By the time Lyall dropped me off at St. Dwynwyns, the balmy day had darkened into a freezing cold night. Between the clouds, white pinpricks dotted the sky. It was five minutes before curfew, and Mrs. Winchfill was waiting by the door as I came in.

"You barely made it in on time," she said sharply, as I hung up my coat. She tapped her watch. "I would have expected you to be more aware of the time, given how much trouble you've already caused."

"I'm sorry," I said, trying to hide the smirk on my face. Mrs. Winchfill was nothing to me. She couldn't ruin my day. I would be out of that house within months, living with Lyall, and coming home whenever I bloody wanted to. She could take her stupid house rules and shove them.

I ran up the stairs, covering my right hand with my left so that she couldn't see my sparkling ring. Lyall and I had agreed that we didn't want to announce our engagement yet. We wanted time to cherish our delicious secret, to cradle it, to get used to the idea of being a couple before we told anyone about us. It wasn't just that, though. I knew that as soon as word of my engagement reached the matrons, they would leak it to my parents. And that was sort of a problem, since they didn't know a thing about Lyall other than that a nice man had saved my life in a forest a year before.

I could figure all of that stuff out in the morning. Lyall was going to pick me up and take me out for breakfast, and then we would start working out the details. I'm not going to be practical tonight, I whispered to myself, after locking my bedroom door. I'm going to celebrate.

I collapsed on to my bed, and the mattress screeched beneath me in protest. I wanted to scream, to laugh, to bless total strangers driving their cars down the street outside my window. I had instantly memorized all of Lyall's words, and they replayed in my mind like the refrain of a favourite song. You could come with me...I thought it obvious...you've made me very happy...I don't want to wait... And my favourite, Was that a wicked trick? I smiled to myself like a madwoman. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

I undressed and flung my blue shawl-collared dress onto a chair haphazardly. It looked lavender in the rosy lamplight. When I looked into the mirror, a glamorous somebody who I didn't recognize gazed back at me, like the cover girl on a magazine. Her hair was shinier, her lashes longer, and her eyes brighter than my own. Her smile was so wide, it hurt.

"I'm engaged," I said to the mirror. "I'm going to be Hope Lupin." I pulled the hairpins out of my hair, allowing the waves to burst apart and cascade about my shoulders. "I'm going to move to marry Lyall, and move to Glasgow." I giggled at the absurdity, the wild fantasy of it all. "Aren't you jealous?" I teased the girl in the mirror. But she went right on smiling.


The next morning, I awoke early to complete bathroom duty before the other girls could turn the upstairs bathroom into a steaming Amazon jungle. Scrubbing toilets and digging long hairs out of the shower drain never felt so good. As I dropped the slimy, mildew-coated knot of hairs into the toilet bowl and flushed it, I imagined shopping for a white dress. While shaking baking soda onto the toothpaste-encrusted sink, I thought of Lyall lifting my veil. And when I squashed a mop into a small bucket of soapy water and forced a curtain of water to drip down the bucket's sides and onto the tiled floor, I felt as I was squeezing his warm, tanned hands in mine.

Lyall came by promptly, at eleven in the morning. I was already waiting in my winter coat and carrying my purse when he rang the doorbell. I rushed to open the door barely half a second after he pressed the bell. There he was, dressed in his black overcoat, polished shoes and leather gloves.

"Hi," he said, shyly. He was carrying a bouquet of half a dozen pink roses tied with a white ribbon. "These are for you, of course," he said, nodding towards the roses.

I gasped in delight. "You shouldn't have..." I breathed.

"I should have given them to you on Valentine's Day," he said. "Will you forgive me for tardiness?"

I giggled. It was hard to speak when I still felt so overwhelmed after his proposal the previous day. I took the roses, and dashed inside to find a vase.

"Do you mind if I run these upstairs?" I called out to Lyall from the kitchen. "I want them in my room."

"Not at all," he replied.

I raced up the first flight of stairs in record time, but just as I was going to reach the second floor, Irene stepped out of the bathroom and bumped into me on the landing. Water splashed onto her pink dressing gown. Her hair was pinned up in rollers.

"Watch where you're going, clumsy," she hissed, before glancing down at the roses, then down at the stairs, where Lyall was waiting in the doorway. Her tiny pea brain put two and two together, but she seemed at loss for words. Irene shoved past me and went down the stairs, without acknowledging Lyall. I fumbled with my key to unlock the door to my room, then quickly plopped the vase down on my desk. I raced back downstairs, then upstairs again because I had forgotten to re-lock my door. I'm going to be a mess at work, I thought.

Back at the front door, Lyall was waiting serenely on the stoop.

"Ready?" he said, looking amused at my flushed face.

"Yes. Let's go."

After we made our way down the front steps, Lyall paused on the pavement. The icy air had turned the tips of his ears pink. His breath sketched a cloud in the air.

"I know I said we would go out for breakfast," he began. "But, if it's alright, I thought we might go eat and discuss things at my flat. You know—wedding plans, and the like."

I had never been to his flat. The notion of stepping inside his private space felt as intimate as our first kiss had been.

"Or if you don't want to—"

"No, I do," I said hastily, and stepped out of the way of a pile of slush shooting upward from the tires of a passing car. "I do want to talk about our wedding."

His face melted into a smile. "I like the sound of that," he said.

We had to take two buses to get to Lyall's street, and he seemed somewhat confused about the transfer. At our second bus stop, he pulled a map from his briefcase and consulted it for directions. I thought it was odd; he must have taken this very route every time he went home from St. Dwynwyn's, and I knew he didn't have a car.

"I, er—I think the route has changed recently," he said, when I raised my eyebrows at his map. The icy wind barely shifted his neatly gelled hair.

"Is it far?" I asked.

"Oh, no," he insisted. "Not at all."

But it was far—well, further than I had previously thought. We spent more than an hour commuting, if you included the wait at two separate bus stops. Had he really been travelling all this way just to meet me? Lyall had always given me the impression that he lived twenty or thirty minutes away by foot. And I knew he hadn't moved recently.

"Is it always this long to travel?" I asked, as we sat side by side on the second floor of the bus.

"No," said Lyall, curtly.

"I suppose I thought you lived walking distance from me," I said. "You've come a long way just to meet me and bring me back to your place."

"I wanted to bring you the roses," he said, his voice sounding stiffer than expected, given the tender sentiment implied.

"That was very sweet," I murmured. "I hope I haven't troubled you too much to come all the way out to St. Dwynwyn's. I could have just picked up the flowers from you, if you invited me on the telephone."

Lyall looked pale. He seemed nervous—nearly as nervous as he had been the prior day, though I couldn't imagine why. Surely, he couldn't possibly still think I didn't fancy him?

Lyall looked down and met my eyes. He lowered his voice before speaking.

"Hope...I know it seems like it doesn't make sense but...it will. Trust me."

I didn't understand what he meant at all, but I could sense his discomfort, and I didn't want to push it. It was only our first full day together as a couple, and everything still felt shiny, raw, awkward and new.

The bus's upper level swayed from side to side somewhat alarmingly as it rounded a corner, forcing an elderly woman's paper bag to spill apples onto the floor. They rolled below the seats, and between people's legs. She looked crestfallen. Lyall reached into his jacket reflexively, then withdraw his hand, and got off his seat to help gather apples with some other passengers.

"Thank you, thank you," she exclaimed, as Lyall replaced the apples in her paper bag. "I just buy now, I not have more money." She had a Slavic accent and her hair was tied up in a faded scarf. An image came to my mind of the illustration of Baba Yaga, the crooked old witch, in a book of European folktales that my mother used to read to Jeannie and I. The old woman smiled, revealing teeth like a broken picket fence.

Lyall nodded at her, and then sat back down. His hip was touching mine; on instinct, I scooted closer to him, until our shoulders were pressing through our heavy coats. He looked down at me, a flicker of a smile playing on his face. I blushed. Twin images of the Cardiff street bumping and lurching past us played out, reflected on his round eyeglasses.

"May I put my arm around you?" he asked, in a low voice. I nodded. He wrapped his arm around me, resting his left hand on my left shoulder. The weight and warmth of his hand felt like a stone hearth, welcoming me home.

"Almost there," he said. Out the window, I saw a series of well-kept apartment buildings with storefronts and offices on the ground floor. When the bus pulled to a stop, Lyall removed his arm, and gently pulled me up.

"Here?"

"Yes," he said. "I hope you aren't disappointed," he added, as we carefully climbed down the bus's slush-covered staircase, and out the door. When Lyall reached the pavement, he reached for my hand to help me step over an ice-encrusted puddle right below the bus doors. It was something he would have done for me even before we were engaged, but it was different now; I didn't have to let go of his hand quite so quickly, and he didn't step away from me as soon as I cleared the puddle. He didn't drop my hand, so much as gradually caress it, from knuckles to fingertips, before letting go.

"This one?" I said, nodding to the ornate Victorian building in front of us.

"Two doors down," said Lyall, and he lead me to a building with a lawyers' office on the first floor. It was red brick, with a facade of white plaster and an elegant cornice outlining the roof. Several bay windows rippled the surface of the facade.

"It's a very nice building," I said. "I wish I could live somewhere this nice."

"Good," he replied, "Because you're going to, at least until we move to Glasgow."

I giggled, feeling my neck flush with heat. "I'm sorry—I forgot," I laughed. "And of course, you can't move in with me at St. Dwynwyn's."

Lyall unlocked the front door with an elaborate brass key he produced from his pocket. We stepped inside a narrow hallway with a wooden staircase before us. I followed Lyall up the steps, listening to the treads creak and sigh beneath our feet. The air was warm, and smelled of wood polish and aging wallpaper paste.

"It's not a fancy building," he explained, "But it's in good condition, and it's comfortable. Of course, I'll find a larger place for us in Glasgow—"

"It's perfect, Lyall." I spoke as we paused on the second floor landing. . He rewarded me a timid smile, still seeming unreasonably nervous. I glanced around the hall. The wintery sunlight poured through a window, illuminating the tidy wainscoted walls. There were only two doors.

"Is it this floor?"

"One up," said Lyall, and he began to climb the next staircase. When we reached the third (and top) floor, Lyall lead me to his door. He unlocked it with a satisfying series of mechanical clicks, and then stepped inside.

I took a deep breath, and touched the diamond of my ring. It was an odd feeling, knowing that I was stepping into what would become my home.

At first, it seemed dark inside, until I realized I was in a small entranceway with a closet on my right, and crowded bookshelves to my left and before me. There was a doorway on my right, between the closet and the shelves, but the light was blocked by Lyall, who stood in the doorway, waiting for me.

"May I take your coat?" he asked,

I nodded, and removed my green coat. Lyall took it from me and hung it up neatly inside the closet, standing very close to me in order to do so. His aftershave smelled so good, it gave me shivers.

"Are you cold, Hope?" he asked.

"No, no. I'm fine."

"I'll make you some tea and... I suppose I'll figure something out for breakfast, not that I'm much of a chef."

"I should be making you breakfast," I teased, as he led me into a small kitchen connected to a living area. A bay window looked out onto the street; I would have liked to sit on the window seat, except for the fact that it was covered in books, papers and notebooks. The walls were covered with bookshelves too, so that it was almost impossible to see the wallpaper.

Lyall noticed me looking at his messy window seat, and apologized. "I tidied up as best as I could, knowing you might come by, but, well, I got home late last night."

"I don't mind it," I laughed. "I thought you would have a lot of books anyways."

"Well, I would hope that you know me that well by now," he said. I knew it was meant to be a joke, but there was something about the way he said it—some hoarseness in his voice—that gave me a strange feeling.

"What would you like to eat?" asked Lyall, turning to face me. He leaned against his icebox, one leg crossed before the other.

"It depends on what you have. I don't want to trouble you too much."

"I'm not much of a cook, so I don't keep a lot of food here," he admitted. "Look." He opened a cupboard, to reveal several sad-looking cans of tuna, a box of water biscuits, and a single sponge.

A wave of pathos welled up in my chest. It was just a cupboard, but there was something terribly lonely about it. I wanted to stuff his kitchen with groceries immediately.

"I eat out a lot. And I made sandwiches," he said, by way of explanation.

"It looks like you need a wife, " I said, with a smile.

"Can you help me with that?" he asked, slyly.

I reached out to swat him playfully, but he caught my hand and drew me all the way forward, to his chest. I smiled up at him, and I could feel his breath on my face. My heart began to beat very hard, and I could feel the vibrations in my chest. I had never actually been alone with Lyall before—not truly alone, not in a private place.

He whispered, "May I—?

"Yes."

He kissed my lips firmly, but chastely.

"Was that too much," he breathed, "or not enough?"

It was too excruciating to make eye contact, so I looked down at his collar as I confessed, "Not enough."

So, he kissed me again, this time cupping the back of my head in one hand, and pulling my shoulders close to his with another. I hugged him, and for the first time, I kissed him back. At that, his nasal breathing changed noticeably, and I broke the kiss, suddenly feeling very self-conscious and aware of the fact that I was breaking a very significant rule in the St. Dwynwyn's House Code of Conduct (though it wasn't the most significant rule—I think you can imagine what that was, and who broke it.)

Lyall let go of me immediately. His eyes were downcast, and he clutched his hands together. "I think I'll make eggs and toast for you, if that's alright."

"Of—of course," I stammered.

(The answer is Norah, and the rule was "Absolutely no hot plates in the bedrooms." Get your head out of the gutter!)

Lyall retrieved a half-carton of eggs from the icebox, a pan from his drying rack, and a tea kettle from the kitchen counter. I helped him by cutting rye bread, and popping several slices into an ancient-looking toaster. The sizzling of the eggs seemed to awaken my stomach, and I suddenly felt famished.

"Not to worry," said Lyall, sounding amused. "It's almost ready." He had apparently heard the rumbling of my stomach, which was quite embarrassing. "I'll get some plates."

He stepped away from the stove momentarily, to retrieve two plates from an overhead cupboard half-filled with books. I glanced down to check the eggs, and then I noticed it. The dials to release gas into the stove's burners were set to "Off," yet flames continued to lick the burners below the kettle and pan.

I froze. It was just one thing. There was probably a mechanical explanation. Surely, the dials were broken, or the labels were on the wrong side of the burners, or something was wrong with the gas. But if that were the case...

"Lyall," I said timidly. "I think you should be careful. There might be a gas leak in here. Have you spoken to your landlord?"

"What are you talking about?" he said, as he set plates and linen place mats on a small table.

"Well, the stove is off, but the gas is still coming out."

"It's not off," he said, pointing to the flames.

"But the dial is off," I said. "Look at it. You lit the gas without turning it on."

Lyall looked puzzled, but he looked down at the dial. The lines of mirth around his mouth seemed to melt away, and his raised eyebrows sunk down.

"Should I call the fire department?" I asked, feeling quite disturbed by his expression.

"No," he said in a thick voice. "It's—it's not that."

"But if it's a gas leak—"

"Hope, it's not a gas leak. I promise." He turned to face the stove and, somehow, managed to turn off the burner, even though the dial stayed in place. The toast popped up.

"Look, the eggs are finished, and the toast is ready. Do you want one or two?"

"How did you turn it on—or how did you get it off?" I asked, approaching the stove.

"I'll explain after breakfast," Lyall replied curtly.

"But how—"

"After breakfast. I just—I need to eat something. I want you to eat something. And then I'll explain." He looked at me plaintively, pleading with his expression. I had trouble saying 'no' to his doleful, milk chocolate-coloured eyes.

Alright, maybe I had trouble saying 'no' to Lyall in general.

I acquiesced by way of sitting down at the table and buttering my toast. Lyall sat down, and popped back up immediately, when the kettle began to whistle. Was it my imagination, or was it whistling to the tune of "Greensleeves?" My wonderings were cut short when Lyall hastily removed the kettle from the stove, and poured us each a cup of tea. He dropped a sugar cube into mine, and stirred it for me.

"Thank you," I said, taking the teacup from him. I was already half-finished my food by the time Lyall sat down. Feeling terribly rude, I tried to slow down for his sake.

"It won't be like this when we're married," I said, between bites of toast.

Lyall raised his eyebrows at me, but he had to finish chewing and swallowing before he could ask, "Like what?"

"You won't have empty cupboards," I said, "and I want to make you breakfast." Realizing the suggestive implications of that particular meal, I quickly added, "And lunch, and dinner."

"You don't have to do that," he said, and laughed. "I'm not—I don't expect you to be a housekeeper."

"But I want to cook for you," I argued, sipping my tea. "I want to do things for you. You've already given me so much."

"Not nearly enough," said Lyall. He shook his head, and smiled. "If I had only known you had feelings for me...I would have done things a lot differently."

"We're doing things differently today," I pointed out.

"Yes," he murmured, collecting the empty plates and dirty cutlery from the table. "About today. Er..." He gathered deposited the dirty dishes in the sink, not bothering to wash them.

"Yes...ooh, you were going to explain about the gas," I said. "How does it work? Actually, weren't you going to tell me about the bus route?"

"The bus route?" he asked absently. I noticed his hand slip into his breast pocket, retrieving his beloved handkerchief. He began to stretch and compress the fabric pointlessly.

I frowned. "You said it would all make sense, about how you lived so far away from me," I told him. "Just this morning—you told me you would explain..." I trailed off.

"Right," said Lyall. "Right," he repeated. "I am—I am going to explain everything. But there's, er...There's something I have to tell you. It's kind of important." He sat down at the table across from me, and laid his handkerchief before him, smoothing out the wrinkles.

"What is it?" I asked. I was starting to feel something strange that made the back of my neck tingle, something I couldn't define except to note that it was like the sensation I felt back in the forest on the day I met Lyall. He paused, and though it was only for a few seconds, it seemed to last ages. The world closed in on us; it felt like his cozy but sparse kitchen was the only place on Earth, and us, the only two people. I glanced at the bay window, covered in gauzy curtains that glowed with muted sunlight. Particles of dust floated in the air like marine snow.

"I've never had to explain this before," he began, shakily. Lyall glanced down at his hands. Then he removed a ruler-sized wooden stick from a pocket

inside his suit jacket. He laid it on the table before us. It had an elaborately carved handle, and the other end tapered to a blunted point. Several bumpy knots on the stick suggested the presence of twigs and leaves in its previous life. Against the daisy-patterned yellow vinyl of his tabletop, it looked very old and out of place.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked softly.

Not having even the slightest clue where he was going with this, I simply said, "It's a stick. A nice one, though."

"Um, yes." He paused, and looked into my eyes. "It's a stick, but it's not just that. It's a...it's a wand."

"Yes, I can see that," I replied, somewhat impatiently. "A wand of wood."

"No," he said. "It's a wand."

"That's what I just said," I pointed out, frowning.

Lyall leaned back in his chair, and looked at the ceiling, inhaling deeply. He seemed to be searching for words. I felt antsy, anticipatory of something that might be amazing, but probably terrible. But why would he give me bad news the day after proposing?

When Lyall finally spoke, his voice was very quiet. "It's a wand used for magic, Hope. A magic wand. You've heard of those, haven't you?"

"Of course," I replied. "My cousin had a toy wand, and we used to—"

He shook his head fervently. "No. It's a real wand. Not a toy."

"What do you mean?" I asked. I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the table so I could examine the wand more closely. It didn't really look like a child's toy, but I suppose a magician might use something like that. "Is it for magic? Do you do magic tricks?"

"It's not that kind of magic, Hope," said Lyall softly. He gently laid a hand on mine. "It's real magic. Not tricks."

I giggled nervously, though my mind was racing. "What are you talking about, Lyall? What is real magic? It's all just an illusion—"

"It is not," he cut off. "I mean—the sort you've seen is just tricks. But not the kind I—"

"Is this a prank?" I interrupted him. "Are you taking the Mickey out of me?"

"No, not at all," he assured me, though not very convincingly. "I would never do that." He patted my hand again, but I drew it away.

"But you're saying," I gulped in a breath of air, "You're saying you have a wand, right? A magic wand?"

"Yes, and—"

"And you're saying you do real magic with it?"

"I do."

"Lyall—" I cut myself off, mid-sentence. There were two possibilities. He was either making a practical joke of my reaction, and therefore, not the person I thought he was...or he was clinically insane. But how could he have hidden either of those things from me for so long?

"I know this must sound very strange to you," Lyall said, "and I know it probably doesn't make sense yet, but—"

I felt a burning sensation in my eyes, and realized they were filling with tears. "No, it doesn't bloody make sense!" I cried. "Because you asked me to come here to make plans for our wedding, and now you're—you're making a fool out of me, or you're mad!"

To his credit, he looked genuinely upset about my reaction. His forehead was creased with worry, and I noticed he was squeezing his handkerchief in his left hand again.

"Hope," he said, very softly. "Please listen to me. Please. I have a lot to explain, and I've never had to do this before, and...I'm not the best at this..."

"Why are we talking about magic?" I spluttered. "If you're a magician, that doesn't change—"

"Not a magician," he corrected me. "A wizard."

A wizard. Something about that word made my skin turn cold. Goosebumps sprouted on my arms. The possibility that he had suffered a nervous breakdown overnight was becoming very real.

"Does that sound mad to you?" he asked. "I know it must sound mad."

"Lyall," I whispered, an ache spreading in my chest. "I can call a doctor. They can help you—"

"No, no, no," he cut me off, much more forcefully this time. "I'm not insane. I know it sounds that way, but...it's only because you don't know about magic."

"There's nothing to know," I whispered, glancing from his shining eyes to his neck. I didn't see any signs of fever, but perhaps... "Magic is only for pretend."

"Yes, and that's the illusion. That's the brilliance of it." His voice sounded stronger now. Lyall took hold of my wrist gently, but he wouldn't let go of me when I tried to pull away. "Listen to me."

"I'm worried about you—"

"Remember you used that word—tricks. You said something about magic tricks, yes?"

Very slowly, I answered, "Yes..." I glanced about the room, trying to locate the nearest telephone, but I couldn't see any.

"There is a trick, Hope. It's that—well, you thought magic was pretend. But it's the other way around, see?"

I shook my head.

"We've pretended there's no such thing, and most of you believe it—"

"Lyall, please—"

"Hope, you're very dear to me. You're my fiancée. And I wouldn't ever make a fool of you, and you know me. I'm not insane. And I wouldn't believe in anything without proof—a lot of proof—and do you remember the conversation we had at the castle? It was a long time ago..."

At first, I had no idea what he was talking about, and then it came to me. Castle Arwyddion. The first day we went out after we met.

"I know we visited a castle," I said, my voice quavering. "Arwyddion. The place with the overgrown garden. But what does that have to do with this?"

"Well, I told you it was haunted," he explained. "And you said something about thinking that I wouldn't believe in ghosts."

I struggled to pull remnants of that conversation to the surface of my mind. When I thought of Castle Arwyddion, I mostly remembered butterflies in my stomach when I walked through the pitch-black corridor while Lyall held my arm. But now there was something else—something important—what was it? Something he said, a phrase or—

I swallowed. "You said 'I believe what I see.'"

"Yes," he nodded encouragingly, "Don't you understand? I didn't want to lie to you. I never wanted to."

I felt very chilly, except for my wrist, which Lyall still held in his warm hand. I still didn't believe him, but something in my mind shifted, only a hair's breadth. Just enough.

"Will you hear me out?" asked Lyall. "I'll explain everything."

His glasses had slipped down the bridge of his nose, and a strand of hair had come un-gelled. Maybe it was his appearance, or the intimate setting, or the softness of his thumb against the palm of my hand, or how unthreatening he seemed, but I caved in, as I would many times in the future.

"Yes."