Brooke made a drum-roll noise.
‘Ta da!’
In her hands sat a box tied with strands of brightly coloured string. Alice propped herself up in bed. Her body tingled with faint curiosity.
‘It was at the nurse’s station this morning when I started my shift. Nothing but this tag, with your name on it.’ Brooke rested the box on Alice’s lap with a wink. It was delightfully heavy.
Alice untied the string bow and opened the top of the box. Inside, nested under swathes of tissue paper, was a pile of books. Their spines faced upwards, the way flowers in her mother’s garden turned their faces towards the sun. She ran her fingertips over the lettering of their titles, gulping when she spotted one she knew. It was the book she first borrowed from the library, about selkies. In a surge of energy Alice heaved the box upside down. The books tumbled onto her lap. She sighed with pleasure, scooping them into her arms. Thumbing through the pages, she breathed in their musty paper-and-ink fragrance. Stories of salt and longing fluttered around her face, beckoning to her. When she heard the squeak of Brooke’s shoes on the linoleum outside her room, Alice looked up in surprise; she hadn’t heard her leave.
Later, Brooke silently wheeled a table into Alice’s room and angled it directly over her bed. It was laden with colourful dishes. A pot of yoghurt and fruit salad. A cheese and salad sandwich, all the crusts cut off, and a small pile of crunchy chips. They glistened with oil and salt. To the side, a box of sultanas and almonds. And a carton of cold malted milk with a straw.
Alice met Brooke’s eyes. After a moment, she nodded.
‘Attagirl,’ Brooke said, locking the wheels of the lunch table before leaving the room.
Keeping the selkie book close, Alice riffled through the other books and picked one. She opened the cover, shivering with delight when she heard the spine crack. She reached for a triangle of sandwich and closed her eyes as she sank her teeth into the soft, fresh bread. Alice couldn’t remember the last thing she’d eaten that was so good. The creaminess of salted butter and tangy cheese. Crunchy lettuce, sweet carrot and juicy tomato. Ravenous, Alice stuffed the rest of the triangle into her cheeks, struggling to chew around bits of bread and carrot poking out of her mouth.
After taking several sips of malted milk to wash down her lunch, Alice let out a loud burp. She smiled to herself in satisfaction and, with her belly full, turned her attention to her book. Though she was sure she’d never read it before, she somehow knew the story. She ran her fingertips over the embossed cover. It showed a beautiful young girl sleeping, holding a thorny rose in her hand.
The next day, when she was nearly finished Sleeping Beauty, Alice glanced from her book to see Brooke and Dr Harris hovering outside her room with two strange women. One was in a suit with heavy square glasses and bright lipstick. She had a folder thick with paper in her arms. The other woman was in a khaki buttoned-up shirt, trousers the same colour, and solid-looking brown boots, like those her father wore to work. Her hair was threaded with grey. Whenever she moved it sounded like little bells were chiming; a collection of silver bracelets hung from her wrists, tinkling against each other as she used her hands. Alice couldn’t stop staring at her.
The group turned to enter Alice’s room. Alice focused on her book. When they came in she didn’t look up. The little bells tinkled and chimed.
‘Alice,’ Brooke started. Her voice was too high. Alice didn’t understand the tears in Brooke’s eyes.
The woman in the suit stepped forward. ‘Alice, we’ve come to introduce you to someone special.’
She kept her eyes on her book. Briar Rose was about to be saved by love. When the lady in the suit spoke again, her voice was too loud, as if Alice was hard of hearing.
‘Alice, this is your grandmother. Her name is June. She’s come to take you home.’
Brooke pushed Alice in a wheelchair through the hospital and out into the bright morning. Earlier, she’d disappeared from Alice’s room while the woman in the suit was talking. June had just stared at Alice and fidgeted a lot. Alice had read enough about grandmothers to know that in her King Gees and Blundstones, June did not look or behave like one. While her bracelets didn’t stop chiming, she hardly said a thing, not even when the woman said it was June who’d sent Alice her box of books. Dr Harris said June was Alice’s guardian. She and the suit lady used that word a lot. Guardian. Guardian. To Alice, it conjured images of lighthouses. But June didn’t look like she was full of guarding light. Her eyes were the most distant Alice had seen, the kind of horizon so far away that you can’t tell the sea from the sky.
Outside, June was sitting in an old farm truck in the visitor car park, waiting for them. Beside her was an enormous, panting dog. Classical music poured from the open windows. When the dog spotted Brooke and Alice it leapt to its feet, barking, filling the truck’s cabin with its bulk. June started and turned the volume down, wrangling herself around the dog.
‘Harry!’ June yelled, tried to hush him. ‘Sorry,’ she called, fussing as she clambered out of the truck. Harry kept barking. Before she could stop herself, Alice lifted her arm to signal ‘quiet’ to Harry — Harry, not Toby. When he didn’t respond and Alice realised her mistake, her chin quivered before she could stop it.
‘Oh no,’ June cried, misunderstanding the expression on Alice’s face. ‘I know he’s big, but you don’t have anything to fear. Bullmastiffs are gentle.’ She crouched by Alice’s wheelchair. Alice couldn’t look at her. ‘Harry’s got special powers. He looks after people when they’re sad.’ June stayed there, waiting. Ignoring her, Alice busied herself with her hands in her lap.
‘Let’s get you in the truck now, Alice,’ Brooke said.
June stepped back to let Brooke help Alice out of the wheelchair and up into the passenger seat. Harry leapt up to sit beside her. He smelled different from Toby, sweet and earthen, not salty and damp. And he didn’t have long, fluffy fur either, nothing for her to curl her fingers into.
Brooke leant through the window. Harry panted happily at her. Alice sucked on her bottom lip.
‘Be a good girl, Alice.’ Brooke touched Alice’s cheek gently, before abruptly turning her back to the truck. She went to June who was standing a short distance away, and together they talked in low voices. Any minute Brooke would turn back, march over to the truck in her pink rubber shoes, throw open the door and declare it was all a mistake. Alice didn’t have to leave. Brooke would take her home to her desk and her mother’s garden, and Alice would find her voice somewhere down by the sea among the scallop shells and soldier crabs, and she’d bellow loud enough for her family to hear her. Any minute now, Brooke would turn around. Any minute. Brooke was her friend. She wouldn’t let Alice go off with someone she didn’t know. Even if she was a lighthouse.
Alice watched them intently. June touched Brooke’s arm and Brooke returned the gesture. She was probably comforting June, explaining it was all a big mistake — Alice wouldn’t be leaving. Then Brooke handed June Alice’s bag of belongings, which consisted entirely of books, and turned back towards the truck.
‘Be good,’ Brooke mouthed to Alice, lifting her hand in a wave. She lingered by the entrance with the empty wheelchair. After a moment, she pushed it towards the automatic doors and disappeared through them.
Alice was struck by dizziness, as if Brooke had walked away and taken all the blood in her body with her. She’d left her with this stranger. Alice rubbed her eyes to push the tears back in, but it was no use. She’d made the mistake of thinking her tears disappeared to the same place as her voice. But now they streamed down her cheeks as if they ran from a broken tap. June stood at the passenger window, her arms hanging at her sides as if she didn’t know what else to do with them. After a few moments she opened the passenger door, stowed Alice’s bag behind her seat and shut the door gently. She walked around the truck and climbed into the driver’s seat to start the engine. They sat together in silence. Even Harry the enormous dog.