

23
To Be Loved
concentrate on toys. She really only liked playing outside. Charity
Hollows was high maintenance, I’ll tell you.
‘
The next morning, she begged to see the castle ruins.
‘You know, Aubrey,’ she said as we walked, ‘I can hear these voices
sometimes. I think they’re fairy spirits, talking to me.’
I thought she was crazy, but each day we’d visit the ruins, and she’d
tell me she could hear these voices. It wasn’t until she started telling
me about the people that had once lived in the castle, when I began
to…
believe
her.
When we were there one day, I found myself thinking about
Charity’s parents and how they shipped her off, away from the war.
How alone she must have felt. And perhaps I began to see why she
liked that old, abandoned castle so much.
‘Hey Charity,’ I said, ‘I think I can hear those voices too.’
‘
8