He reached inside his pocket for the box.
“Got you something when I was in London.”
Her face lit up. “You did? What is it?”
“Open it and see.”
Sass sat cross-legged on the four-poster bed. She picked the box up. She put it down. She held it to her ear like a seashell and gave it a little rattle. Mom used to drive her crazy unwrapping gifts, she was so slow. She’d take her time, keeping the bow “for another occasion,” even smoothing out the discarded wrapping, like there was no hurry.
She reached over and tugged at the white ribbon; tore off the teal-colored paper until she was left with the naked box. She paused: the word TIFFANY was printed on top. What? Audrey Hepburn’s Tiffany? A little squeak escaped her: New York, London, Paris, and Rome. A tingle of excitement that started in her toes and ended in her fingertips. She lifted the clamshell lid, and resting against the velvet was a silver horseshoe on a chain.
Alex helped her put it on as she sat at an old-fashioned, bean-shaped dressing table swathed in a misty-colored silk that was tattered in places. She touched her throat where he’d kissed her. She would wear the necklace tonight. Not that it could alter how she looked.
In the looking glass, Wolf Girl had gotten in a fight. A big one. And lost. She glared at the cuts and grazes, held up her loose hair, and looked left and right.
Alex caught her eye in the mirror and they outgazed each other until he looked away first. She laughed. She’d won, but he made her feel lighter than the air that she only sometimes still struggled to breathe.
“Listen, I’m out of here, before Grandma catches me. Okay?”
“Wait.” She turned around. “What am I going to wear to dinner?”
He grinned.
“How should I know? It’s almost your birthday. Wear nothing.” A devilish grin. “Or take a look in there?” He nodded at the double doors of a closet behind her.
“Can I?”
“Sure, it’s bound to be full of Mum’s stuff.”
“I couldn’t …”
“Come on, she won’t mind. She never wears half of it. Go on, do it, now.”
And he left her and went out.
Sass opened the walk-in closet. Oh my god, she was halfway to Narnia. She almost expected a talking fawn to fall out in high-heels. There were dresses on velvet-padded hangers: in cotton, silk, linen, and lace. More soft colors than a box of sugar-dusted Turkish delight. How could anyone know what was in here, let alone what to choose?
She didn’t have to because the dress chose itself. A sheer silk slip rustled to the ground, the color of a blush: a floaty fall of shimmering lace. Would it fit, did she dare? It was almost backless, with two thin straps that crossed between her shoulder blades. So … all grown up. So perfect.
Slipping it on, Sass looked again in the mirror. It fit her frame as if it was made for her.
There was a knock on the door: a sharp rat-a-tat-tat.
“Go away, Alex! A girl needs some privacy.”
“I am very glad to hear it. May I come in?” It was Helena.
“Yes …” Sass swallowed. “Yes, of course.” She opened the door wide.
Helena stood looking raven-like in a black velvet stole.
“My dear, I see you’ve found something lovely.” The countess’s eyes took her in. “Have you everything you need? A little cardigan, perhaps?”
She glanced from Sass and surveyed the rest of the room, her eyes resting on the discarded white bow and gift wrap. She bent stiffly and picked the crushed ribbon up. She seemed to fold a little herself.
“That was her name, you know?” Helena said sadly.
“What was?”
“Silver Ribbon.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“Bo’s proper name; her race name was Silver Ribbon. I shortened it to Bo. Her stable name, you see?”
Sass felt her heart beat faster. She reached for the photograph of her grandpapa lounging against his plane.
“Who’s that?” Helena asked, stepping closer, her voice rising slightly.
“It’s an old photo; my uncle David packed it with my things. It’s of my great-grandfather and his crew. I wanted to show you. He was here in Cornwall during the war. You know, like you said that day in the churchyard? He was an American airman, an officer pilot. His name was Jack Rigby.”
“I see …” But Helena was all confusion, her lined face filled with a sort of anguished longing. “There were so many Jacks, my dear, and most of them died. I can’t possibly remember them all.”
Her chin quivered.
“Won’t you take another look?”
Helena put her hand out to sit down on the bed. Sass reached across and put the frame gently in her lap.
“Please? You see, David says he might have been billeted here at Trist. Maybe … you even met him once?”
Sass felt the lightest lift and fall in the air of the room; a gentle flow that heated her inside and out. She had the strangest feeling that something extraordinary had, or was about to happen.
Helena picked up the frame with weak hands. She knew this photograph, or rather, the boys in it. It had to be his snapshot. Her Jack’s. His crew. It must have gone home with his things. The greatest love of her life was staring back at her from here in this room.
Saskia was his great-granddaughter. Helena shook her head. How could fate strike twice?
She hadn’t meant to fall for Jack: he was married, but it had happened anyway. She was only seventeen to his nineteen. Chalk and cheese, except when it came to horses. War made people behave differently; when one of you might die, you lived for the day, especially if you were young and headstrong, and so full of life.
“There’s something else,” Saskia was saying. “Tucked in the back. Take a look?”
A silver ribbon fell out. Helena picked it up, smoothing it with her thumb. The tie that Jack had stolen from her hair the night he flew away. She let it slip through her fingers: watched it uncoil, its glittering threads twirling back time in the lamplight. He’d kept it. Even though he’d been taken, the past had framed a way to tell her, to remind her, that she had once been truly cherished.
Helena glanced up at Saskia and composed her face: years of practice mustered in a single sentence; English to the end.
“Perhaps I could keep the photograph for later? I may remember something.”
Biting her lip, she returned to the present and leaned across to Saskia.
“My dear, I think you need some help with your hair. What are we going to do with this?”
Half an hour later, from the shadow of the dining room, she watched her grandson’s face as the girl he adored came down the stairs dressed in pale lace, her hair swept up, a hint of cherry gloss on her lips, and a pair of red-sequined slippers on her feet. Helena peered closer: tied in a bow at Saskia’s throat was a shining horseshoe on a frayed gray-satin ribbon. And in the girl’s soft tread on the step, it seemed to Helena that in one silver summer, what the skies had taken away, the sea had brought back.
It has only taken twenty-five years in children’s book publishing to write this book, so there are a few people who I must thank.
To Mum for joining me in the Puffin Club; for opening a school bookshop in a far-flung school, so that books never ran out; and for reading (almost) every version of this manuscript. To Dad for taking me, as a little girl, to the library and for occasionally losing me there. To Sax and Rich in loco parentis and my brother, David, for turning out less annoying. For Ann, Bob, and Mark, my other family. To Little Tim, Gobbolino, Laura Ingalls, and Nancy Drew for making me want to read. Then later, Roger McGough, Roald Dahl, Posy Simmonds, and Jilly Cooper for being my literary heroes.
To Barry Cunningham, my boss and friend, for not giving me my first job, but the second, and my time with the Coop. To all the Chickens for reading this, but especially Rachel Leyshon for “ironing out the wrinkles” and Her Ladyship Helena Bagenal. To a brilliant editor, Mallory Kass at Scholastic, for loving hor
ses, and for shining such a thoughtful light on this narrative, and to Ellie Berger for giving me the chance. To Helen Crawford White for the beautiful cover art.
To all my friends who didn’t know they were lending me their names: Katie, Fiona, Penny, Carolyn, Karen, Philippa, and Alison. To my goddaughters, nieces, and first readers: Izzie P, Lizzie B, the Warren sisters, Francesca, Sacha, Chloe, and Jess. To Sarah, Lisa, Chris, and Nadine for sharing in the horses.
And finally and most important of all: Simon “HH,” who cleaned around me on the promise of riches. Ha. My children, Jack Harry and Isobel Lily (named for the granny who made up stories about Carlo the dog). And finally, the four-legged troupe: the dastardly Mac and immaculate Munch.
Rachel Hickman has loved books, horses, and the seacoast her whole life. Born in England, she grew up in Hong Kong and then attended Oxford Brookes University then started a career in publishing, working with some of the best-loved children’s authors in the world. In 2000, she cofounded Chicken House Publishing, where she works today. She lives in Hampshire, England, with her husband, Simon; son, Jack; and daughter, Izzie, as well as a dastardly rescue terrier called Mac. One Silver Summer is her debut novel.
Copyright © 2016 by Rachel Hickman
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, May 2016
Cover art by Helen Crawford-White, © 2016 Scholastic Inc.
Cover design by Yaffa Jaskoll
e-ISBN 978-0-545-80893-4
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