The envelope’s arrival was no surprise. The mystery of how Etty’s mother had managed, from beyond the grave, to orchestrate the delivery of a new card every year for the past decade was explained very simply by Etty’s father: “She was always very organised.”
No, the sight of an envelope on the morning doormat was expected. The surprise lay in its contents.
On previous birthdays, right up until Etty’s twelfth last year, her mother had sent a card with a message inside, the kind of practical advice that a mother might bestow upon her daughter. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Believe in yourself. If you need to ward off a sneeze, think about the back of your neck. All useful stuff.
This year, however, there was no card. Instead, what Etty slid smoothly from the envelope was a small, folded paper, almost waxy in texture. It could have been a film of plastic or even metal, with a lustre that suggested it had been highly polished. Perhaps, Etty thought, her mother had exhausted the card shop back in her final days and had resorted to simple letters for her daughter’s thirteenth birthday and beyond. When she unfolded the paper, however, she was even more perplexed.
“What’s that?” asked Lee, Etty’s father, stumbling down the stairs as he straightened his tie. “The usual card from your Ma?”
Etty leaned slightly towards him to accept a kiss on the forehead. “Not exactly,” she said. “It’s a…”
Without the words to adequately describe the item in her hand, she simply held it up to show him. Sunlight through the door pane both reflected from, and refracted through, the iridescent paper, throwing a kaleidoscope of colours and shapes up the stairs, across the walls and over the laminate floor and ceiling of the small entrance hall. Amorphous beads of colour danced upon the family portrait that hung to greet the few visitors the house ever received, a snapshot of a moment mere weeks before the three of them had become two, an event that Etty had been too young to remember.
As Lee’s gaze fell upon the opaline sheet and took in the looping, swirling black pattern drawn upon it, his bright demeanour shifted. “Give it to me.”
Etty handed it over. “It’s like Chinese or hieroglyphics or something. What can it mean?”
“It’s nonsense,” said her father, slipping the sheet into his briefcase by the door. “Some sort of prank. Forget about it. I’ll take it with me to the office and put it through the shredder.”
Etty was unaccustomed to seeing her father’s face, still quite youthful and vibrant, adopt such a grim, creased countenance. Something wasn’t right.
“How do I look?” he asked, straightening up.
Etty saw her chance. “Perfect, apart from the smear of toothpaste.”
Lee looked down at his tie in horror, uttered a mild expletive and clattered back upstairs with the pink tie already ripped from his collar.
With excruciating care, Etty retrieved the strange note from his briefcase and hid it beneath the doormat.
“How’s this?” asked Lee, descending once more with a pastel blue tie around his neck. “Would you sign a six-figure deal with this man?”
Etty looked him up and down and nodded.
Nine chimes filtered through from the dining room clock.
“I’d better get moving!” said Lee, gathering up his briefcase and opening the front door. “I’ll be back as soon as the deal’s done, then we can celebrate your birthday properly.”
“Don’t panic, Dad. It’s not officially my birthday until 8pm, remember.”
“One minute past, actually. If I’m not home by then, we’ll assume the deal’s not going well. Make sure you eat.”
“I will.”
“And get your uniform ready. Back to school on Monday.”
“I will.”
“And lock the door if you go out.”
“I will, Dad, and I’ll stay away from the woods and the Applerigg Stone so the monsters don’t get me.”
Lee gave his daughter a withering look, pecked her once more on the forehead, and was gone.
Across town, Himesh Bandara was dressed for the late August weather, though he had no plans for the day. He therefore did not expect to see Etty hurrying up the garden path. Composing himself quickly, he waited for the knock, counted to five, then casually opened the door.
“Etty!” he said, attempting to combine aloofness with pleasant surprise. “I wasn’t exp—”
She pushed past him and into the living room. “Himesh, I need your brain.”
She sat down on one end of the large corner sofa, shoved the brimming fruit bowl to one side, and laid the sheet down on the low coffee table.
“My brain, eh?” Himesh said, taking care not to sit too close. “My brain is all yours!” He cringed before the words had even left his lips.
“What do you make of it?” Etty asked.
Desperate to be helpful, Himesh gazed at the symbols on the pearlescent page. His round cheeks turned maroon as he searched for anything to latch onto. “I’m really not sure.”
“But you’re Indian, right?” Etty said.
“Sri Lankan.”
“But you’re a Buddhist.” She gestured impatiently at the room’s décor. “You’re always surrounded by symbols and shapes. You must have seen something like this before.”
Unwilling to admit to his uselessness, Himesh took a laptop from the side table. “If in doubt, ask the internet!”
“I did that already.”
“A-ha, but did you try a visual search?”
“Of course I did.”
“Oh.” Himesh’s shoulders dropped. If he couldn’t help, Etty would leave.
Then it came to him.
The town library was a grand old building which, despite being heavily stocked, was only frequented by the unemployed and those ill-versed in the world wide web.
On the journey there, Etty had filled Himesh in on the situation regarding her mother’s annual greetings from the Other Side, and he was more determined than ever to help his friend find some answers. Ladened with ancient texts, he joined Etty in the research room. The space was so cavernous that even their quietest whispers were amplified. At the opposite end of the sprawling table, an elderly woman sat beneath the wide brim of a black sunhat, turning the gilt-edged pages of a heavy, leatherbound volume. A silver crucifix rose and fell on her chest to the tempo of her meditative breathing.
Etty laid the sheet flat on the tabletop and pored over page after page of each book. There were books on art, religion, culture, even UFOs.
“What about this?” Himesh rasped, fingering a black and white image of a crop circle.
“Are you suggesting that my mother was some sort of alien?”
“No, no, course not, but it does look kind of similar.”
“What about this?” whispered Etty, landing on a page with an illustration of a five-pointed star inside a circle, surrounded by other symbols.
“That’s, like, devil-worshipping stuff,” said Himesh.
Etty moved swiftly on.
The two were so engrossed in their research that they had not noticed the old woman’s arrival behind them.
“Pagans!” she cried. “Witchcraft!”
She thrust a hand to grab the strange symbol. Himesh let out a cry as the woman’s crucifix struck his left eye. Moving swiftly, Etty swiped the pearlescent paper from the table and backed away.
The old woman’s voice became a shrieking howl. “You are meddling with a darkness you cannot comprehend! You must destroy this evil object or face eternal damnation!”
Her wretched screeches continued as the two friends left the library behind.
The duo spent the next few hours wandering the streets, not least because Etty did not want to face the music for going in her father’s briefcase. However, when boredom prevailed and she finally went home, her father had yet to return.
“I don’t get it,” she said, resting her elbows on the dining room table and massaging her temples with her fingertips. “Just look at the difference.”
A refreshing breeze from the open window rippled through her long hair.
Himesh sifted through the shoebox containing Etty’s nine previous birthday cards from her mother. They were all handmade but decorated with unambiguous illustrations of flowers and woodland animals, and each contained a loving message written in plain English.
“What about the envelopes?” he asked. “Do you still have them?”
“No. Why?”
“The envelope for today’s only had your name on. How did your mother arrange for it to be delivered with no address, no stamp, or anything like that?”
“What are you saying?” said Etty defensively.
“It seems to me that she must have had help all these years. Or…” He didn’t want to finish, to upset her.
“Or what?”
“Well, maybe… maybe it never was your mother.”
He braced himself for the backlash, but instead Etty breathed a defeated sigh.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing myself.” Her green eyes glistened, and she took a shuddering breath.
“But if not your mother, then who?”
Etty shrugged. “Dad, probably.”
On cue, the front door opened. Lee stepped into the dining room doorway, looking far less presentable than he had eleven hours earlier. His eyes darted between the two youngsters, then to the clock above Etty’s head as it began to strike eight.
“Etty, I think we need to talk.”
Himesh stood to leave. “I should go.”
“Stay one more minute,” said Etty, not taking her eyes off her father, “then we can all celebrate my official thirteenth birthday.”
“One minute past eight,” said Lee with a gentle nod.
In awkward silence, Himesh watched the second hand make its way down to six and then back up towards twelve. Finally, it arrived.
“Happy birthd—”
Himesh’s greeting became a yelp of surprise as Etty’s palms slammed onto the dining table. She threw her head back and inhaled deeply through her tiny nose. Her eyes widened.
A pained expression crept across Lee’s brow, while Himesh looked on in a panic.
“Etty?”
“I can smell the air,” she said.
Himesh sniffed. Nothing.
She cocked her ear towards the open window. “I can hear the birds returning to their homes.”
Himesh paused. “So can I.”
“But do you understand what they’re saying?”
Himesh did not reply, but stared at her in confusion.
Lee stepped forward. “Etty, darling…”
Etty lowered her head again, then gasped as she caught sight of the message form her mother. “Himesh, can you see this?”
The boy looked at the nonsensical collection of symbols that had plagued them all day. “Of course I can. It’s right there.”
“But can you read it?”
“You know I can’t.”
Etty took it from the table and looked closely. “I can.”
“Etty,” said Lee, “I don’t want you reading that.”
She looked up at her father. “Can you read it?”
He shook his head, half embarrassed. “I… I’m not like you.”
“What does it say?” asked Himesh, more aggressively than intended.
“It’s an instruction,” said Etty. She stood up and took Himesh’s hand. “Come on.”
The sun was low in the sky as Etty arrived at the Applerigg Stone, permitting a cooling breeze to rustle the leaves of the nearby woodland. The stone itself towered over her, casting a long shadow away from the woods towards the moorland above. In the burnt-golden light, carved symbols glowed, and Etty could decipher these, too. They instructed her to wait.
Moments later, Himesh appeared, his lungs labouring to suck in as much of the twilight air as possible.
“Are you… going to tell me… what this is all… about?” he said between gasps, hands planted on his wide little hips.
“It’s a birthday message after all,” said Etty with a nervous smile. “From my mother. She said to come up here at sunset.”
Himesh turned his face toward the remainder of the sun, which bronzed his features with its dying rays. He then looked straight up to the heavens. “Was I right? About the aliens?”
“I don’t think so.” Etty turned expectantly towards the woodland entrance.
Following in Himesh’s tracks, Etty’s father arrived, his once-pristine shoes now caked with mud.
Etty placed a palm against the stone, as though trying to anchor herself there like a protestor handcuffed to a railing. “You’re not going to stop this, Dad.”
Lee took a few breaths, then said, “Darling, I’m not even going to try anymore.”
Her face softened, steely determination melting into childlike uncertainty. “Dad, what’s going to happen?”
With a gentle hand on his daughter’s shoulder, Lee said, “Something that’s been a long time coming.”
A sudden sound from the woods sent a flock of starlings soaring towards the molten orb on the horizon, and Etty heard in the beat of their wings a song of welcome.
The three humans turned to the shadowy forest entrance. Shrouded in the gloom, shapes flitted, writhed and pranced almost imperceptibly.
Then she emerged.
With the regal elegance that comes naturally to a woodland queen, Etty’s mother strode along the path towards the Applerigg Stone and its small assembly. Her robe shimmered, both catching the light and somehow repelling it so that by turns she was illuminated and camouflaged. She stopped a dozen paces before them, but it was not Etty that she addressed first.
“We both knew this day would come,” she said, in a voice as gentle as the breeze but as clear as the night air.
“Ve, I’ve done my best with her,” said Lee.
Ve smiled down at him. “You’ve done better than any other man could have done. That is why I chose you.”
Ve, once princess of the woodland realm but now its queen, held out a slender hand to her daughter, her heir. “It is time to discover who you really are.”
Etty stepped forward and took her mother’s hand.
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