Jacob leaned over his mother’s sleeping face and whispered in her ear. Her eyes opened and she reached for him, then looked puzzled.
‘What is this?’ she asked.
The whole room was bathed in light as if the sun was coming through a stained glass window in blues, greens, reds and yellows.
‘It’s a present,’ Jacob said. ‘Happy Christmas.’
There were flowers everywhere. There were bunches stuffed in jam jars, blooms sticking out of the kettle and vines spilling from a vase. A bucket of tall grasses with waving seedheads sat on the floor. Mugs of little violets huddled on a bookcase, wild hedgerow flowers peered out of a cracked vase and poppies nodded over the side of a basin. The entire room smelled sweet, green and grassy.
‘It’s the middle of winter! Where on earth did you get them?’
‘Michael gave them to me.’
‘Michael?’
‘The ark angel.’
‘The who?’
‘He’s an ark angel. That means he has an ark, for saving things. Only Michael has a tree.’
‘Archangel means ‘chief angel’, sweetheart. But never mind, you do tell the most lovely stories. Here,’ she lifted up the covers. ‘why don’t you hop in and we’ll lie here and look at these beautiful flowers. I’ve no idea how you found them, but they’re like having all my Christmases and birthdays rolled into one. I’ll treasure every minute they’re blooming.’
‘Michael said they’ll last forever, so long as we look after them.’
‘I’m sure they will.’
Jacob knew she didn’t believe him, but he trusted the archangel. These flowers would never die because he would always care for them.