Into The Faerie Hill

12-year-old Alfred is tired of the constant moves his father’s engineering job demands-ten, so far. He never gets the chance to make friends or to fit in and this is exacerbated by his rather unusual appearance: he has one leg 5.3 centimetres shorter than the other and unusual pointed ears. The current move takes him to a place he is familiar with-his Granny’s cottage, where he was born. This should have brought him comfort, but he had always felt that malevolent eyes were watching him from the surrounding forest and that his Granny kept her distance, absorbed in her yarn-dyeing and weaving, almost as if she didn’t want him there.

His father’s new job is to build a tunnel through the nearby Faerie Hill, a place of myths and legends and rare natural beauty. Local opposition is unco-ordinated and sparse but Alfred meets Saga-the daughter of the midwife who delivered him-he realises how determined she is to stop the destruction of the hill. This meeting triggers two mysteries-why can he see and hear the strange, small creatures which inhabit the woods and garden and how can he find out more about his mother, who, he was told, died shortly after giving birth to him?

From the outset, Norup seeds her narrative with clues about Alfred’s true identity-his ease and skill in water, his ability to see colours in it which are hidden to others, his awareness of evil threaded through the quiet beauty of field, forest and water.  Her writing here is particularly luminous and Alfred’s transformation in water is handled beautifully and with compelling drama.

Saga and Alfred resolve to stop the destruction of the hill-Saga because she is a determined young activist and Alfred because he finally believes that his mother is alive and trapped within the sprawling labyrinths and sinkholes of the area. Their adventures require courage and determination and Alfred’s confidence and self-knowledge grow as a result. His encounters with the good and evil in the world of water give him knowledge about his mother-and about himself. She was half-fairy, as is he and when the spirit of water offered him a place in their world forever, where he had always felt he belonged, he put it to one side to remain in the human world with his father, Granny and Saga-the people he loves. He resolved that instead of hiding away he would no longer give up any part of himself but choose to belong in the place he would make his own. Norup’s message transcends the world of fairies, gods and goddesses to give pause for thought to those who, for whatever reason, feel they will never belong.