The Fairy Godmother Part 33

With a wave of her wand Enid had transferred us back to the home, at our normal, fairy size, about three inches tall. It was odd seeing myself disappear with Ella, just as I got back, it seemed so long ago. The head of the home opened the door just as Ella and I vanished.

“I hope she didn’t see that,” I thought, but my luck was not in.

“I should have guessed,” she said. “There has been a whiff of Fairy magic in this right from the start.”

“She knows something about us,” I whispered to Enid.

“She would have to,” Enid replied. “She has been in on this right from the start.”

“But she’s human!” I said.

“So are all the people you’ve dealt with,” said Enid. “Didn’t stop them benefiting from your work.”

“I don’t understand,” I replied, shaking my head.

“It will unfold,” said Enid. “At least I hope it will.”

“Have you got the girl?” a voice shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

“Now what do I tell them,” asked Mrs Walters, the Head of the Home, looking in our direction.

“Does she know we are here or is she talking into thin air?” I asked Enid, it was something I had seen humans doing though I couldn’t say that I saw much sense in the action.

“I know that you are there,” the Head of the Home said. “You may as well show yourselves and we can talk this out reasonably.”

“We want answers,” said Enid, becoming more solid and visible, but staying her usual size and keeping close to the ceiling where she was out of reach of the Head of the Home.

“And your friend,” said the Head of the Home.

“Do you need a hand?” asked the voice which was now making it’s way up the stairs.

“Send them away,” said Enid.

“They’ll need an explanation,” said Mrs Walters.

“Tell them Rosie is running a temperature and that it would be unwise to move her today,” said Enid.

“You are asking me to lie to them,” said Mrs Walters.

“It isn’t as if it is something you haven’t done before, with regard to Ella,” Enid reminded her.

“True, but why should I do it now?” Mrs Walters asked.

“Because they wouldn’t believe the truth if you told them it,” said Enid. “In fact the truth would be likely to have you certified. That would be your job and career blown in one go, think about it.”

Mrs Walters left the room and met the voice on the stairs.

“I’m so sorry, but Rosie is running a bit of a temperature, it’s probably nothing, but she’d better stay here till she’s over the worst,” Mrs Walters explained.

“And if the parents solicitor gets his act together, she could end up back with them,” said the voice. “You know what the plan was, to get the child away and the paper trail destroyed so that they couldn’t trace her.”

“They may not be able to trace her, but they’d trace me and then I would be in trouble because one of my children had vanished,” Mrs Walters replied. “I am beginning to think that I have been set up to take the fall for this.”

“She’s not so daft as she looks,” said Enid, as we watched it all from about six foot above her head.

“I hope she’s not out of her depths,” I said.

“What do you mean?” asked Enid.

“I’ve seen him before,” I replied. “He’s a fairly regular visitor and she’s always pretty rattled after he’s been.”

“Self, self,” the man replied. “There’s more in this than just you.”

“I’m the one on the pointy end of this,” Mrs Walters snapped back. “And I get the strong impression that I’m being hung out to dry here.”

“I’ll give them a ring, see what they have to say,” he said. “But I’m not happy and I doubt they will be either.”

“Neither am I,” said Mrs Walters as he stomped down the stairs and out of the building.

“We need to talk and talk quickly,” said Mrs Walters, looking up at us.

“We need to know everything,” said Enid.

“Ask Lily,” Mrs Walters replied. “I think she’s the Head of the Fairy Council, if that means anything to you.”

“She was,” Enid sighed.

“Is she OK?” asked Mrs Walters. “I know she wasn’t keen on doing any of this, but we could think of no alternative.”

“She’s gone,” said Enid.

“What do you mean gone?” asked Mrs Walters.

“She hung herself,” I said quietly, making myself a bit more visible.

“I thought you’d be here somewhere,” Mrs Walters said. “You always did seem to be too good to be human.”

“This is not solving anything,” I replied. “And there is only so long that he is going to be talking on the phone.”

“Can’t you stop time or something, Lily could,” said Mrs Walters.

“Or we could leave you with him,” Enid snapped.

“OK,” said Mrs Walters. “I had a sister, very dreamy, she went walking in places that people said were frequented by the fairy folk. She met a man there, he was everything she wanted. She said he even took her to the fairy kingdom one night.”

“Fairy Kingdom,” Enid grunted. “It’s been run by a council for as long as I can remember.”

“Whatever,” said Mrs Walters. “He made her happy.”

“So?” muttered Enid.

“What went wrong?” I asked.

“He stopped coming and she started to put on weight,” said Mrs Walters. “My sister was no longer happy when she came back from her wanderings, she was desperate, deranged we worried for her sanity and the safety of the baby.”

We waited.

“One evening she came back with another girl, least we thought she was a girl, turned out to be your Lily,” Mrs Walters replied looking at Enid. “She said we needed to talk, we needed to come up with a solution, not an easy thing to do when she wanted to be with him and he didn’t want to be with her.”

“He dumped her?” I asked.

“Yes,” sighed Mrs Walters. “And my sister Lily didn’t take it too well.”

Enid shuddered.

“It was decided to move the baby,” said Mrs Walters.

“Move it!” said Enid. “But that is a total no no.”

“That is what Lily said,” Mrs Walters agreed. “But my sister Lily said it was that or she didn’t want to live any more. So the baby was moved, to a couple who were expecting a baby at the same time.”

“Wouldn’t they see the difference?” I asked.

“Lily cast a spell, to make the changeling look like the other baby, it’s sibling,” said Mrs Walters. “It was thought that everything was going well, until the birth.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“My sister Lily decided that she wanted the baby,” said Mrs Walters.

“Is that why it was taken away from the delivery room?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Mrs Walters. “And we thought everything was going OK, but eight years on something wrong with Rosie, the changeling, she needed a bone marrow transplant from Ella, to put it right. It was either that or watching Rosie die.”

“So why didn’t they just ask?” I asked.

“How would they explain knowing that there was a match?” Mrs Walters asked. “It was impossible.”

“So how come, once you had her at the home, you did nothing for over a year?” I asked.

“Lily, my sister, she thought she’d come up with a cure, some crackpot religious person talked her into making donations to his church and God knows what else, so they put the bone marrow transplant on hold whilst we tried to talk some sense into her,” Mrs Walters sighed.

“And now you’ve made her see sense?” I asked.

“Something like that,” said Mrs Walters. “Not that it matters now, now that Ella is gone.”

“The changeling is OK?” I asked.

“Getting weaker with everyday,” said Mrs Walters.

“Would the transplant still work?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Mrs Walters. “It would if we had and Lily was here to sort it out, she knew what needed to be done.”

“I know what needs doing,” said Enid. “If we brought Ella here, would you let Ella be with her parents?” asked Enid.

“If that is what it takes, then I could sort that,” Mrs Walters agreed.

“We shall talk to Ella’s parents, you talk to that man, whoever he is,” Enid said.

“He’s Rosie’s step-father and he’d do anything to keep her alive,” said Mrs Walters.

“I think this can be sorted,” said Enid.

By Janice Nye © 2020