For turning twenty years of age, a lot has changed in a short space of time. Another war has begun, a girl almost fully matured, and although it had been seven years to the day, I had not forgotten that damned rabbit. Not forgotten it perhaps, because my father had chopped it's foot off and given it to me as a good luck charm, and it was in the suitcase. At the bottom. In the corner. On the right…

…in a paper bag.

My father had given it to me to attach onto a bracelet, however, it's not likely that I would ever be caught dead wearing it.

I looked out of the small, foggy window of the train compartment. Maple trees rushed past in a blur of colour as I remembered the reason I was there, at that moment in time.

…

"Maggie! Can you come downstairs for a moment?"

I looked away from the window for a moment to reply,

"Coming!".

He heard the thud of my feet patter down the stairs, I was dressed to go to work in an hour, in that dismal grocery store. Being a shop assistant wasn't the most interesting thing in the world, but it put food on the table. Food was scarce. We were lucky I had landed that job in the first place. Mrs Hamlin was a nasty woman. Ill-tempered and very particular in the way things had to be done around her shop. Every morning I had to organise the breads in order of how many grains were in them because the bakers never order it right. Silly things like that.

My father was leaning on the kitchen table, a letter addressed to both of us lay open on the table. He looked up to me with a strange look, it was sad with a cunning twinkle in his eye. He let out a sigh as he looked back to the letter.

"I've gotten a position for you in the army."

Silence, as I let that sentence sink in. Somehow, I knew this day was coming. I didn't quite know how I knew, but I've had a gut feeling for a long while.

"You what?" I took a step forward, I could feel the tension coil in my shoulders.

"You're to report to the office in London in a week. You'll be working for the SOE."

Straight to the point, no beating around the bush on this matter, or any. My father was a direct man. He left the table and turned to look out of the kitchen window, no doubt to hide his proud grin.

"And since when have you had it in your mind that I'm going to join the army? You didn't even ask me!"

"Because I know you're against it!" He whipped around to face me. His eyes were squinted, his mouth twisted in a wicked grin, he was looking for any sign that I was cowering from him. I didn't. In fact, I straightened up to the challenge. He looked annoyed with me. Of course he was. A war hero whose daughter wants nothing to do with any of it.

"You will report, it's an honour to serve your country and it will pay very well." He said it in a matter of fact way, as if he'd already won the argument, as if it had already been decided. He turned back to the window in his weak military stance, standing as straight as he could with his crooked back with his hands behind his back. I looked in the reflection in the window, his face was unreadable. When he spoke next it startled me.

"I've already had words with Mrs Hamlin. You don't need to turn up today, with your record of punctuality she'll understand the time has come for you to leave."

I remained silent, moving like a cat over to the table, skimming through the contents of the letter, making sure it wasn't some story he'd made up. He flicked his cold stare to the letter as well, then back out to the emerald fields speckled with the light snowfall.

"Your training will take place just outside of London, by the end of the summer, you'll be out in the battlefield. They'll most likely want you for missions rather than gun fodder, you'll be valuable to the allies' efforts. I've given you some recommendations." He sighed calmly, almost tiredly.

I reached up into the top cupboard where I knew he hid his vodka in a silver flask, I uncapped it and took a swig before he could say anything about it. After feeling it rip down my throat I screwed the cap back on and slammed it on the table next to the letter. I stomped upstairs. There was no point in arguing any further, he wouldn't give me a choice. Not with all the effort he's put into raising me and training me all my life. I more prodigy than daughter. Especially with the fact that my mother abandoned me on his doorstep when I was a few months old. She didn't want me, neither did he. He had no choice then and he's doing the same for me now. He's finally getting rid of me.

Before I made it to the top of the steps, he called out "You'd better get packing, you've got a boat to catch in two days, and in that time I expect you to tie up your affairs in town." I rolled my eyes and slammed my bedroom door, then flopped down onto my hard mattress and fell asleep and dreamed until the afternoon came around.

I sat myself up on my window seat, skin numb from the cold seeping in through the floorboards no matter how hot we keep the fire downstairs. I yanked the quilt off my bed and wrapped it around me, leaning against the frosted, foggy window. The sky was overcast and dull, the road outside the house had been quiet all day, no trucks in or out of this small, dismal town. Northern Ireland was a pretty place, only half an hour by bike to the beach in summer, it was too cold to go now, I wouldn't get a last look, I could scarcely remember this past summer's trip. It had been windy, the briny smell of the sea had been scattered, not so easy to smell. The waves had curled and churned into froth, it hadn't been the best trip. There was a moment when the wind had stopped long enough that the sun was able to warm my skin. Then it started up again. I had visited there with James, a boy from the town. His father was the town butcher, we went to the same school and I helped him study. We were just friends. His eyes wandered too much to other girls to notice what was right in front of him. It was like I was invisible. He had dropped out of school recently; this summer's beach trip was the time he told me. We wouldn't be seeing each other anymore. His father was training him to take his place as the butcher.

After a few hours of sitting at that window seat, pondering the future, I went downstairs, sliced, and buttered a bit of bread, ate it, and came back upstairs to pack my things. Then I slept until dawn, got dressed and went into the town to "tie up my affairs". Father didn't even glance up from his morning paper. What I wouldn't give for a different father, one who loves me and doesn't send me to the slaughter. After I finished and said my goodbyes, I was on the boat to England, then on a train to London.

…

I opened the carriage door when the train came to a stop. I had been alone the entire journey here. Obviously, my face was disconcerting enough that before any traveller had even asked if the seats were taken, they backed away slowly, apologising and shut the door. I could not qualm the seething rage at my father for giving me no choice in this, and I bet he constructed this all so I would be mad, so I could hone my rage into a fine killing tool. At least, that's what he told me of his own youthful adventures, that he had turned his anger at the world into cold, hard, bitter bullets raining down his fury onto the enemy.

…

I looked down at the gap between the floor of the carriage and the train station platform. It was only a few inches across, but the notion of crossing the final gap between my way back home and the war was colossal. My feet were frozen to the carriage floor, unwilling to move, my hand holding the handle of the suitcase went all sweaty as my grip tightened. My lungs filled and emptied air, I tried to stay calm, tried to change the look on my face to something nicer, something that would be overlooked by the hundreds of people milling about the station. My scowl receded and I rolled my shoulders back, changing my posture to make myself stand tall and straight. I willed my feet to move forward, stepping across that gap. Easy. Two seconds of my life was all it took to cross such a dark valley of no return. I felt relieved.

…

I pushed my way through the crowd, determined not to be trampled. All these people here, trying to get their children into the country or running to a safer place, or even arriving in this soon to be hellhole, looking for a fight no doubt. There were like busy ants, rushing about the place, bumping into me without a care or a 'sorry'. They had no idea what I was here to do, and that was a strange feeling. For me, growing up, everyone knew everything about each other, the locals gossiped relentlessly, but here, it was a completely different world. Here, I was truly, and thankfully, invisible.

Time flew by and soon I was on that next boat, that next train, travelling to camp Lehigh, New Jersey in America on my first mission. A friend was made, the super soldier was created and then I was in Europe in the front lines. But before I became that hollow shell, a murderer, I caught a glimmer of light. A lone ember forgotten in the hearth in the growing night.