Chapter 8

8

HAYDEN

I leave Rae at the station, then keep myself busy all week long. That isn’t hard as Cornwall shakes off her summer greens for autumn metallics. Wheat ripples in the sea breeze, a golden ocean I sail through first on combines and then on tractors, baling straw.

I do that all over again the next week too on a different farm, sprinkling in a few of the last tasks left to complete at Glynn Harber—tasks that Luke told me to press pause on, which is proof that he’s a local. He told me the weather waits for no farmer, and he wasn’t wrong about that, but that repetitive work of driving up and down fields only gives me time for wondering how Rae’s meeting went in London.

So what if we only had a one-off that always had a deadline? Now I can’t help wondering how things panned out for someone I’m pretty sure was desperate to score long-term funding for his project and wasn’t as fully prepared as he could have been.

Because he helped me.

Fourteen days after we said our goodbyes, I’m also unprepared for a message pinging my phone.

Not from Rae.

I’ve had plenty of time to regret that we didn’t exchange numbers, even if our weekend together was a one-and-done, fleeting but so fucking good. I’d still much rather read a message from him than from who sends me this one.

Luke Lawson: We should finish our talk.

I know which conversation he will want to revisit.

It won’t be about that clearing I made for his students, which I keep circling back to between farm work. Charles says the nature-based activities I’ve added are proof I’d be an ideal candidate to work here full time. He insists all I’d need is a formal Forest School qualification, and that I should ask for a chance to run classes here while studying for it.

Last year, I wouldn’t have wanted that full-time commitment even if I had the right teaching credentials. I still thought my camping business had a future. Now, after spending a single night under canvas with Rae and remembering how that stove only took the edge off the cold last winter, I’m tempted to ask for what Charles says would get me a guaranteed yes and a permanent place at the stables. Even if that means sharing with a happily humming fucker.

Only I’m almost certain that Luke hasn’t messaged about me sharing the stables with Rowan for any longer.

He’ll want to revisit a conversation that a hectic wedding and a couple of busy weeks interrupted. His next text feels like confirmation.

Luke Lawson: Come and find me as soon as you can.

I can also guess what that means.

He’s had time to research what kind of tests players take before big matches. I even confessed to getting marched off a pitch in front of thousands, didn’t I?

That doesn’t happen for minor reasons.

Run classes for him? There’s no chance, especially now his school is full of students.

Charles has mentioned that some are fragile. Others are apparently volatile enough that Luke has had to stagger their arrivals. That has been a partial blessing—those new kids trickling into his school have kept Luke too busy to track me down and ask for my key for the stables back.

He’ll want to end my contract right now, even if I haven’t completely finished.

I get busy then too, only I spend every last minute in the woods doing what Charles suggested to extend learning.

I hear that in his posh accent— help the children to need each other —so that’s what I do over and over, creating natural teamwork chances with logs and tarps. With spoons and jars and buckets, and planks it will take two to carry. And with a storytelling chair that I turn into a real throne by carving a crown, a finishing touch I can’t help wishing Rae knew he inspired with his king of the fairies drawing.

Of me.

I add more finishing touches for both kids and adults, all while picturing an unsteady little girl who spilled her wedding petals and a brain-injured man I made feel bad but didn’t mean to.

These adult-height handrails are my apology to Justin for having absolutely zero intention of seeking him out for a footy-related conversation. No need to revisit those bad old days, but I do hope he gets to use this place and enjoy it.

I also hope that Rae’s second pitch went better than his first one—that he got his big chance, even if I’ll never know which journey he picked to run with.

He mentioned so many kids he’d met overseas while he sketched at that wedding, always coming back to one he drew wearing a yellow life vest, her skinny little arms outstretched to a plane that flew away without her family. Rae drew a cape for that girl, and now I kinda wish I knew if she made the final cut in his story.

Maybe that’s a soccer hangover—a pang of sympathy for anyone left on a bench. Perhaps I’ll pass a bookshop one day and find out.

And perhaps one day I’ll figure out how my stepmum always knows when to reach out to me.

I sit on that storytelling throne and get the virtual kick in the arse I need from her.

Kirsty: I just got the girls’ savings account statements!!!

Kirsty: Seriously, love, stop adding to them.

Kirsty : Spend your money on yourself. We’ve all got everything we need.

Kirsty: Apart from seeing more of you.

She follows that with a screen full of emojis that blow kisses, and one random dollop of poop.

Kirsty: Sorry. Didn’t mean to send that emoji, but I do mean it about the money. Seriously. They’ll only spend it on clothes, and there isn’t room for any more!!!

She sends a photo of their bedroom, and yeah, it’s cluttered and chaotic, the triple bunks I built for them almost camouflaged by clothing, but it is also enough of an incentive to get my head on straight, even if driving tractors across bumpy fields so often lately means my fingers shake while I type this.

Hayden: I’ll build them a bigger wardrobe next time I’m up.

I tag on another message before she can ask when that will be, and I add a kiss for each of them.

Hayden: Soon xxxx

That might be much sooner than I want once harvest is over and I run out of too-busy-to-visit excuses.

I’ll also run out of money to send home.

I shove that thought away the same way I shove my hands deep in my pockets to still them.

Another thought won’t be shoved down. It clings like a burr while I sit on a throne in a kingdom I’ve spent a summer creating.

I do want to be who teaches the kids here.

Adam toddling up to me with his arms raised like the kid in that picture Rae sketched is only confirmation.

We have a quick play while a tired-looking Charles wheels napping babies. Adam likes the thin discs of logs that I’ve sawn. We count them. Make a path of stepping stones with them. He jumps from each one before we stack them into a tower, and I find a chrysalis hiding. I haven’t read a book about a hungry caterpillar to my sisters in forever. It comes back to me for Adam. I’m word-perfect while I sit on that throne with him, and when I finally exit the woods, I’m determined to try to stay for longer.

At least through the winter.

I march to the main school building, because Rae didn’t put off that meeting of his, did he? He got on that train because kids need the cash getting a yes could net him. Now I take a shortcut—no brambles here to snag me or ivy left to smother this natural beauty.

The woods look so much better, and so does the school without the scaffolding that covered it all summer. Now windows gleam with a golden sunset, and I should go straight upstairs to find Luke and ask him to let me lead those sessions for him.

What I actually do is hesitate on the threshold of the front door, feet planted on mosaic tile welcoming me to Glynn Harber, and…

Will I still be welcome, if he has done his research?

I backtrack and end up at the stables, which feels like a mistake as soon as I see what waits on my bedside table.

The fairy king that Rae left here for me stares out from a sheet of sketchpad paper. He’s confident and commanding, at peace with his scars. With his past . Even his gaze is calm, and fuck me but I thought I was calm too until someone said four little words within Luke Lawson’s hearing.

Failed a pre-match test.

Maybe that’s why I feel seventeen all over again as I hold a sketch that Rae surely didn’t have time to waste by drawing the weekend he was here.

I want to live up to how he saw me.

So I do.

I retrace my steps to find Luke, who doesn’t make that easy. He isn’t in his study where I knock and wait like a shiny brass sign orders, and maybe him not telling me to enter should be a reprieve, only I can’t stop thinking of Rae telling me he was gonna ask for what he really wanted and that I should too.

That’s the spur in the side I need to go searching through classrooms. The smell of fresh paint travels with me down hallways lined with noticeboards. And that’s where I find Rae.

Not for real.

A photo of him is on a noticeboard just inside the library. He’s surrounded by kids. By sand. By shared art projects, none of which hold my attention. I’m drawn to eyes that smile even in a photo, and to his brand of busy interest. I’m so engrossed that I don’t hear Luke until he stands beside me.

“Was he ready in time for his meeting?”

I jump. Not due to surprise. Leaping is any goalie’s first reaction, and that’s what I do now by coming to Rae’s defence. “He won’t let those kids down.”

Luke repeats what I last saw on a dance floor when a soldier held up both hands to say don’t shoot . Luke’s upraised hands ask me to hold fire the same way, only he doesn’t back off. If anything, he draws closer to me and rephrases while speaking quietly. “Of course he won’t let them down.” All of his frown lines deepen as he makes a quiet confession. “I only wondered about how his meeting might have gone for selfish reasons.”

“Selfish?” That isn’t a word I’d associate with this headmaster. I’ve watched him work hard all summer. When he hasn’t been walking and talking with his trainee teachers, he’s wielded tools or paint rollers. Even now, he’s dotted with white spatters. He’s also midway through another chore for the kids who learn here.

Luke gestures at a box of books I assume are meant to fill the shelves of this new library. “I was hoping Rae would help me add to our collection of stories about journeys, like in these books, especially if those stories involve failure.”

“Failure?”

I guess we aren’t talking about fiction anymore.

This is about me.

I brace myself, but Luke picks up a picture book for little children. “Rae recommended this one to me. Said it was a particularly difficult story that spoke to him, got to him right here.”

He touches his chest while something deep inside mine twinges at the thought of Rae hurting. What Luke adds next soothes it.

“He said that story healed him. Not sure if that’s because he saw himself in it or because it was illustrated by someone who went on to become his mentor.” He taps a book cover showing a boy staring up at a sky full of stars, his gaze fixed on the brightest one sparkling high above him. And isn’t that another reminder of Rae right there, only under a canopy of Cornish stars with me.

Luke touches that bright star on the cover of the book. “I ordered several by the same illustrator based on Rae’s recommendation. This is the one that held special meaning for him, but do you know what almost happened to it this afternoon?”

I shake my head and Luke tells me.

“I haven’t been able to find a perfect librarian for Glynn Harber. I settled for someone who fit the bill on paper, and that’s who I found packing these books away to return, because”—he makes air quotes—“they aren’t suitable for children. None of them. Not even the book Rae personally recommended. The one story he said made him feel less alone.”

“Alone?” There goes my chest again, twinging.

Luke points back to that noticeboard full of photos.

“Perhaps Rae meant he wasn’t alone in wanting to help children through art. Regardless, the librarian decided none of these books were suitable. Said they had too many scary low points.”

He smiles tightly while proving to me that he isn’t afraid to end contracts early like I’ve come here more than half expecting.

“We’ve agreed to differ. Parted ways before he could return them.” Now Luke is rueful. “And unfortunately before he could finish shelving any of the books he did approve of, hence…” He gestures again at the mostly empty shelves in this library. “It looks as if I’ll be on duty—which isn’t the most optimal timing—until I can trial another addition to my team. Someone with a more open mindset.” He admits to making a mistake without any excuses. “I selected the wrong person. Me. No one else. I made an error of judgement. Perhaps I hoped too hard that I’d found someone with a storyteller’s soul for our students. Someone who knows the value of seeing yourself in fiction, in getting to be a hero instead of a victim.”

Like Rae does with all those kids.

I glance again at the photos on the noticeboard. Rae is almost clean-shaven in the first. He’s increasingly bearded and progressively more harrowed as I walk along this record of what Luke tells me is a collaboration between several projects. “Our counsellor Reece helps to run the Safe Harbour project. He’s always gathering up like-minded people.”

He has also gathered kids. Each photo features different children. A tide of statistics, Rae had called them.

What else did he say that night while wedding guests danced and he drew them on his phone with a stylus?

A never-ending tsunami of half-finished stories .

Luke murmurs, “Having an extra story-telling person on my team was key to my plans for Glynn Harber, but if that librarian couldn’t see the value of difficult journeys, I can’t possibly risk them around my students, can I?”

Risk them.

That phrase has rattled through my brain all day long. For the last two weeks as well.

Luke picks up the same thread and runs with it. Not literally though. If anything, he cautiously peers around a set of shelving, then crooks a finger. I follow to see his little daughter curled up on a beanbag seat, asleep with a picture book open beside her. He carefully scoops it up and retreats with it to show me.

“Risk Jamila never getting to see Syrian children like herself and her brother?”

The book is full of little girls and boys just like her and her brother, Hadi.

“Risk her not getting to see that good times are possible after bad ones?”

There’s loss on these pages, and how the fuck an artist conveyed that without it being terrifying, I don’t know, but Rae’s mentor has drawn love far more often than he has drawn fear or sadness.

Luke touches one of those caring images. “Risk her not getting to see how much her heritage matters? Heritage like you helped to translate for me, back when we found little Olek’s scroll and diary in the school foundation, remember?”

I do. That was at the start of the summer. Months later, I wish I knew what happened to a kid who didn’t only share my roots but also my footballing dreams. Even if those never worked out for me, I hope he got his own happy ending.

Luke clears his throat. “Difficult paths are the ones our students most need to read. They need to see them play out more often, not less.” He faces me, no escaping this eye contact. “They need to hear them from people who have lived through similar tough issues like theirs and who have come out the other side as aspirational people.” He pauses. “Like you have, Hayden.”

“Me?”

“You,” he confirms. “Which is also what I meant earlier about Rae’s meeting.” He’s honest again. “Part of me wanted to keep him here for a little longer, just like I want to keep you.”

My throat tightens out of nowhere, and perhaps he can tell.

Luke speaks for me. “You’ve worked with children when you ran nature courses as part of your camping business, so you must have passed clearance checks multiple times.”

I nod. I have.

“Some of our children are particularly vulnerable. That’s why anyone who works here needs to pass enhanced checks. Yours came back completely clear, Hayden. No police cautions or convictions.”

I nod again, fully expecting more questions about exactly how I let down everyone who loved me.

Luke tilts his head to ask a different question. “Who let you down, Hayden?”

I can’t answer.

I can’t breathe either, if I’m honest.

And I’m not sure how I end up sitting heavily on a chair provided by someone maybe I shouldn’t have avoided, because Luke doesn’t probe. He only sits beside me to open that star-covered storybook Rae apparently recommended. Luke turns to a page where a boy props up a massive boulder, and this illustrator’s style is different from Rae’s. There are no fairies on these pages, no crowns or burrs or sparkles, just a little kid struggling not to get crushed under something heavy.

Luke touches the edge of that huge boulder, then asks, “You failed a test when you were how old?”

“Seventeen.”

“The reason you failed it… That was your decision? Your idea?”

I shake my head. Then I nod, so Luke rephrases.

“Would you say you were supported?”

That’s much easier to answer. “No.”

He inhales slowly. “And you were alone with all of that.”

That isn’t a question.

“I wasn’t alone. I had my family.”

Here’s proof that Luke has done his research. “I meant alone after you lost your father.” He winces while repeating how I’d described Dad to him outside the chapel. “Your number one supporter. Your first and best coach. Someone who almost made it himself and who got a second shot through you.” He apologises right away, then adds, “I didn’t realise you lost him only months after joining the soccer academy. And of course his passing meant your stepmother must have been distracted with your sisters?—”

“It was nothing to do with her,” I snap. “Or them,” I say more softly, and I can only guess my face shows some of the storm we all went through. I hear the same thunder that hammered in my head and heart during academy practice sessions when succeeding became even more vital.

For them. For the girls and Kirsty.

Luke quickly holds a hand up in another don’t-shoot gesture, so I focus on that image of a boulder because here’s the thing: I don’t remember my birth mother at all, but my stepmum? Kirsty is the living and breathing reason why that word step gets attached to mother or father. She stepped up for all of us—held up a boulder of her own after losing Dad—so I settle for saying, “She was under a lot of pressure.”

And what does pressure make?

The best and the brightest diamonds.

That means this emerges with a hard edge. “She absolutely would have been there for me if…”

“You’d told her what was happening to you?” He pauses. “If you’d shared how you were being guided? Moulded? Shaped into an elite player, no matter how?” Luke lowers his hands, his voice equally low. “That’s what I meant by asking who let you down, Hayden. All five of you. Because it sounds as if you and your family weren’t supported. Where were your new coaches in that bereavement process?”

He wants me to tell him everything.

To speak up about something I’ve done my best to forget.

He waits while my pause extends, his question still unanswered, so he rephrases again. “You were in pain?”

“Yeah.” This is so, so raspy. “I played through it.”

“Someone...” His next word choice feels careful. Testing, and quietly worried. “Someone encouraged you to do that, Hayden? To play even when you were hurting and showed you how?”

I nod, just barely, although encouraged doesn’t feel quite right for being faced with a team of coaches and club doctors. For being backed into a room with them. For having no one in my corner when the choices were made so simple.

Do what it takes to play or lose your shot forever.

Today I settle for repeating the motto painted on every surface at the academy. “ No grass stains, no glory. No bruises, no story . Right?”

“So they encouraged you to…”

Bruise.

This pause is even longer. I still can’t fill it by speaking.

Because bruise doesn’t even come close, does it?

Luke inhales and exhales slowly. Does it again, his next exhale louder, and it takes me a moment to realise he’s reminding me to breathe along with him. Finally he says, “I’m sorry any of that happened to you.”

I can’t shake my head, or nod, or answer.

I’d had a chance most kids would kill for, a golden ticket to play a game I loved almost as much as Dad did. I was excellent at something physical and competitive that used to make me stretch myself to my limits and enjoy it.

Describing how quickly that went to shit is too much of a stretch for me now, and Luke sits in silence with that. And with me.

He finally breaks that silence by closing the book and touching the highest star that sparkles on its cover. “I’m guessing your father would be so proud of you.”

I only wish I could believe that.

And this.

“You were grieving. You did your best to keep going regardless. You failed, and you recovered. And the leadership you showed a fortnight ago? That was exceptional, Hayden. Exceptional. You magicked a team together out of nowhere and made that wedding party happen. Of course I want to keep you.”

That’s it.

I’m done.

The picture book blurs. The whole world does. I can only blink it away when he finally outright asks, “The test you failed?”

I nod, waiting for a boulder to finally crush me.

Luke asks this oh-so quietly next. “Do I need to be concerned about any current issues relating to it?”

I’m not gritty now. I’m choked. “You really don’t, but…”

This is the closest I can come to voicing aloud what didn’t only fuck up my future. Perhaps that’s why this is edged in desperation. “Test me anytime you want. Every day if you need to. Test me at random, with no notice and no warning.”

His hand lands on my shoulder, firm and certain. “I think you’ve tested yourself more than enough.” He retreats to retrieve his still-sleeping daughter, coming back with her to whisper, “Jamila keeps asking to go to your clearing. Can I tell her next week, maybe, depending on your harvest duties?”

“You mean…”

“How about we give each other a short-term trial?” Luke suggests. “With three conditions. The first is that I want you to think about getting a formal Forest School teaching qualification.”

“A qualification?” That doesn’t sound short term. “How long would that take?”

“A year. Two if you need to stretch out your studies.” He must guess cost as my reason for hesitating. “That’s an investment the school could probably cover if you are committed. Let’s give it until the half-term break for both of us to decide whether you being here long term will work out.”

Long term? I’ll settle for a single winter if that comes with somewhere to live and steady earnings.

“The fine detail is negotiable.” He meets my eyes again, and there’s nowhere to hide from this steel. “This next condition isn’t. That’s due to the tough roads many of our students take to reach Glynn Harber. They have had traumatic journeys. I can’t leave them in the care of someone who hasn’t processed their own.” He touches that star in heaven on the book cover, and I guess he means bereavement although I’m a whole decade past needing a bedtime story to console me. Luke says, “Reece is the expert with that process, but he’s?—”

“In France?” My gaze flashes to a big blond man working alongside Rae in some of those photos, and I must have guessed right because Luke nods.

“That’s why you’ll need to agree to engage with him as soon as he comes back, which has to involve being open about exactly what you went through, Hayden. About every little detail. He’ll be back after the half-term break. Until then, I’ll find a mentor to work with you.” His gaze doesn’t waver. “That’s nonnegotiable as well. Not because I don’t trust you, but because I’m not sure you trust yourself. Not yet. But you will be able to in future if you’re prepared to do the hard work.”

“I’ve never been scared of that.”

“No.” His gaze warms with a smile. “And I’ve seen you do plenty of it for other people. How about you do some of it for yourself? On yourself. You won’t regret it.” He tacks on a third condition I wasn’t expecting. “And maybe you wouldn’t regret taking over our football coaching too.”

I sink. Or my soul does, at least, and he must notice.

“We can lose that condition, if playing again doesn’t spark joy for you. What you made for the children this summer clearly does, and if that’s all you have to give, it’s already more than enough.”

Something inside me rises then, lifting me like cliffside thermals do to gulls. I fly, soaring the same way I imagined I would if a stadium full of fans had roared for me.

Tonight, I hear them cheer instead of jeering my walk-off.

This is really happening. I’m going to get what I want.

Or part of it, at least.

Only one thing could make this result even sweeter, and this picture book that I carry out of the library for Luke while his hands are full with his sleeping daughter is a star-covered reminder.

Now I wish even harder that I’d swapped phone numbers with Rae.

Did he score a yes for his dream too?

Fuck it, if I really was a fairy king like that drawing he left for me, I’d cast a spell to make that happen for him, then I’d cast a second one to magic him back here to tell me himself.

Luke leaves me at the front door to go grab some paperwork, the click of his heels echoing through this empty building. So does the sound of different heels on mosaic, and maybe I don’t need magic.

My wish fills the doorway.