“It’s me. Can you call Martha so she’ll let me in?”

“I don’t want to see you today,” said Colin in a hard voice. “And I don’t want to go to the garden.”

“But I’ve got something to show you,” Mary pleaded. “I found some letters from my mother to yours. They talk about you and her illness, how Archie—your father—worries about your health so much because of his own hunchback. She says he’s scared you’ll be a hunchback too and that he’s desperate to protect you. She talks about how fearful she is that he’ll project his own fears onto you and make you ill after she’s gone, which is exactly what he has done. I think you’ll like to see them and it may change how you feel. Please?”

There was a silence. Mary waited, wondering what he was going to say, and suddenly the door opened. Her eyes widened in shock. Colin had got out of bed and opened the door himself. He was hanging on to it, standing up but looking shaky.

“I need to read those letters,” he said. Then his legs shook, and he collapsed on the floor with a cry. Mary tried to catch him, but she wasn’t strong enough and she ended up crashing down with him.

“Ow!” she gasped as they both hit the floor.

He pushed himself off her. “Sorry.”

“You walked, Colin!” Mary exclaimed, not caring about her bruises. “You got out of bed and walked!”

He looked at his legs in confusion. “I did, didn’t I?”

Mary beamed. “Now will you believe in the magic?”

She helped Colin into his chair and showed him the letters. “Here. Read them,” she said, pushing them onto his lap.

He nodded. “I will but not here. In the garden.”

They set off. When they reached the garden, they found Dickon trimming the hedges near the statues in the sun. They explained why they had come and then sat down together in the flower-filled clearing by the swing. Colin and Mary read through the letters while Dickon sat nearby, stroking Hector.

“Listen to this, Mary!” said Colin, reading out a passage. “She’s bold, slightly dangerous, and she has a spirit that nothing can quench. I am so very proud of her.”

“Who’s she talking about?” said Mary, puzzled.

Dickon chuckled.

“You, you idiot!” Colin grinned. “She’s telling my mother about you. She loved you, Mary.”