Elsa was fourteen the day she left London. She chose to wear her stockings so she wouldn’t need to pack them, with socks over them. The skirt she wore was a bit long. She was only of average height, but mum still insisted she might grow into it. The blouse and pullover were well worn.
Mum hollered through the flat that she was going to be late.
The small suitcase she carried held most of her necessary items. Her pyjamas, underclothes. A spare pullover and skirt, and somewhat nice and somewhat too small dress. Toothbrush, soap, comb. Her gas mask.
Elsa had a peculiar interest in wireless technology, and the crystal set she had saved up her pocket money for had been loaded into a knapsack along with her other belongings, was likely the reason that she nearly missed the train that May morning.
She kissed Mum goodbye.
“You know the way?”
Elsa nodded. The railway station was barely two streets from the flat.
She walked downstairs and plunked a hat on top of her dark curls. The ends were freshly clipped, and she was pleased that at least she didn’t need to bring curlers. Not that it mattered. Her hair did what it wanted regardless of her input.
She nodded her head at Dad, sweeping behind the counter. She scans her eyes over the barrels and baskets. Dad was a greengrocer, and for the past months the shop had been in a sorry state. Fruits and vegetables weren’t parts of the government’s new rationing plan, but since so many came from overseas, they were often hard to get. Last week you couldn’t get your hands on an onion for love or money. The week before there had been apples that were gone within two hours. With this knowledge, Elsa sneaks a plum.
Elsa stops at the door and waves again to Dad, and Jimmy, the boy who brought in the crates. Jimmy waved back. Elsa feels her heart twinge. Mum and dad loved her, that was for certain, but they were never an affectionate family. They both said they trusted her, and she treasured the freedom this afforded her, but she still wishes she didn’t have to walk to the station alone.
She wrapped her coat tightly around her. Even in May, the London railway station was chilly in the very early morning. It was barely 6, and the sun was yet to show itself. The name tag pinned neatly to the front bore her name; Elsa Green, her departing station, London and her destination, Moonrise Valley, Lancashire.
The wireless set was nestled in her knapsack, wrapped in a couple of spare blouses and protected on all sides by her books.
Mum had given her a terrible time about the books.
“You’re being evacuated because of the war, not going on holiday,” she had scolded.
Mum prided herself on keeping up with all current going-ons in the world. She read three newspapers daily, and while she didn’t share her daughters interest in the waves and wires, the wireless set in the kitchen was on from breakfast until bedtime.
Elsa had considered herself lucky to avoid having been evacuated last September. She still remembers seeing the lines of children marching down the street towards the rail station, she could see them on the street from her bedroom window. So many had returned, since there had been no hint of war, despite the civil defense sirens and rationing and conscription.
Elsa couldn’t even pretend the war was phony, what with Fred and Thomas in the RAF. They both lived in the boarding house next door having come to London last year on their own. Elsa suspects they might have regretted leaving their family, especially now that they would be ever farther away from them.
But then Mum had heard of the invasion of France, and Aunt Helen had said from where she lived in Devon that they could see the dogfights over the water starting, and barely two days later, Elsa had been told to pack up and leave.
This morning she leaves, Elsa supposes her teachers must be right, she was sensible. She barely even gave herself time to be lonely or frightened. When she reached the station, she found the woman with the WVS sign and pamphlet and gave her her name before going on her way.
The train was crowded, but not overly so. Tickets were harder to get now what with all the pleas to travel only when necessary. There were other children on the train too, young ones crying as they left their mothers on the platform. Elsa averted her eyes, as though hers might begin to water as well.
Elsa managed to find a compartment with enough empty space to lay her suitcase and knapsack on the seat beside her. The other occupants, older people mostly, paid her no mind, noses buried in newsprint.
Elsa hears the whistle and feels the roll of the train wheels underneath her. She stares out the window. Her route was going north, that was all she knew. She’d barely been out of London before, it was queer as the fog began to give way, to a clear spring sky.
With a sigh, Elsa removed the latest copy of Tales of Wonder she had stashed on top of her knapsack. It was far earlier than she was usually up, and she yawned, suspecting she might doze off before the train reached its destination.
After an indeterminable amount of time, she sighs and puts the magazine aside. She’d read the same paragraph from the story over and over again, and it still wasn’t sinking in. She rolls it back up and stuffs it back in her knapsack.
She glances out the window as the train leaves London behind. She wonders about where she’s being sent. She’s never been to the north. The only time she’d been this far out of London was when they went to visit Aunt Helen. No one’s going to the seashore this year though. Aunt Helen had already spoken of watching the Royal Navy run landmines down the beaches where people used to picnic.
She wrinkles her nose as the last of the fog dissipates outside the city. She hopes this Moonrise Valley at least has better air than London. She thinks on her father’s cough, that often wracked him in the mornings. Mum had chided him, saying they should leave, go somewhere with better weather, but father was stubborn, saying he wouldn’t leave the shop to anyone not in the family.
Better air, maybe some nice trees.
Bored of Tales of Wonder, Elsa rummages, and pulls out Peter Pan instead. She chuckles when she finds her thumbs flipping to the same favorite parts they always did. Eventually, she closes it too, letting her head lull to one side and try to nap as she gazes out the window. Even if where she was going had mermaids and pirates, Elsa is very sure she would not want to stay a child forever right now.
She had thought that maybe with all the young men enlisted, she would be able to persuade mum to let her get a job, at least until school started back up. If it did. So many schools in London had been closed because there weren’t enough teachers, and that prospect left Elsa deeply troubled.
She was studious, and when she wasn’t studying, she had a terrible time being idle. The woman who ran the boarding house didn’t often want her hanging around, and much of it was empty now anyway. The table where Fred had helped her assemble the wireless and shown her how it worked was now empty of people and piled with bits of the Goldstein ladies WVS work.
Sometimes she offered to help dad out in the shop, but dad was nearly as tightly wound about things as she could be, and besides the increasingly long queues made Elsa nervous. Most often he just kicked her out, and she would make her way to the library, or to find a friend and they would ride bikes through the gardens and gawk at the fancy shop, or go to the cinema if they had enough money. Not that the cinemas were open now much, and even the fancy shop ladies seemed dour now. She’d even gotten too big for her bike and now had to take the tube.
She might have ended up in the WVS, like the ladies next door. They’d joined up even before Fred and Thomas had enlisted, but Elsa couldn’t picture herself spending her days knitting socks or rolling bandages. Her socks always turned out lumpy.
She thinks she might like the countryside, but when she tries to picture it, all she sees is empty space. She’ll have to find a way to fill it. Dad would tell her to make new friends. She’ll try. Sure she had friends, but never anyone terribly close. She wasn’t one of those girls who was always surrounded by a giggling group, and her interactions with boys were best left unspoken of. She soothes herself by thinking that maybe country children were different from ones from London. She’d heard adults often say that.
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She eats her lunch (the plum she took from the shop, and a precious chunk of increasingly hard to find cheese), before finally letting her thoughts go and drifting off.
When she jolts awake, the train has come to a stop, and she hears the conductor yelling out her stop. She stands, feeling the plum pit fall. She leans to pick it up, but doesn’t see a bin, so she pockets it.
The train is nearly empty now, and when she steps off, Elsa realizes she’s the only child there, the only one even getting off at this station. She supposes not too many must be being sent north- Manchester was where all the factories were, people always said. She doesn’t know much of Lancashire, but from the hills outside the station, she guesses they must be somewhere in the Pennines.
The train station is only a single platform. There’s not even a proper building, just a station agent in a box. The man inside even appears to be sleeping, and she knocks on the glass, making him jolt.
“Excuse me,” she says, pointing at her sign on her neck, “I’m looking for the reception area? Moonrise Valley?”
The man coughs and adjusts his glasses, before pointing to the left.
“About half a mile along the road to that ridge, and then down into the valley. First building you see will be the post office, they’ll take care of you.”
When Elsa turns to walk away, she sees the man go back to his paperwork, as though he hadn’t even seen her.
The road is nothing but gravel, grass on either side just beginning to be bleached by the sun. The whole twenty minutes Elsa walks along it, knapsack on her back and suitcase in one hand, she doesn’t see another soul.
When she sees the ridge, she spins around. Aside from the station in the distance, she sees nothing. No houses, no people, no vehicles. Even the heather barely moves in the distance, as there is very little wind today.
Elsa steps carefully over the ledge, her heart lightening when she realizes the way down isn’t very steep.
When she steps over it, it feels almost as if the world changes. The sun suddenly feels brighter, the breeze warmer. The heather here smells sweeter.
The village in the distance looks like something out of a picture book. Clusters of picturesque houses, a market square, what look like several farms on the outskirts. And on the far side of the valley, a huge country estate. She can see people moving about, as if ants from above. Feeling her heart lift, she picks up her pace and continues down the road, moving so fast she stumbles.
The post office is a squat, brick building not too far away. Elsa pauses to shift her bags, before pushing open the front door to the sound of the bell making it’s “ding”.
The boy at the counter barely looks up from his paper.
“Mr. Donner hasn’t made it back yet.”
Elsa coughs and the boy looks up. She’s surprised to note he’s only a little older than herself, wearing a flat cap over his reddish hair. When he notices her, he stands up quickly, his foot catching the edge of his chair and making him yelp.
“Sorry,” Elsa says, feeling the need to try and diffuse the situation “I’m not sure where I’m supposed to be.”
The boy turns around and yells “Mam!” over his shoulder. A minute later, a small woman who looks just like him comes out holding a box of papers.
“Mr. Donner can’t be back this early can he?” she asks the boy, before noticing Elsa.
“Oh!” she exclaims, “Do you know how you found yourself here, love?”
The boy nudges his mother, and points at her tag.
“She came from London, like the last one.”
The woman pauses, before nodding. She begins to rummage around on the desk looking for something.
“Afraid I must have forgotten they’d said they’d take another. It was such a scene when the first one showed up-”
First one? Elsa thought.
“Lady Sylvia made such a fuss, as she’s want to do, though I suppose it’s her business…”
Elsa has a dozen questions all of a sudden, but her throat feels dry. This whole situation feels very strange and she can’t put her finger on why.
“Here it is,” the woman says, pulling out a sheet of paper, “I’ll go and call them.”
Once she leaves, Elsa turns to the boy.
“So umm,” she starts, “What’s your name?”
His ears turn pink. There’s something odd about his ears, but Elsa can’t quite put her finger on it.
“Liam Murphy,” he starts, “My mam’s Tessa Murphy. Most folks around here just call her Tess, she won’t take offense.”
“Oh,” Elsa says, uncomfortable at the thought of calling a grown lady by her first name. She clears her throat again.
“I’m Elsa Green” she tells him.
Liam looks at her again, reading her name tag. She reaches up to unpin it, supposing she won’t be needing it anymore.
“Are there really bombs falling from the sky?”
Elsa blinks in shock.
“N-not yet,” she stammers, “But Germany already invaded France, and that’s not so far away. They have planes that can just fly over a city and bomb it from the air!”
Liam nods, but doesn’t seem to really grasp what she’s saying. How? Elsa wonders, how could he have not heard that the country was at war?
Her thoughts are interrupted when Tessa returns.
“The Granger’s are dealing with a stuck lamb, they can’t get down here for an hour or so. I suppose the girl will have to stay here for a while.”
Elsa feels herself becoming very indignant. She expected this day to be a trial, but so little makes sense. Her objections are drowned out when Liam interjects.
“I can walk her down to the Granger’s place, Anine should be there still until they get back. Might help to ease her in.”
He’s jumped up and almost at the door, which his mum seems to notice.
“Don’t go thinking you can shirk your work for today, you’ll stay at that desk until you finish.”
But she swats at his back with one hand and shoos them out the door. On the way out, they pass an older man in a bowler hat on a bicycle and carrying a bag.
“That’s Mr. Donner,” Liam said before she could ask, “He carries our mail over the valley and everyone walks up to the office to pick it up.”
That seems rather old fashioned, Elsa thinks, but this area is quite small.
Liam leads the way out of the post office, down the road heading to the left side of the valley. The road isn’t too steep, but Elsa still finds herself stepping carefully. Her sensible shoes weren’t exactly meant for country walking.
“Sorry about Mam,” Liam said, “she’s just been busy lately. School’s letting out, so all the students need to make arrangements to wink back home, and that falls on us.”
“There’s a school here?” Elsa asks, her interest suddenly piqued.
Liam turns to face her and nods. He keeps on walking backwards down the hill with ease.
“Best girls academy in Europe, we’ve got witches in training coming all the way from Austria-”
Elsa stops short and stares.
“Witches?”
Liam tilts his head. His cap slips a bit, and it finally hits her. His ears are pointed.
“Where do the witches in London go to study?”
Elsa is tongue tied for several moments.
“As-as far as I knew, witches aren’t real, they’re only from stories.”
“Huh,” is Liam’s response, which seems rather mild to her. “Suppose things really are different out there.”
Elsa’s stomach begins to churn. She has a million and one questions to ask, but doesn’t have a single idea where to start. She looks closer at his ears and wants to ask about that too, but rather than confusion, she feels she ought to leave that alone.
She reaches out and tries so hard for a subject to change to, but still ends up too close.
“Are the people I’m staying with, are they witches too?”
Liam nods,
“Course, they’re mostly farmers now. Mr. Granger still teaches up at the school, but it’s mostly making sure the youngest ones can read and count well enough.”
Well, that was encouraging.
Liam keeps going.
“They must have been the only ones who agreed to take in any evacuees. Day that government worker came by to try and get volunteers was so strange, Lady Sylvia had a horse about it, nearly as bad as she did the day they tried to come and install that thing that made horrible noises.”
Dimly, Elsa realizes he’s talking about the air raid sirens.
The walk doesn’t take long, and after that, Liam’s fairly quiet. Elsa decides it’s best to keep it that way, stop herself from tying her tongue in knots again and becoming embarrassed.
She stares off into the fields of heather. Further up the far side of the hill, there’s a patch of forest. She swears, for just a moment, that she sees a white figure on four legs bound off into it. Once it’s gone, Elsa shakes her head and turns back toward the road.
The farm comes into view rather quickly. It’s not much to look at, a two story house made of gray stone, with a red roof and white windows and smoke coming from the chimney, and fields trailing behind it. When Liam opens the gate to let Elsa in, an old gray cat runs past her feet.
“Try and make Annie trip again did you? Told you before she’s not going to leave just for that.”
He talks to the cat like he expects her to answer. And the way the cat stops and looks over its shoulder at him, Elsa almost thinks she might.
But she doesn’t, and continues down the lane, her tail held high.
“Annie’s the last evacuee who came here,” he explains, “Showed up all by herself, carpet bag bigger than she was. Terrified. She seems to have settled in well enough though.”
Liam knocks on the front door before pushing it open.
“Did Misses Luz huff off again?” a voice asks from inside the house.
“She sure did.”
Elsa steps inside and takes in the house. It’s small inside too, a table taking up most of the front room, and the rest of the space holding the kitchen. A white and red cloth covers the table, and upon it a mess of papers and books. The kitchen is bright, with the window open and the sun shining off the yellow painted walls.
A figure moves back from one of the cabinets. It’s a girl, maybe twelve, with pale hair tied in two plaits. She’s wearing an old fashioned dress that’s too short for her, and she’s quite thin, but moves with assurance.
“Oh!” she said, seeing Elsa, “Hello! I’m Annie, I’ll get the tea on.”
Well at least if this place has witches, it has tea too.
“Are you staying Liam?”
“Might as well,” he said, sitting at one end of the table and gesturing for Elsa to do the same. “Mam will just have me sitting and handing out the post otherwise. “
“I’ve got a chicken pie in the oven for tea-” Annie starts.
Elsa’s stomach roars to life. She hasn’t had a proper chicken pie in months, not since butter went on the ration and the lines at the butcher shop became endless.
“It won’t be done for a while. We’ve got jam and bread.”
Even the jam and bread sounds lovely, it seems like it’s been a lifetime since lunch.
“Just a moment though, I have to have words with this boiler.”
She then bends, placing one knee on the floor, and opens the boiler door.
“Oi! I said wake up you lazy bums!”
The fire seems to perk up.
Elsa feels herself become light headed. She’s glad she sat down. This was going to be a very trying day indeed.
Or, she thought back to the story paper in her bag, and thinking back to the figure she saw in the field, perhaps an adventure too.