The Secret Book of Flora Lea

by Patti Callahan Henry

She waited for the kettle’s steamy song.

people need explanations. They need meaning and reasons.

And the knight doesn’t always have to save the princess; sometimes she saves herself.”

Linda looked to her daughter, and her eyes filled with tears. “Everything I’ve ever done or said has been for your own good.” Peggy dropped into a crouch in front of her. “It’s okay, just tell us now so we can help these people.” “Your aunt Maria…” “The one who made the story?” “Yes, but she didn’t make it up. She brought it to us. For a year…” Linda looked around to the crowd of them, to Wren and to Hazel and Kelty. “Mother, go on.” “During the war, my sister, Maria, wanted to be part of the solution, a meaningful part of the victory, so she volunteered for an organization that sent women overseas to help with the children of war widows. Maria was sent to Newcastle, England, where for a while she took care of a girl who used this story as what Maria called a pacifier. The little girl used it to calm herself.” Having drawn closer with each word, Hazel now stood over Linda and Camellia, listening. Linda continued, “When Maria came home after that year, your darling father had been shot down by those savages in Pearl Harbor. I didn’t know how to calm you, how to keep you safe. We moved to Cape Cod to be near Maria, and she told you this story… We then…” Linda stopped and sat straighter. “We grew it together as our own story.” “Oh, Mother. Why didn’t you just tell me that?” “Maria never gave me the little girl’s name and it didn’t matter to me.” Her voice rose. “Why did it matter if a little girl in England told Maria?

Hazel told Dot the story of the Peggy Andrews book and the Pauline Baynes illustrations. Dot listened without uttering a word, sipping her wine and ordering more. “That’s a hell of a barmy story,” Dot said with a shaky laugh, lifting her glass of wine for another sip. “You know, my aunt warned me to stay away from these stories of the lost children.” “Your aunt?” “Yes, my aunt Imogene.” Hazel gasped and sat back in her chair. “Dear God, your aunt is Imogene? The nurse?” Dot narrowed her eyes. “How did you know that?” “She is the one who took you. God Almighty, it was Imogene all along.” “I don’t understand.” “She was a nurse in Binsey when we lived here. She babysat you. She watched you, and it appears she took you.”

Dot turned to Hazel. “How did the story end up in America?” “Do you remember a woman named Maria? Someone who helped your mum and other mums during the war? A woman who helped to babysit and teach?” “There were a few American volunteers, yes, but I don’t remember one named Maria.” “Well it seems that there was one, and you told her the story and used it to calm yourself, to settle yourself. That woman, Maria, took the story back to America and told her sister, Linda, about it to help calm her little girl, Peggy, who had also lost her father in the war.”

“I’m not so sure it’s about getting anything back.” He looked to the sky and then back at Hazel. “It’s about having what is right here, right now, and not squandering what remains.”

Between the drug and the hypothermia and the childhood shock, Dot might never fully remember, many evacuees never did, but she would take the faded scraps of her memory and tell the truth. Writing at 2 a.m., Dot was now at the very part where the woman who went by many names—Aunt Imogene, the nurse, the babysitter—called her name, her original name, Flora, and then pulled her from the river. Dot typed faster now, feeling the story rise like a full-moon’s tide. “I’m cold,” the River Child said, her body quivering so her teeth slammed on each other. “Oh, my girl!” The nurse took off her gray coat, wrapped it around the child. Under her coat, she wore her white and starched uniform with blood on her sleeve, a rusty stain. She picked Flora up, held her against her chest and cheek. The nurse, her babysitter named Imogene, smelled clean. Carrying Flora, Imogene ran, bolted across the field and away from Flora’s sister, Hazel, and toward the church. Flora knew the way through the fields of gold grass back to the cottage and they were going the wrong way. Flora tried to point toward the cottage, toward home, but she was bundled tight in a thick coat. “It’s going to be all right,” said Imogene. “Breathe. Breathe.” “Berry,” Flora cried out, as she was jostled in Imogene’s arms. Flora’s sister, Hazel, had warned her: If you go into the river or try to become the river, you can never return to Bridie or Harry or even to me. But Flora hadn’t entered on purpose; the nurse had scared her...