Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near Page A

the letterbox while Mother was ferrying the gifts to an ever-growing pile on a trestle table.
    Mama Sinclair, the rotund Scottish nurse who lived at Number Thirty-nine, arrived wearing a floral sundress and a grin as wide as a loch. She had an enormous bosom and gave vigorous hugs, and that day she squashed Isola against her breasts even tighter than usual.
    After the initial panic of torn paper and shredded ribbons, when all Isola’s gifts were laid out on the grass for the other children to examine and play with, Isola noticed Mama Sinclair in a chair. She was sitting in the generous shade of the then-thriving plum tree, fanning herself with one chubby hand and cradling a small pink box in the other.
    â€˜Come, look what I have here for you!’ she called, and Isola tottered over, plopping down at Mama Sinclair’s feet expectantly.
    Wolfishly, Isola tore at the package Mama Sinclair handed her to reveal a tarnished silver jewellery box.
    â€˜Oh, that’s beautiful!’ said Mother Wilde, standing over Isola, a silhouette in the strong sunlight. ‘Say thank you.’
    â€˜Thank you,’ parroted Isola.
    â€˜It plays music, too,’ beamed Mama Sinclair. ‘Go on, Isola.’
    Isola opened the box, and what drifted out wasn’t mechanised music, but a tiny globe of furious pink. It zoomed right up to the tip of her nose, poked a freckle and said loudly, ‘Gosh, you’re big, too. You’re almost as big as Mama Sinclair!’
    â€˜Here,’ said Mother, lifting the music box from Isola’s slack grasp, ‘you’ve got to wind it . . . Oh, how lovely!’
    The mechanism ground out a cog-and-clinkers lullaby – an unfamiliar tune that they all intrinsically knew somehow, as if it had soundtracked their dreams – and a tiny girl with diaphanous wings fluttered round and round Isola’s head, inspecting her. Isola watched speechlessly. She’d never seen a creature like it.
    â€˜I’ll take it inside, Isola, it’s too precious,’ said Mother as the tinkling refrain repeated. ‘It’s wonderful, Mama Sinclair.’
    The moment she left, Mama Sinclair gave a great boom of laughter, her bosom wobbling generously. ‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘The look on your face, Isola Wilde! I’m never wrong about these things. You’re one o’ Nimue’s bairn, all right.’
    Isola didn’t understand the phrasing, but the intent was as plain as the winged girl between her eyes.
    â€˜How . . . How did you –?’
    Mama Sinclair tapped her nose. ‘I’ve seen ’em gatherin’, the Children floatin’ in an’ out o’ your window . . .’
    â€˜You mean the princes?’ said Isola, before clamping her hands over her mouth, an involuntary reaction; Father always grew angry when she mentioned them.
    â€˜Princes, you say? You call ’em that? We call ’em Children o’ Nimue.’
    Isola shifted into a kneel. ‘Children of who?’
    â€˜Nimue! You haven’t heard o’ Nimue? You live right by her beautiful woodland.’
    â€˜But that’s Vivien’s Wood.’
    â€˜She’s had many names, ol’ Nimue.’ Mama Sinclair slapped her creaking knee and leaned forward. ‘Nimue and Vivien are one an’ the same. The old legends called her the Lady o’ the Lake, a creature o’ magic an’ mystery. Merlin loved her, and Vivien – Nimue – made the ol’ wizard teach her all his trickery, and then she lured him to an enchanted forest, and trapped him in an ancient oak tree.’
    â€˜In that forest?’ Isola pointed to the woodland, eyes wide.
    â€˜Perhaps,’ said Mama Sinclair, her eyes twinkling. ‘You never know. It’s said her Children spring from the place where the Lake meets the Tree. Creatures of magic, nevertheless, and they may tell you they’re ghosts or fae or pixies or goblins or sirens