Free The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett

didn’t come home for supper, Maddy supposed he was dining with petrels and cormorants. Once, the thought would have been magical. Now it made her feel lost.
    She tried to make things different. She tried to make herself shiny in his mind. She was always laughing. She never complained about the afternoons she spent alone while he gazed at the sea. She tried not to ask too many questions or to say things she’d said before. She hoped that, if she were vibrant enough, he would forget his distractions and come to her. The plan did not seem to work. She felt like a ship buoyantly riding the waves while, underwater, its hull is splintering on the reef. Feather laughed with her, and slept by her side, and saw she was vibrant and smiled to see it, and looked away.
    Together they were two cheerful souls racked by melancholy. Maddy kept herself alive: she read, she learned to cook, she played with Perseus and a ball of wool, she walked among the conifers. But she was living like a puppet, whose heart is merely wood.
    Then one afternoon, while she was mashing potatoes, Maddy felt a tremble — the same small tremble a river must feel when a leaf drops onto its surface and sends ripples to the distant banks. She stood still, her thoughts inside herself, and in an instant felt it again — the flick of a sparrow’s wing. She put down the masher, astonished. Her mind was bare: but her world woke up, shook itself, and stepped out into the light.
    She looked at the ceiling, and around at the room. She saw nothing ordinary, not a saucepan, not a chair, nothing she had seen a thousand times before, but only things startling and incredible. Without even trying, something miraculous had happened, and everything was different after all. She ran all the way to the beach, her skirts streaming behind her, fancying she could run forever, that she could leap higher than a tree. The tide was coming in, and Feather was investigating puddles for sea bugs stranded by the waves. When he heard her calling he looked up warily, as if he might fly. Maddy took his hand and pressed it to her. She was puffing so hard she could hardly speak. “Feel,” she said.
    His hand left a damp print on her dress. She saw him understanding, a smoky kindling in his eyes. “A nymph,” he said. “A little elf. A tiny fay.”
    â€œOurs,” she said, and hugged him, and flopped into the sand, grinning at the sky. The syrupy orange sunlight pooled in her palms and poured out between her fingers. She and Feather had coasted far from each other: but this fay was a link, a grace, a clear light. It would be the best of them — them dauntless and together. The fay meant it wasn’t cruel to love Feather, for nothing so wonderful could come from something wrong. For the first time in a long time, Maddy was happy when she laughed.
    Matilda smiled down at her lined hands, squinting as if the beachside sun still tilted in her eyes. “How brilliant everything seemed at that moment,” she said. “How promising. I thought that, finally, I could bring Feather joy. I thought that finally, after all I’d taken from him, I could give something back.”
    The boy was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, stroking Peake’s head. The flames of the heater were casting a red hue on his chin and nose. “Are you hungry?” Matilda asked, suddenly remembering her manners. “I’ll make you some supper. There is soup and sausages, and some peaches for dessert.”
    â€œI’m not hungry,” said her guest, although it was a boy’s dinnertime. “Maybe later. I don’t like peaches.”
    â€œWell, you needn’t have them. I don’t want to make you miserable.”
    The boy nodded, not interested. With one hand he smoothed down the dog’s peppy ears, which instantly popped up again. Without looking at her, he asked, “So did it happen like you wanted — did everything change that