The Children of Hare Hill (9 page)

Chapter 22

Michael took their hands and led them away from Pistol Pond. They walked back down the hill and watched in wonder as the snow and ice melted all around them. Huge clumps of snow fell from tree branches and landed with a wet splat on the ground, but the melted snow didn't gather in pools and create muddy puddles. Instead, it seemed to evaporate, leaving the ground as dry as it had been on the sunny afternoon they had left behind.

Then the light changed. Where the world had been bathed in the cold light of the moon all night long, the light of their surroundings was getting brighter. Charlotte and Ben looked up. Through the branches above, they watched the sky as the colour changed from black to purple, to pink, to orange, to yellow, and then to blue. Small wisps of white clouds hung in the daytime sky. In less than a minute, their world had transformed from a winter midnight to a summer afternoon.

They felt their father's grip on their hands tighten. He smiled at both of them, anticipating that they would ask him where they were going, but the sound coming from inside the walled garden distracted them. Charlotte and Ben stopped in their tracks when they heard it. It was the noise of a playground, the sounds of children playing and parents laughing with them, the air of families having fun together.

But how could this be? They had been alone in the park all night, hadn't they?

The shaded path led them to the gate on the west side of the walled garden, where the twelfth hare had once stood. Michael opened the gate and they stepped onto the sun-drenched grass. Charlotte and Ben were awe-struck by the sight before them.

The garden was filled with children and adults playing together. All over the lawn, boys and girls were running around, playing croquet and badminton. In one corner, three children and their mother were playing with a tower of wooden blocks that must have been at least ten feet high. The tower wobbled more and more as they removed the blocks one at a time, and they cheered when the mother removed a supporting block and the whole thing came crashing down to the ground. The children all shouted, "Again, again, again!" and began reconstructing the tower to play the game once more.

In another corner, a father and his daughter were blowing bubbles. They each had a small wand and a bottle of bubble mix, but the bubbles they blew were enormous—first the size of a football, then a beach ball, then bigger than even the little girl herself. Other children ran over to see the magical bubbles, and they created giant clouds of tiny bubbles, which everyone chased around the garden, trying to pop each one.

"What happened?" Ben said. "Where did all these people come from?"

"They're just like you," Michael said. "They're the children of Hare Hill. They all lost someone close to them and they've come here to be with them again."

"I don't understand," Charlotte said. "There was no one else in the park apart from us, even when we were with Mummy. Where did they come from?"

"You might be a little young to understand this now, but at Hare Hill things don't work the same way as they do in the real world. When you woke up in the garden, you woke up in the world of the map I made. When you had set all the hares free, the thirteenth hare brought you into this world with all the other children. All of these children come here to see loved ones they lost."

It was a lot to take in. Charlotte didn't want to think about it too much. The most important thing was that they were here, with their father, and they should have fun while their time together lasted. Ben was watching the other children chasing bubbles around the garden.

"Can we go and play?" he asked.

"Of course," Michael said, and grabbed each of them around the waist. With one child in each arm, he ran head-first into a cloud of bubbles. He set his children down and all three of them joined the group of boys and girls and parents who were laughing and jumping around, popping bubbles from the almost never-ending stream the girl and her father were blowing.

Hours seemed to pass in the space of a few minutes as they played in the garden, joining in with the others and playing more games of hide-and-seek than they ever thought possible. For all three of them, it felt like they had never been apart. Two years of pain and bickering were lost to Charlotte and Ben. They took their father on a walk around the park, showing him what had happened at each hare, and he explained that he had wanted the puzzles and challenges to help them develop their abilities to solve problems by themselves, to have fun, and most of all to appreciate being with each other. That was something they had lost, and now they had found it again. But the day was now tinged with sadness. Charlotte and Ben shared the same thought, but they were too scared to ask it in case they got an answer they didn't want to hear.

What happens at the end of the day?

As they walked past the stone statue near the first hare, they heard a voice they recognised.

"So you did it? Well done!"

They turned round to see the stone face of the Guardian of Hare Hill smiling at them.

"Yes, we did it!" Charlotte said. "Thank you for your help."

"Don't thank me," he said. "Thank your father. He's the one who set your challenges. I just do what I'm told. You will come back and see us, won't you?"

"You mean we can come back?" Ben said.

"Of course," the Guardian said. "The children of Hare Hill can come back to this world as often as they like."

Charlotte said "How?" at the exact moment Ben said "When?"

The Guardian and Michael laughed together.

"As a child of Hare Hill, you can come back any time you want,” the Guardian said. “All you have to do is go into the walled garden, close your eyes, and make a wish to be here."

"And I'll be here waiting for you," Michael said.

"But you must remember something very important," the Guardian said. "You will lose the ability to come here when you reach your eighteenth birthday. The magic of this park is only for children."

They were filled with mixed emotions. Their father had been given back to them; he would be here, waiting for them to come and see him. It was a miracle, and it would be their miracle to share for a long time to come. But that time would come to an end. Charlotte had ten years left to spend with her father, and Ben had thirteen years.

"What about Mummy?" Charlotte said.

"What about her?" Michael said.

"We've got Mummy, and we can come here to be with you, but is there any way we can all be together again?"

"I'm sorry, Charlotte," Michael said. "It doesn't work like that. Mummy understands, though."

"What do you mean?" Charlotte was taken aback by her father's words. She thought she and Ben would have to keep their discovery a secret from the whole world, including their mother.

"This was all her idea," he said. "I'm sure she'll tell you all about it when you go back to her, but we discussed this before you were born. When she first told me, I thought she was crazy, but I loved her and I trusted her, and now I know that everything she told me was true."

Charlotte and Ben were dumbstruck. Had this really been their mother's idea?

Michael continued. "She wanted to wait until she thought you were both old enough to deal with it, and when she was ready to deal with you two seeing me when she couldn't."

"But how did she know about it?" Charlotte said.

"When Mummy was a little girl, she was a child of Hare Hill. Her mummy died when she was very young and her daddy – your granddad, who I'm sure will tell you lots of stories about this now—brought her here to scatter her ashes, just like you did with mine."

It was all too much to take in. Charlotte and Ben's heads were spinning.

"Did Mummy have to follow a map and do puzzles like we did?" Ben said.

"That's right," Michael said, "but she was an only child. She didn't have a brother or sister to help her out. That's why it was always so important to her that you two should be friends who help each other out."

Charlotte and Ben looked at each other with the realisation of how painful their bickering and fighting over the last two years must have been for their mother. But they had learned so much during their time at Hare Hill, about the world, about each other, and about themselves, and even though they were with their father again, they wanted to go back to the real world to see their mother. It showed on their faces. Michael said, "Go and see her. Remember, you can come back to me any time you want. I'll be waiting here for you."

"How do we get back?" Ben said.

"The same way you got here," the Guardian said. "Go into the walled garden, close your eyes, and wish to be back in the real world."

"Thank you for your help," Charlotte said as they headed down the path to the walled garden.

"The pleasure is all mine," the Guardian said. "Come back any time!"

There were fewer children playing with their loved ones in the walled garden. Some of them had gone back to their own time in the real world, back to the family that was always there for them. Charlotte and Ben were about to do the same.

"We can come back any time, can't we, Daddy?" Charlotte said.

"That's right," he said as he knelt down and held them in a warm embrace. "I'll be here waiting for you. Now, be nice to each other, be good to your Mummy, and tell her I'm very happy here. Can you do that for me?"

They both nodded in agreement.

"Good," he said, "and go easy on her with the questions when you get back. She's been worrying about this day for the last two years and I'm sure she'll have plenty of questions for the two of you."

"We'll come back and see you very soon," Charlotte said.

"I love you both very much, and Mummy too," he said. "Forever and ever."

Charlotte and Ben both said, "I love you too" and hugged their father even tighter.

"Now, close your eyes," he said, "and wish yourselves back to the real world."

They each closed their eyes, took a deep breath, and they were gone.

Part Four

Back to the Real World

Chapter 23

"Excuse me," came an unfamiliar female voice in the darkness. There was silence for a moment, then the voice said it again.

"Excuse me."

Charlotte opened her eyes. The blazing sunshine came as a shock and all she could see was the dark outline of someone standing over her. She heard her mother's voice.

"Sorry, I think we fell asleep," Alison said. "Is everything okay?"

"I have to ask you something."

"Sure. What do you want to know?"

"We think someone has been going round the park scattering ashes today. I realise this is a sensitive matter, but was it you?"

"Scattering ashes?" Alison said, without answering the question.

"Yes," the woman said. Charlotte realised she was the member of staff who had welcomed them into the park. "We sometimes have visitors that want to scatter the ashes of their loved ones in the park. Most of them do it around the wooden hares, and it looks like someone has done that today."

"People do that, do they?"

"Yes, they do. It happens more often than you might think."

"Well, I'm sorry, I can't help you," Alison said. Charlotte noted the fact that her mother hadn't lied to the woman, at least not technically. The woman left them alone.

Ben was still asleep. Charlotte rubbed her eyes and looked around. The garden was just as it had been when they had their picnic. The remnants of their lunch were scattered over the rug, but it felt like so long ago that they had sat down in the walled garden.

The look on her mother's face was one Charlotte had never seen before. It was filled with love, hope, and expectation. Alison wanted to ask her daughter a hundred burning questions, but asking any one of them would make her sound like a crazy person if Charlotte and Ben had just had an afternoon nap and nothing more.

Charlotte's heart was pounding as she said, "Daddy is very happy. He said he loves you very much."

Alison's hands went to her mouth. Her eyes squeezed shut, but tears still made their way past her eyelids and down her cheeks. She grabbed her daughter, held her tight, and sobbed. Then she wiped her tears away and said, "What else did he tell you?"

"He said you were one of the children of Hare Hill when you were a little girl."

"That's right," she said. "My mother died when I was ten and my father brought me here to scatter her ashes, just like we did today. Your granddad was a child of Hare Hill, too. He never told me how he knew about the magic of Hare Hill and, to be honest, I never wanted to know. At least, I didn't until my eighteenth birthday. I asked him over and over again, but he said he didn't know. It's something that has been passed down from generation to generation, but nobody knows how it all started."

"What was it like for you?"

"It was amazing. A miracle. I thought my mother had left me forever, but then I found out I could still see her, play with her, and talk to her for another eight years. She helped me so much through my time at school, being a teenager, and everything to get me ready to be an adult. Sure, your granddad was still there for me, but somehow I just made more of the time with my mother. I guess it was because I knew it would end."

"What happened the last time you saw her?"

"We didn't really talk all that much. It was the day before my eighteenth birthday. We just walked around the park one last time and watched the sunset together. Then we said our last goodbyes and I woke up in the walled garden. At that moment, I would have given anything to go back again, but I knew that if I ever had children and they lost someone close to them, I would give them the same chance I had."

Alison laughed to herself. "You should have seen the look on your father's face when I told him about this for the first time,” she said.

"He said he thought you were crazy," Charlotte said.

"He told you about it?"

"He said he trusted you and now he knows you weren't crazy."

"We used to come here a lot, for picnics or just for a walk in the sunshine. From time to time, I would see single parents here with their children. They would play, eat their picnic, and fall asleep. The first time we came here after I told your father about the magic, I saw a father with his little boy. They sat in the shade of that tree over there and the little boy fell asleep. I told your father to watch the little boy when he woke up."

"What happened?" Charlotte said.

"He was only asleep for about ten minutes. Well, he was asleep for about ten minutes in the real world. When he woke up, he looked like he'd just got back from another world. We couldn't hear what the little boy and his father were saying, but we could tell something really big had happened. They hugged and cried. As they left the garden, I heard the boy asking his father when they could come back again."

"Daddy said you wanted to wait until you thought Ben and I were ready."

"That's right. I had to wait until all three of us were ready. I thought you would be able to deal with it, but Ben was too young and it hurt me too much to think you would be able to see your father without me. But the more time that passed, the more you two weren't getting along. I wanted to leave it a little bit longer. I was worried what it would do to us all, but I couldn't deal with the two of you fighting any longer. I hoped it would bring you together."

Ben stirred. He rubbed his eyes and sat up. He stared at Charlotte and his mother in turn, then turned to Charlotte and said, “It really happened, didn't it?”

“Yes, it really did,” she said, and all three of them hugged.

"We're sorry, Mummy," Ben said.

"It's okay," Alison said. "I just want you to be happy, no matter what happens."

Alison got to her feet. They packed the remains of their picnic away and left the walled garden. As they walked through the gate, Ben tugged Charlotte's sleeve.

"What's up, Ben?" she said.

"Look," he said.

He was pointing at a sapling that had been planted in the ground next to the path. It was the tree he and Charlotte had planted together. Somehow, they had planted it in the dream world, and now it was beginning to grow in this world.

They followed their mother along the path, which led past the stone statue. All three of them stopped to look at the face carved into the stone.

"Did he help you or just talk in riddles?" Alison said.

"Was he there when you saw your Mummy?" Ben said.

"Yes, he was. He seemed a little odd, though. I guess being stuck in that statue does that to you. I always meant to ask him where the magic came from, and why he was stuck in the statue, but I never thought of it when I was there. I guess I was too concerned with seeing my mother that I never really thought about the place itself until it was too late."

"Maybe we can find out for you," Ben said.

"Maybe," Alison said. "But don't spoil it for yourself by asking too many questions. Does it really matter how the magic works?"

The question hung in the air for a moment, until Alison said, "Come on, let's go home and you can tell me all about your adventures."