tapping sound. At first she thought it was the pipes, or a bird outside, and turned over.
Taptaptaptap.
It was coming from her desk.
She padded over, goosebumps rising on her arms, and turned on the desk light. It was the clock. Or rather, something inside the clock.
Taptaptap.
The seam! Perhaps it was the angle of the light, or perhaps she hadn’t tried hard enough earlier, but now Estelle was sure she could see a full outline of what looked like a battery compartment. She leant over and pushed experimentally.
‘Oh, phew, thank you! I didn’t think anyone was ever going to hear me.’
Estelle wondered if she was still asleep. Inside the battery compartment, instead of a battery, was an extremely small person, sitting cross legged and waving up at her.
Estelle blinked down. She readjusted the lamp angle. She leaned closer to the clock. The contents of the compartment remained a person.
‘Hello,’ Estelle said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Hello! I’m—’ what followed was a soft hissing. Estelle had not travelled much, but it sounded a little like her friend Mia’s native Italian crossed with windchimes.
‘Pardon?’
‘Ah, in English it sounds more like… well, it’s hard to translate. Call me Kelly.’
‘I’m Estelle.’ She thought for a moment, surveying Kelly’s miniscule features. Estelle knew that some people were much smaller than average, but she had never heard of someone who could fit inside the compartment of a mantelpiece clock. ‘What are you, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘I don’t mind at all. I’m one of the fair folk.’
‘Fair folk? You’re not blonde.’
Kelly laughed. ‘Not fair as in hair colour. Fair as in fairy.’
Estelle nodded, like she understood. She peered closer. It might have been because Kelly was so small, or it might have been that something in her brain was preventing her from believing her own eyes, but she could not tell any distinguishing features apart from a curtain of long dark hair, greenish eyes with pupils so large they took up almost the whole eye, and a simple outfit of a linen tunic and trousers. Estelle realised she wasn’t sure if Kelly was a boy or a girl, or if that was a concept you could apply to fairies. Kelly had long hair, but then Estelle had very short hair and she was definitely a girl.
‘How old are you?’ Kelly asked. They stared up at Estelle, much the same way as Estelle stared down at them. Miniscule leaves were growing out of the clock, Estelle noticed suddenly. They definitely hadn’t been there a minute ago, but now there was a string of vines—ivy, maybe—growing out of the clock hatch and around the clock, fast enough Estelle could watch as one vine wound its way around one of Kelly’s wrists. Kelly glanced down at it and away.
‘I’m nine,’ replied Estelle. ‘How old are you?’
‘Older than nine.’
Most people were older than nine, Estelle thought, but she didn’t want to sound rude. ‘What are you doing in my clock?’ she asked.
‘It was my clock first,’ Kelly answered. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘In the garden.’ Estelle wondered if every conversation with Kelly would go like this.
‘Hm. The previous owners were a little haphazard with their belongings. They left all sorts of treasures behind.’ Kelly grinned, and Estelle saw they had pointed teeth, like an anglerfish.
‘What are you doing inside the clock?’ Estelle asked again.
‘It’s a long story,’ Kelly said. They pouted. ‘I don’t think we have time enough for it tonight.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I can hear your mother coming down the hall.’
Estelle listened and realised she could too. She barely had time to click off the light and dive into bed before her mother opened the door and was not fooled by Estelle’s attempts to look asleep.
‘Estelle? What are you doing up?’
‘A sound woke me up,’ Estelle said truthfully. She was not prone to dishonesty, so her mother nodded.
‘A sound woke me up too. I could have sworn I heard talking.’ She sniffed the air. ‘Have you left a window open? I can smell moss.’
‘I opened it for a bit,’ Estelle said quickly. ‘It’s really warm in here. I was talking to… the stars.’ She tried to avoid glancing at the desk, to avoid drawing her mother’s attention to it. She didn’t want to tell her mother about Kelly—she was not sure her mother would be too pleased that she’d bought a house that was already occupied—but she didn’t want now to be the time she started lying, either. She and her mother got along well, and Estelle knew from school friends that she was lucky to enjoy so much freedom.
Her mother yawned. ‘Talking to the stars. Of course you were. Have a read if you can’t nod off, but only for a bit. Busy day tomorrow.’
It was still the school holidays tomorrow, but Estelle nodded. ‘Night.’
‘Night night.’
Estelle waited until she heard her mother’s bedroom door close to creep back to her desk. Now she thought about it, she could smell moss too. Damp air, like woodland after rain. She began to push the hatch back into the clock.
‘Hey,’ Kelly protested. ‘What are you doing—’
‘It’s really late. I’ll see you tomorrow!’ She clicked the hatch into place and climbed back into bed. She did try having a read to fall asleep, but her head was too busy to focus on the words.
When she awoke the next morning, a tiny vine was growing from her pillow.
Estelle didn’t get the chance to open the clock again until the following evening. She and her mother had been invited to a neighbour’s house for lunch, which turned into an afternoon-encompassing event in which Estelle’s mother and their neighbour drank tea and gossiped, and Estelle was left with the neighbour’s child, a girl of about Estelle’s age whose main interests were her iPad and online dance videos. Estelle suggested going into their garden, which was colourful and carefully cultivated, with an excellent swing.
The child just blinked at her and said, ‘You have leaves in your hair.’
Later that day, when Estelle’s mother was getting ready for bed and Estelle was supposed to be in bed, Estelle flicked on her desk light, angled it away from the door to avoid her mother’s attention and clicked open the clock hatch.
‘Hello Estelle!’ Kelly said cheerfully. ‘Good to see you back. Nice day?’
‘Not really,’ Estelle said, and although a part of her still could not believe she had found a fairy inside a clock, she found herself telling Kelly all about the missed opportunity of the swing. After a few minutes, she realised she was being rude.
‘What did you do today?’ she asked Kelly. Then she felt stupid. How much could you do sitting in a clock?
Kelly picked up on her embarrassment. ‘Oh, nothing much,’ they shrugged. There was just enough room for them to uncross their legs and stretch out, but it would be near-impossible to stand up, even without the tiny vines still growing around their limbs. ‘I tend to sit around thinking. Sometimes I make up puzzles or little games. I’d much rather sit around with boring neighbours. It’s been a while since I enjoyed decent company, yourself excepted.’
‘Why are you inside the clock?’ Estelle asked. She knew this was at least the third time she’d asked, but if she was honest, she’d thought of little else all day. ‘If I lived in a clock, I would not spend much time at home.’
‘It’s less that I live here… and more that I was placed here.’
‘Like a prison? Why?’
‘Oh, it’s a long story. Very depressing.’ Kelly flapped a hand dismissively.
‘We have time. Mum’s doing her bedtime routine. Please.’
‘Well… all right. You see, there’s a whole community of fairies. A hierarchy.’
‘Right,’ Estelle said, hoping that she correctly understood the word hierarchy.
‘And, well, I upset some of the fairies higher up in the hierarchy than I was. So they put me inside this clock.’
‘For how long?’
‘Forever.’
Estelle thought about forever, watching as a vine wove around one of the clock hands and then around Kelly’s ankle. ‘That’s extreme.’
‘It is, isn’t it? There’s no one to talk to, unless someone opens the hatch, which almost nobody does.’
‘How do you eat? Where is the bathroom?’
‘Time moves differently for us,’ Kelly said with a small smile. Their sharp, pointed teeth flashed a little in the low light. ‘Those things aren’t such a problem. Now, tell me about how you moved to this house.’
‘Well,’ Estelle said, rearranging herself on her desk chair, ‘we used to live in London…’
For the next several days, Estelle found herself looking forward to her evening meetings with Kelly. With so many weeks left before school began, and knowing so few people, she felt isolated in the new house. There were only so many letters to Mia that could begin with ‘Not much going on here!’ She wasn’t surprised that she began dreaming of Kelly, and of huge trees. Sometimes she swore she woke up to the smell of leaf litter and mist, or could hear waves crashing against rocks. She did not mind. Kelly had the best stories, about music and dancing and magic.
‘And that was when the shrub fell over!’ Kelly finished with a cackle. Estelle had to stuff her pyjama top into her mouth to muffle her laughter.
‘We’ve never had anything like that happen at a family party,’ she said ruefully, after she got her breath back. ‘My aunt punched my other aunt at Christmas once, but that was about it.’
‘What was the argument about?’
Estelle thought about it. ‘My uncle.’
Kelly sniggered, but not in a cruel way, and Estelle thought about how grateful she was for having opened the clock and met Kelly. A comfortable silence filled the room. Estelle wondered how to word her thoughts, but Kelly seemed to pick up on her thinking and was content to leave her to it.
‘You must have done something really awful to end up inside this clock. Some people do terrible things and only get minor punishments, like politicians breaking lockdown rules and only getting a small fine. You’re stuck inside a clock forever.’
Kelly looked sad for the first time all evening. A vine grew up around their shoulder and they scratched at it absently. ‘I suppose… when I look back, it was my own fault, really. I had ideas about how to improve the community, and a few people agreed with me, so we got together to ask the… the Prime Fairy, as you might say, to make the changes.’
‘But?’ Estelle prompted. Now Kelly was looking past Estelle, out of her bedroom window into the darkness beyond. Their pupils were so large the entire eye looked black.
‘The Prime Fairy disagreed with our requests, and didn’t want us making any more. Our little group was broken up, and I ended up here.’
Eternity inside a clock seemed to Estelle an unreasonable punishment for anything, let alone for trying to do something nice. ‘Could I help you leave?’
‘I don’t know. I doubt it. But thank you for offering.’
‘I can probably find a way. There’s loads of time before school starts.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Oh, it’s gone ten. I have to go to sleep!’
‘Would you truly try to help me escape my prison?’ Kelly’s face was carefully blank, but Estelle thought she detected a flicker of hope.
‘Of course.’ Estelle meant it. ‘I’d hate to be locked up in a small space. When the pandemic ended, I decided I was never going to stay indoors for a minute longer than I had to, ever again. Besides, we’re friends.’
Kelly’s eyes, mostly green again, crinkled into a smile. ‘We are friends, aren’t we? I’d almost forgotten what it’s like. You enjoy the outdoors, don’t you? A child after my own heart.’
Estelle smiled, bade them good night, and closed the clock hatch with a click. That night, she dreamed of a forest floor, covered in lichen and old leaves. Laughter echoed through the trees. She woke up with tears on her face, although she wasn’t sure why. It had been a happy dream.
It took a trip to the library for Estelle to find information on the fair folk (it was not difficult to persuade your mother of the importance of a library card when you were poor and she was busy). It was strange, Estelle thought as she browsed the shelves. She had trouble keeping Kelly’s face in her mind when she wasn’t looking at them, like something was stopping her brain from making a complete picture. She couldn’t recall their hair colour, or tone of voice. Shrugging it off, Estelle grabbed a handful of books from the shelf and took them to a table. Leaf litter dusted the titles, like a gust of wind had blown through an open window.
‘Estelle?’
‘Hm?’ Estelle glanced up from her table. Her mother was standing in front of her, one hand on Estelle’s shoulder.
‘Estelle, I was speaking to you and you completely ignored me.’
‘Did I?’
‘You didn’t even blink when I waved my hand in front of you face.’
Estelle frowned. ‘I was just reading.’
‘I can see that.’ Estelle’s mother tapped her foot, the way she only did when she was furious or scared.
‘I must have lost track of time. I didn’t mean to ignore you.’
Her mother exhaled. ‘I know you didn’t. Let’s go home.’
That evening, Estelle read her chosen book passages to Kelly. ‘I’m not sure,’ Kelly said dubiously. ‘They seem a bit… human-centric.’
‘Well, all of them were written by humans,’ Estelle said reasonably. At least, she thought it was reasonable until she saw Kelly’s eyes flash with anger. ‘What do you suggest?’ she asked quickly.
‘I think you have to remove the clock from the property,’ Kelly said. ‘At least two previous owners have tried to get rid of it when they’ve decluttered or moved, but they’ve never quite… managed.’
‘What makes you think I can if other people haven’t?’ Estelle asked.
‘Like you said, we’re friends. That’s a strong bond. It’s hard to break a true friendship, you know. They’re stronger than diamonds.’
Estelle tried not to show how pleased she was to hear that.
‘We’re going to visit my grandmother on Saturday. I’ll take the clock with me.’
‘Your grandmother’s the one with the squint?’
‘No, that’s my aunt. Nan came out here a few years ago and in lockdown Mum decided she wanted to live here too. Nan’s just a few minutes up the road by bus, but definitely off this property.’
‘Human days are hard for me. When is Saturday?’
‘The day after tomorrow.’
‘Saturday it is,’ Kelly agreed. ‘Remind me, which of your cousins used to stick rocks up his nose?’
‘Martin. He’s the one who…’
The following afternoon, Estelle and her mother met their neighbour in the local park for a picnic. It felt exciting, at first, packing an entire dining set into a pretty basket to walk to the park. Once set up, the neat little picnic reminded Estelle of Kelly’s clock. Then wasps began to circle, and Estelle remembered she didn’t like tomatoes, and her mother and the neighbour began to gossip about people Estelle didn’t know. Thankfully, the iPad-obsessed daughter was spending the day with her father. After a while, Estelle got up and wandered around the park, looking at the trees. It wasn’t a huge space, but it felt expansive, with enormous oak trees and meadowland a short distance away from a deliberately manicured picnic area. Estelle sat for a moment against a cool tree trunk, enjoying the feel of the knobbly bark.
‘Are you Estelle?’ asked a voice. Estelle opened her eyes. Until that moment, she hadn’t been aware she was dozing, but the sun had moved. ‘I’m right in front of you,’ the voice continued.
She couldn’t see anyone.
Until she could.
It was another fairy.
‘Hello,’ she said cautiously. ‘I’m Estelle.’
‘I’m Maeve.’ Like Kelly, Maeve wore long hair—this time it was blonde, and curly like Estelle’s—and linen clothes. Maeve seemed cleaner and, Estelle was almost sure, older. Something about the skin around those huge dark eyes. Like Kelly, Estelle couldn’t tell Maeve’s gender, and she had a feeling she wouldn’t remember their face in a few hours. Their only distinguishing feature was an old, mottled burn scar on the side of their neck and face. Unlike Kelly, Maeve was human-sized, as tall as Estelle’s mother, who was still chatting happily only a short distance away.
‘It’s nice to meet you,’ Estelle said. Maeve moved their lips in a way that might have been an attempt at a smile. They had those anglerfish teeth, too.
‘And you. But this isn’t a social call.’
‘Is it about Kelly?’
‘You’re clever.’
‘Two fairies in two weeks isn’t a coincidence.’ Estelle hoped Maeve didn’t watch human crime dramas. This was an adaptation of a line from Estelle’s mother’s favourite.
Maeve just nodded. ‘I’m here to explain why you can’t go through with your plan to take Kelly’s clock away from the house.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ll show you.’ Maeve pulled a stone pendant from their neck. It was a little bit like the tourist necklaces Estelle saw in local shops, made from wire and ‘ancient stone,’ but this was more elegant. ‘Hold this. It will show you a…’ Maeve searched for the word. ‘Video.’
Estelle was sceptical, but took it. She wondered if she was meant to close her eyes, when she realised once again that they were already closed, and she was inside a scene. She could still feel the tree at the back and the grass on her legs, but she could also smell fresh, different, trees and woodsmoke.
She was in a clearing deep in a mossy, hazy wood, the sort she normally only read about or saw on documentaries. The sort that didn’t exist anymore, with hundreds of trees the size of buildings. She realised with a jolt that this was the woodland from her dreams.
A party was in full swing. Estelle could see dozens of fairies, dancing and drinking and gathered around a large fire, generally acting exactly the same way humans did at their parties. Maeve was there, hair arranged in a fancy bun and dressed in a gown that looked woven from gossamer.
Estelle watched for what felt like several minutes, enjoying the smells of cooking food and music from a band of fairies playing string instruments. She remembered Kelly talking about how time worked differently for fairies, and wondered how long ago this had happened. She wondered if it happened right here, in Estelle’s new home. She wondered what her mother would say if the leafy town she’d worked so hard to live in was just a shaved-down copy of this lush forest. She wondered what the fairies of the forest would say if they saw London.
With a whoosh of cold air, the fire blew out. So did dozens of torchlit lanterns. The atmosphere changed immediately. Within a couple of seconds, all music and dancing stopped. The fairies stood still, alert. They looked very not human to Estelle then, their huge eyes blinking into the darkness and their bodies utterly motionless. Estelle couldn’t even see them breathing.
Then: a parade. Fairy upon fairy, wearing rough leathery clothes and brandishing lit torches. The fire of these torches wasn’t the friendly orange of before, but a bright green-blue. Estelle, fascinated by science, knew this meant the wood torches might be made of cedar, or embedded with copper. She wondered if this was relevant in fairy-world. The parade strode into the clearing like they were part of the party, but they weren’t smiling. Bringing up the rear, wearing a woven wooden crown, was Kelly.
‘FELLOW CITIZENS.’ Kelly’s voice echoed terribly. ‘IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO JOIN YOUR KIN AND ACCEPT ME AS YOUR RIGHTFUL LEADER.’
A few fairies stepped forward to face the intruders. They weren’t armed, but they didn’t look afraid.
Maeve, Estelle realised now, was in charge. They strode to Kelly and, although they wore a flimsy dress and slippers, seemed to take up twice as much space as Kelly.
‘No,’ Maeve said. They did not move, or say anything else. Estelle suspected Maeve was not someone who needed to elaborate on instructions very often.
The clearing was silent for several seconds.
‘Fine,’ said Kelly through gritted teeth. ‘Well, we offered you the peaceful version.’ They lifted their torch and Estelle realised what was about to happen just in time to look away.
She couldn’t stop hearing Maeve’s wail of agony, though, or avoid seeing torches thrown into the tree canopy, catching light immediately. Within moments, Estelle’s nostrils filled with acrid smoke and her ears filled with the trample of fairies running and so much screaming—
‘I’ll take that now.’ Maeve, the current Maeve, grabbed the pendant from Estelle as she opened her eyes. She took several breaths, trying to remind herself that she was still sitting in the meadow on a Friday afternoon, that the scene she’d just witnessed was long since concluded.
Her brain might have known that, but the rest of her didn’t.
‘Do you see now?’ Maeve asked gently. ‘Do you understand why the clock is the… the prison cell?’
‘And the house is the prison,’ Estelle finished. ‘That’s why it’s so hard to take the clock off the property.’ Maeve nodded. They rubbed the scar on their neck, and Estelle winced.
‘Isn’t Kelly alone now, though?’ Estelle asked, when she had her voice back. ‘Those others are in their own prisons, aren’t they? What damage can Kelly do alone even if the clock is moved?’
‘Kelly isn’t alone. Over the centuries of their imprisonment—the clock has only looked like a clock since humans invented your concept of time—Kelly has befriended human after human, collecting… how do you say it? Collecting souls.’
‘Souls?’ Estelle’s mother collected large earrings and handmade mugs. Estelle hadn’t ever considered that a soul could be thought of as collectible.
‘I am not sure how to explain it in human terms. Friendships are a powerful bond between two people. There is strength there, and power. It will take enormous power to break out of the clock and escape the house. Kelly’s original followers aren’t enough. Did you really think you were the first human Kelly’s enticed to open that clock?’
Estelle had thought herself the first human to discover Kelly, and she swallowed her embarrassment, hoping it wasn’t too visible on her face.
Maeve was still talking, oblivious to Estelle’s discomfort. ‘Some of Kelly’s comrades are stirring in their cells. We think yours is the last soul Kelly needs to break free from the house.’
‘What has the house got to do with my soul? If the clock is all magicked so it can’t leave the house, I won’t be able to take it.’
‘It’s not what you do or don’t do with the clock. It’s what you’ve offered to try to do. You can’t steal a soul. It has to be offered, gradually over time, and is often sealed with an event. The person with the soul must volunteer a selfless act for the person who wants the soul. Just trying to take it might give Kelly enough power to break out.’
Estelle digested this. ‘How come I never noticed I was giving my soul away?’
Maeve smiled sadly and reached out brush to Estelle’s hair. Several dead leaves fell into Estelle’s lap. ‘Oh, but you did.’
Estelle took another deep breath and looked down at the leaf litter. ‘I understand.’ She looked over to her mother and their neighbour. They had cracked out a bottle of prosecco and Estelle could hear them laughing at the sort of joke Estelle’s mother would deem Estelle too young to engage with. Estelle looked at Maeve. ‘What should I do now?’
‘You’ll need to break your bond with Kelly. As soon as you can. Tonight.’
Estelle felt like she was listening to her friend Mia speak Italian, hearing to words she occasionally understood individually but couldn’t translate into a full sentence. ‘How?’
‘Do you remember why you tried opening the clock hatch, way back before you even heard Kelly tapping from inside the clock?’
Estelle thought back to that thrill of adventure and magic. ‘Yes.’
‘That was the first step towards your bond with Kelly. To break it, you’ll need to shut the hatch and return the clock to the house.’
‘Return it… to the house? But I won’t take it from the house.’
‘You’ll understand this evening. Be ready.’
‘How—wait—’
But Maeve had dissipated.
‘Estelle?’
It was her mother, again.
‘Is it time for dessert?’ Estelle asked, hoping she sounded nonchalant.
‘It’s almost six. We’re heading home. You’ve been sitting here for hours.’
‘I thought time was moving differently,’ Estelle said truthfully.
Estelle could not focus that evening, busy thinking about souls and bonds and wondering what her summer would have looked like had she not picked up the clock. Boring, she thought. Lonely. As often as she thought about her conversation with Maeve and the scene in the forest, she couldn’t summon up regret for opening the clock hatch. Thankfully her mother, cheerful and tired after their afternoon, dozed in front of the television and did not notice.
Estelle plucked up the courage to open the clock around ten o’clock, when she was sure her mother, who needed a good eight hours, had turned off her bedside lamp… and after she reminded herself that she and Kelly were friends, and they wouldn’t hurt her from all the way inside the clock. They couldn’t. But although she couldn’t picture Maeve’s face, she could still picture those burning trees.
‘How was your picnic?’ Kelly asked, cheerful and animated as soon as the hatch was off.
‘Good,’ Estelle replied. ‘Mum drank too much prosecco and made me wear sun cream that left white stripes on my arms.’
‘The two events can’t be connected, surely,’ said Kelly with amusement. They waited just long enough to be polite, then asked, ‘is tomorrow still happening?’
‘Yes, absolutely. We’re leaving just before lunch. Where do you think is best to open the clock? Nan has a huge back garden.’
‘At the bottom of the garden,’ Kelly said immediately. ‘I miss the trees. When my clock spent all that time lost in your garden, I could hear them calling to me.’ Their voice was wistful, and Estelle understood Kelly’s yearning to stand outside in the fresh air.
‘I’ll get out there as soon as I can.’ Estelle brandished a small purple bag. ‘This is my adventure backpack, this is where you’ll—’
‘What’s going on?’ Kelly asked suddenly. ‘Something’s wrong.’ As they spoke, Estelle began to feel it too. A creeping cold, like a foggy day. Vapour in her lungs. Clouds in her room.
And light. Cold, white light. Estelle wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but she didn’t have much time to think about it, because her room was full of fairies.
Maeve, and three others. Adult sized, bigger than Estelle, more bodies than Estelle imagined had ever been inside this little bedroom. Knowing she wouldn’t remember their features later on, Estelle focussed instead on the clock and Kelly’s outraged, betrayed face. She thought she probably deserved to remember what that looked like.
‘Maeve.’ Kelly, crouched defensively, looked up, up, up, from inside the clock.
‘Kelly.’ Neither of them was really saying the other person’s name as Estelle knew it; they were speaking that lyrical windchime language.
‘Do it now!’ Maeve hissed in English.
Estelle took a deep breath and picked up the clock hatch.
‘I should have known.’ Kelly’s voice was acid. ‘Humans. You’re all the same. Too weak to do anything other than what someone else has persuaded you.’ Estelle tried not to think about how much Kelly’s words stung.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and meant it. She clicked the hatch into place. The clock glowed, so hot the air vapour began to steam. Maeve took it just as Estelle’s hands began to overheat, and the fairies held it between them, chanting. Now their words weren’t windchimes but a tornado blowing through a building, a tidal wave crashing into rocks. The hairs on Estelle’s arms stood up and the furniture was shaking.
‘You won’t keep me away forever!’ Kelly was shouting from inside the clock. ‘I don’t forget—’ Their voice was lost beneath chanting, beneath rattling, beneath the wind ripping through Estelle’s hair. She wondered why Kelly was still speaking English, but was too busy gripping the side of her desk to keep her balance to think more about it.
‘Estelle?’ Her mother’s voice, in the hall. ‘Estelle! What are you doing?’ Estelle could just hear, above the noise of the fairies, the floorboards creaking.
How was Estelle going to explain five fairies and a magic clock?
‘You will not hide me away!’ Kelly was still shouting from inside the clock. ‘I WILL NOT—’
Estelle’s bedroom window shattered. A cold breeze gusted through the room, bringing leaf litter and dust. Estelle threw up her arm to cover her eyes—
And it was silent.
‘Estelle. What is going on?’ Estelle’s bedroom door opened and there was her mother, in her hair wrap and slippers, arms folded, with her ‘Estelle is in trouble’ face on.
Estelle realised she was the only person in her bedroom.
At the same time, her mother realised the window was broken. She rushed to look out, to check for shards of glass, to check for injuries on her daughter. ‘Estelle! Did you throw something at the glass or did someone throw something in or did it just break?’ Estelle could see her mother running through every possible scenario, working herself into a panic.
‘It was me. I… was dancing.’ A breeze wandered through the window, completely at odds with the action of moments before.
Estelle’s mother surveyed her for at least an entire minute, and Estelle knew she had not fooled her mother one bit. ‘We’re going to have a long conversation about your behaviour tomorrow.’
‘Can I still come to Nan’s?’
‘If it’s still illegal to leave children unattended tomorrow lunchtime, I suppose you’ll have to. Bedtime, now.’
‘What about the window?’
Estelle’s mother said a curse word, and Estelle filed it for later use. Her mother drew the curtains to block the worst of the gap. ‘I’ll phone someone tomorrow to fix that. Come in with me, you little monster.’
Estelle switched the desk lamp off and shut the door behind her. Outside, the night was quiet except for the rustling of trees.
‘I regret having a child,’ Estelle’s mother said when Estelle was curled up next to her in bed. ‘You cause nothing but bad skin and stomach aches. I’m going to have to mull over the most suitable punishment for breaking that window. Maybe you could be responsible for cleaning the toilet until you graduate. Maybe I’ll sell you on the internet.’ She hugged her daughter close, though.
‘Sorry,’ Estelle said. She yawned widely, now exhausted. ‘I’ll try to explain tomorrow. Honest.’ But already Kelly and Maeve’s faces were fading. She couldn’t remember their hair or clothes, or which of them had been the Prime Fairy and which was inside the clock. She remembered Kelly’s words, vaguely. English, that was it. Why would they speak English in a room full of fairies? I speak English, she remembered. Yes, that’s why. What had Kelly said? Something about… ah, she was nearly asleep.
The next day, Estelle and her mother noticed a tiled mural on the side of the house they were sure had not been there when they moved in. Cemented into the outside wall facing the garden was a pretty, intricate design of an old clock.
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