Chapter 1

The war raged on and on for years and Emelius Browne has grown thin and gaunt. The day he left Pepperinge Eye wearing a new uniform and an optimistic smile is long gone. He has seen a bit of the world since he left that day. A Europe that lay in ruin. There was very little left of what he remembered from his grammar school history books. There was never any time to see the treasures the locals had hidden in crypts and cupboards.

He is tired. His kit weighs heavily on his back every time he moves. His uniform is dirty, his boots need repairing. He is one of the first who will be demobbed. They have taken his measurements and they have told him a suit is waiting for him when he gets back to headquarters. The boat sways. A few of the lads look fairly green about the gills. He doesn't mind it much. Only a few hours until he sets foot on English soil again.

Where everything isn't as it used to be. Of course he isn't who he used to be, either. There isn't much left of the jovial 'professor'. He has seen things he will never forget. Cruelty beyond words. Violence against humanity he keeps seeing in his nightmares. No, Professor Emelius Browne is a shadow that lurks in a far corner of his current personality.

He is an old man. He wasn't young when he went to war, but he would have called himself middle-aged at the worst. He had often felt young, still. There was a decided spring in his step and he still thought the world was filled with endless possibilities.

He had always been searching. He never found his purpose and he didn't care. Not much, anyway. He was someone who seized the day. Who found opportunities. Who made the most of what life chucked at him. Yes, of course he was often lonely. He didn't dress well - the demob suit would alter that for a while: he'd have a whole suit and two shirts, a tie, shoes, a hat. Even a raincoat.

He hopes there will be hot water when they get to barracks. He has been cleaning himself with rough flannels and cold water and serviceable soap. He is clean - or at least as clean as he can be. He is just chilled to the bone. He feels as if he will never be warm again..

He holds his kit against him, hugging it in an effort to chase the cold away. In his duffel are his letters. The only things he would guard with his life. The only things he treasures. The paper is strong. Pre-war quality. The envelopes are being held together by a piece of string.

"I see her!" a bloke calls out excitedly. The others jump up and join the kerfuffle. Emelius stays put.

He waits.

He will not believe it until he sets foot on land.

She hoped her use of substitutiary locomotion aided the war effort, and perhaps it did, that one evening when the German Navy managed to set foot on the Devonshire coast, but looking at the big picture, it had not mattered very much at all.

The war lasted another four years and though VE-Day is behind them - and with it the celebrations and what she called mass hysteria - but nothing has really changed at all. They are still the four of them in her big hopscotch house, trying to mend and make do. There never seem to be enough eggs and Eglantine is glad she resolved to be a vegetarian long before the war, because she doesn't manage to get meat on the table more than twice a week.

Luckily it is only Charles who kicks up a fuss about it, even though he is well aware of the shortages. He is happy she doesn't feed them rosehips and stewed nettles anymore. He is glad to be wearing clothes that fit and that are clean. Charles is fifteen now and he considers himself to be a man. "Someone needs to look after you lot," he says and Eglantine raises her eyebrows at such nonsense, but she understands. He needs to have a purpose. Responsibility.

Paul is ten and he is just glad he has a home in Pepperinge Eye and lots of friends. He is learning to swim in the cold, salty water of the sea that laps on the beach. He is a cheerful lad and he brings much joy wherever he goes. He is very popular, but not too big to give Aunt Eglantine a cuddle every now and then. If she insists. Though she never has to ask, really.

No, Eglantine's greatest challenge is raising Carrie. When the children had been shoved into her motorcycle and sidecar, she had thought Carrie would be the easiest. After all: like Eglantine herself, Carrie was a girl. What could Eglantine possibly know about boys?

But looking at things as they stand, it is much simpler with Charles and Paul. Not that Carrie makes Eglantine's life difficult - oh, they have their little spats and there's some challenging behaviour that Eglantine knew to expect - but Eglantine worries.

About Carrie's future. The girl has a great talent for science and she could easily go to university if she keeps applying herself. Of course Carrie is only thirteen now, but still. The teacher is very certain Carrie could do very well - if she was a boy.

Charles had no great capacity for sitting still for very long. She had already spoken to the village baker and asked for an apprenticeship for Charles. Paul is still too young to really consider. He takes his 11+ next year and then they'll see. She can see him reading English, to become a writer. He still has a great imagination.

Just like this man who remains painfully absent from their lives. His letters are a rarity these days. When he left, that sunny morning, escorted by the Home Guard, he had smiled. Eglantine doubts he smiles much these days. He brought some much needed optimism into her life. Something she could do with right now.

The barracks are surprisingly comfortable, even if the showers are dodgy and the food even worse. He feels a little calmer here: there isn't the threat of having to do and see unspeakable things. His fellow soldiers are as tired as he is and morale isn't very high. They are all waiting to be demobbed. He knows the date he is to be released from active duty and it is creeping closer.

He considers writing Eglantine that he is coming back and if he could bother her for a few nights in the spare bedroom. Three nights at the most, just to get his bearings. To figure things out. He doesn't know what he could possibly do: there is no great need for bad magicians in a post-war world. He doesn't have any vital occupational skills: he used to be an entertainer. Something he could never be now.

He can't even seem to juggle anymore.

The image of running three apples through his hands at the dinner table, the children looking on in amused semi-admiration, Eglantine subdued with a sad, indulgent smile. The moment he stepped on Cosmic Creeper's tail and dropped an apple in the gravy, making it fly everywhere but mostly into his face. Eglantine's liberated laughter and the children's relief.

Pictures of a simple life that kept him going throughout many a cold, weary night.

But he doesn't write.

Lots of men are talking about surprising their loved ones. Emelius considers doing the same. Because she can't very well turn him away when he is on the doorstep in his new demob suit, the raincoat over his arm. The children - though Charlie would never think of himself of a child, of course - would possibly cheer.

He missed them as much as he missed Eglantine. Their letters were always filled with little tidbits of village life. So he knows that Aunt Eglantine (he doesn't know when they started calling her that instead of Miss Price and he wonders who it was that started it) still hasn't fallen for Mr Jelk's charms.

Not that Emelius expected her to, of course. After all: she had kissed him goodbye, just before the old biddies of the Home Guard had come to the house to escort him to the station. And that had not been a shy, prim kiss on the cheek. If he closes his eyes and concentrates very hard, as hard as he did when he had to turn himself into a rabbit to escape the Jerries, he can feel her lips against his.

But four years have passed and he won't come to her door with a cheery smile. What is left of him, when stripped of his optimism and gaiety?

She has known about the demob scheme since September last year, but the date of the first men being released back to civilian life has come and gone and he hasn't knocked on her door.

So she waits with the patience of a caged animal. She tries to run her household the way she has become accustomed to: she makes breakfast with Paul's help, tends to the housekeeping tasks she loathes, reads until it's time for lunch. She eats with the children and sends them off to school again. Eglantine reads some more, writes letters, tallies her ration books, and tends to her garden. When the children come home, they have chores and homework and then it is time for dinner. They do the dishes according to an ingenious rota that Carried devised.

Sometimes the homework needs to be finished, sometimes they play board games or listen to the radio. Paul makes jigsaws, Charles sketches. Carrie pours over formulas and makes notes.

It's all very domestic and sometimes dull. They have very little excitement in their lives.

They miss Emelius.

Eglantine misses him. She misses how he would cheer up the children, or how he would aggravate her. She misses being appreciated, for her brain and her heart. She misses the way he could look at her in a way that made her heart both race and clench.

If he doesn't come soon, she'll give Paul back the bedknob that she confiscated when she found out he tried to sneak off to Nabumboo.

If Emelius doesn't come home soon, she'll convince the children they will need to go and look for him.