The Icarus Girl

Before bed, Dulcie asks Jess where she went when she disappeared, but Jess simply says she fell through the stairs. The next morning, when Dulcie’s parents come to pick her up, Jess’s father tells Jess that her aunt is pregnant and that Jess is getting another cousin. After Dulcie and her parents leave, Jess goes outside to look for TillyTilly. Jess and TillyTilly decide to go to the park for a picnic. Jess asks her father to pack a picnic for herself and TillyTilly. Jess’s father asks if he can meet TillyTilly, but Jess sees TillyTilly shake her head down the street. Jess tells her father that TillyTilly is too shy. At the park, TillyTilly picks at the sausage rolls Jess’s father packed for them. Jess points out that they are just like Gala, a Nigerian snack, but TillyTilly doesn’t understand what Jess means. Jess gets the strange feeling “that this was either not Tilly or a different TillyTilly from the one that she had first met in Nigeria. But it was only a momentary sensation” (161). After their picnic, TillyTilly and Jess decide to write a poem. After Jess finishes the poem, with TillyTilly’s help, TillyTilly points out that the poem is very sad. Trish, a Year Five student, shows up at the park and asks Jess why she is playing alone. Jess sees that TillyTilly has disappeared. Jess realizes that she is the only person who ever sees TillyTilly, and she wonders whether TillyTilly is real. Jess decides “that even if TillyTilly wasn’t real, if it was a choice between there just being her and Tilly or her and real people, she’d much, much rather have Tilly” (164). The next morning, Jess shows the poem to her mother. Jess has written “By Jessamy Harrison and Titiola” (165) at the bottom. Jess’s mother says she likes the poem, but it is very mature and sad.

Jess’s mother calls Jess’s aunt in Nigeria. Jess tries to say hello to her aunt on the phone, but “was seized by the fear that it wasn’t Aunty Funke she was talking to, but some thin, winding spirit that had intercepted the call” (168). Jess goes outside to look for TillyTilly but can’t find her. Jess thinks this must be because she realized TillyTilly wasn’t real.

That night, Jess has another dream about the long-armed woman. Jess hears TillyTilly speaking in her ear, explaining that she can appear and disappear. TillyTilly asks, if she wasn’t real, how can Jess explain the amusement park and sneaking into Colleen’s house? But when Jess opens her eyes, TillyTilly is gone. When Jess wakes up again, she sees TillyTilly moving around her bedroom. Jess notices, “Tilly was paper-thin and peeling around the edges, and just beyond her, a pair of long, dark brown arms was snaking in through the open door” (171). Jess realizes that TillyTilly and the long-armed woman are the same person. Jess falls in and out of sleep, at one point rolling out of bed and onto the floor. She sees a baby under the bed. Jess pulls out the baby and holds her on her lap. TillyTilly appears and picks up the baby to play with her. Jess closes her eyes and opens them again, and the baby is gone. TillyTilly explains that the baby is dead. TillyTilly tells Jess that Jess used to have a twin, but her twin died, and it was Jess’s mother’s fault. TillyTilly tells Jess that the baby was named Fern but died before she could be given a Yoruba name. TillyTilly explains, “But now I am Fern, I am your sister, and you are my twin […] I’ll look after you, Jessy” (176).

When Jess wakes up the next morning, she can’t stop thinking about Fern or the baby she saw the night before. Jess wonders what TillyTilly meant when she said it was Jess’s mother’s fault. Jess’s mother comes into Jess’s bedroom, and Jess instinctively pulls away from her. Jess wonders whether TillyTilly was lying and asks her mother whether there used to be two of her. Jess’s mother says yes, and that they’ll talk about it later, after Jess has gotten up and brushed her teeth. Jess’s mother leaves the bedroom, and Jess hears her crying through the walls. Jess’s father asks her mother what’s wrong, and Jess’s mother tells him Jess knows about her twin. Jess’s father says that’s impossible, but Jess’s mother says that Jess is like a witch, that twins always know, and that “Jess lives in three worlds. She lives in this world, and she lives in the spirit world, and she lives in the Bush” (181).