He was sort of looking at her.
‘It’s like the French Revolution,’ Finn told her, stacking them neatly on his ever-growing pyre. ‘All the aristocracy off to the Guillotine. I can just imagine these guys saying, “Let them eat cake”.’
But she couldn’t. Not quite.
The horse was sitting right on top of the pile, still looking aristocratic and nasty. The teddy was just underneath him. It was an old teddy. No one would want that teddy.
She was vaguely aware of Mrs O’Reilly watching from the kitchen window. She looked bemused. She wasn’t saying anything, though.
These toys were theirs now, to do with as they wanted, Jo thought with a sudden stab of clarity. Hers and Finn’s. They represented generations of favoured children, but now...were she and Finn the favoured two?
She glanced at Finn, looking for acknowledgement that he was feeling something like she was—anger, resentment, sadness.
Guilt?
All she saw was a guy revelling in the prospect of a truly excellent bonfire. He was doing guy stuff, fiddling with toys so they made a sweeping pyre, putting the most flammable stuff at the bottom, the horse balanced triumphantly at the top.
He was a guy having fun.
‘Ready?’ he asked and she realised he had matches poised.
‘Yes,’ she said in a small voice and Finn shook his head.
‘You’ll have to do better than that. You’re the lady of the castle, remember. It’s an autocratic “Off with their heads”, or the peasants will sense weakness. Strength, My Lady.’
‘Off with their heads,’ she managed but it was pretty weak.
But still, she’d said it and Finn looked at her for a long moment, then gave a decisive nod and bent and applied match to kindling.
It took a few moments for the wood to catch. Finn could have put a couple of the more flammable toys at the base, she thought. That would have made it go up faster. Instead he’d left a bare spot so the fire would have to be strongly alight before it reached its target.
The teddy would be one of the first things to catch, she thought. The teddy with the missing ear and no arm. And an eye that needed a stitch to make his smile less wonky.
She could...
No. These were favoured toys of favoured people. They’d belonged to people who’d rejected her. People who’d given her their name but nothing else. People who’d made sure she had nothing, and done it for their own selfish ends.
The teddy... One stitch...
The flames were licking upward.
The giraffe was propped beside the teddy. There was a bit of stuffing oozing out from his neck. She could...
She couldn’t. The fire was lit. The thing was done.
‘Jo?’ Finn was suddenly beside her, his hand on her shoulder, holding her with the faintest of pressure. ‘Jo?’
She didn’t reply. She didn’t take her eyes from the fire.
‘You’re sure you want to do this?’ he asked.
‘It’s lit.’
‘I’m a man who’s into insurance,’ he said softly and she looked down and saw he was holding a hose.
A hose. To undo what she needed to do.
The teddy...
Even the evil horse...
She couldn’t do it. Dammit, she couldn’t. She choked back a stupid sob and grabbed for the hose. ‘Okay, put it out.’
‘You want the fire out?’
‘I’ll do it.’
‘You’ll wet the teddy,’ he said reproachfully. ‘He’ll get hypothermia as well as scorched feet. Trust me, if there’s one thing I’m good at it’s putting out fires.’
And he screwed the nozzle and aimed the hose. The water came out with satisfactory force. The wood under the teddy hissed and sizzled. Flames turned to smoke and then steam.
The teddy was enveloped with smoke but, before she realised what he intended, Finn stomped forward in his heavy boots, aimed the hose downward to protect his feet, then reached up and gathered the unfortunate bear.
And the giraffe.
He played the water for a moment longer until he was sure that no spark remained, then twisted the nozzle to off and turned back to her.
He handed her the teddy.
‘Yours,’ he said. ‘And I know I said I have too much stuff, but I’m thinking I might keep the giraffe. I’ll call him Noddy.’
She tried to laugh but it came out sounding a bit too much like a sob. ‘N... Noddy. Because...because of his neck?’
‘He’s lost his stuffing,’ Finn said seriously. ‘He can’t do anything but nod. And Teddy’s Loppy because he’s lopsided. He looks like he’s met the family dog. One side looks chewed.’
‘It’d be the castle dog. Not a family dog.’
‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,’ he said, softly now, his gaze not leaving her face. As if he knew the tumult of stupid emotions raging within her. ‘These people rejected us for all sorts of reasons but somehow they still are family. Our family. Toe-rags most of them, but some will have been decent. Some will have been weak, or vain or silly, and some cruel and thoughtless, but they were who they were. This...’ he waved to the heap of toys spared from the flames ‘...this is just detritus from their passing.’
‘Like us.’
‘We’re not detritus. We’re people who make decisions. We’re people who’ve spared a nursery full of toys and now need to think what to do with them.’ He looked doubtfully at his lopsided giraffe. ‘You did say you could sew.’
‘I...I did.’
‘Then I’ll ask you to fix him so he can sit in my toolshed and watch me do shed stuff. Maybe Loppy can sit on your handlebars and watch you ride.’
‘That’d be silly.’
‘Silly’s better than haunted.’
She stared at the pile of ancient toys, and then she turned and looked up at the castle.
‘It’s not its fault.’
‘It’s not even the horse’s,’ Finn said gently. ‘Though I bet he collaborated.’
‘He’d probably sell for heaps.’
‘He would. I didn’t like to say but there’s been one like him in the window of the antique shop in the village at home. He has a three hundred pound price tag.’
‘Three hundred... You didn’t think to mention that when I wanted to burn him?’
‘I do like a good bonfire.’
She choked on a bubble of laughter, emotion dissipating, and then she stared at the horse again. Getting sensible. ‘We could give him away. To a children’s charity or something.’
‘Or we could sell him to someone who likes arrogant horses and give the money instead,’ Finn told her. ‘Think how many bears we could donate with three hundred pounds. Kids need friends, not horses who only associate with the aristocracy.’
There was a long silence. Mrs O’Reilly had disappeared from her window, no doubt confused by the on-again off-again bonfire. The sun was warm on Jo’s face. In the shelter of the ancient outbuildings there wasn’t a breath of wind. The stone walls around her were bathed in sunshine, their grey walls softened by hundreds of years of wear, of being the birthplace of hundreds