The Faerie Tree Read Online Free PDF

make a wish?”
    I shook my head. “We’d only been there a few minutes when we heard the boys calling for help.”
    â€œThen you must go back and do it as soon as your clothes are dry.” She pulled out one of the chairs from the table and gestured to us to sit down.
    â€œAnother time. Izzie’s probably going to be late as it is.”
    â€œIt won’t take you five minutes – and the hidden folk will look especially kindly on your wishes after your good deed for the day,” Jennifer persisted as she started to pour tea from an earthenware pot.
    â€œThere’ll be another time.” I wanted to sound firm but when Izzie pleaded to go back it wasn’t in my heart to refuse.
    So once our clothes were dry we retraced our steps through Jennifer’s garden and back onto the path between the trees. I don’t recall us saying much as we walked along, in fact the woods seemed eerily silent, the air oppressive in the late afternoon heat.
    Then we were in front of the tree.
    â€œWhat do we do?” asked Izzie.
    I shrugged my shoulders, “Just close our eyes and wish, I guess.”
    â€œNo – we have to make it more special than that. Come on – we’ll hold hands around the trunk.”
    Izzie stood on one side of the Faerie Tree and I stood on the other and we stretched. The tree was of a size where we could hold hands without having to hug it so closely the little offerings would snag on our clothes. She gripped my fingers and there was only one wish in my mind: please, please, let it come right for Izzie and me in the end.
    A distant rumble of thunder broke the stillness and I let her go.
    â€œWhat did you wish for?” she asked.
    â€œOh, nothing much – world peace, that sort of thing.”
    She tucked her arm into mine. “I like a man with big ideas,” she joked and then added as an afterthought, “should we leave a present for the fairies, do you think?”
    â€œI think they’re more in the way of thank yous than bribes,” I told her.
    â€œWell then,” she replied, “we’ll bring them something next time.”
    But that was the day everything changed. I didn’t see Izzie for… I tried to work it out… twenty years, three months, two weeks and… or was it three weeks… my mind was too tired. I remember thinking; perhaps I’ll just curl up on the bench and go to sleep. Maybe, when I woke, Izzie would be standing next to me with a cardboard cup of coffee in her outstretched hands.

Chapter Eight
    After my visit to the Faerie Tree I distinctly remember whistling all the way from the corner shop, where I’d made Izzie drop me, to my front door. I called to Mum as I opened it but assumed her reply was drowned by Frankie Goes To Hollywood blaring from the kitchen. It wasn’t.
    I know I ran across the room but it felt as though I was wading through mud. I lifted her up but there was no resistance, although she felt warm. Still holding her I groped for the phone and dialled 999. They had an ambulance on the way within minutes, and in the meantime I was to check her pulse. I couldn’t find it; the sweat pouring off me made her skin slippery, but I kept trying and yelling at her to wake up. Then the ambulance men were at the door, closely followed by Auntie Jean and a couple of other neighbours.
    It was Auntie Jean who led me into the front room once they told me she was dead, Auntie Jean who went straight to the drinks’ cabinet and poured us both a large scotch, forcing me to gulp mine down through chattering teeth. It was Auntie Jean who kept me away from the kitchen while they came and took her for a post mortem. It was Auntie Jean who cried with me until neither of us could cry anymore and the whisky bottle was empty. I suspect she might even have put me to bed, but Iwas so drunk I can’t honestly remember.
    I sleepwalked through the next few days with Auntie Jean at my