Work Text:
“NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN!”
The shrill, piercing tone of her youngest boy, Paul, sounded loudly from where he wrestled and wriggled a Nazi soldier’s firm grasp and reached Eglantine’s eardrums, both she and Emelius standing side-by-side, stunned, her blood running colder than the night air, and face-to-face with the barrel holes of a dozen rifles aimed at their direction. The chill in her bones and blood ran up and down her spine and all throughout her senses, small and shallow breaths escaping her as her eyes swiftly darted between multitudes of figures surrounding her.
There were the soldiers, a number of them who could shoot her without fail if she dared make a sudden move. Then there was Emelius, this lovely lonely man who stood by her side, his eyes just as widened as hers and his hands up in surrender, fearing the same fate as she was. Had the two reached each other just in time, Eglantine and Emelius would have been in each other’s equally protective embrace; at least it would mean that they would have each other despite standing in the face of sudden death. There was nothing Eglantine wanted more than to pull him into her arms and–wait–she couldn’t think of romance at a time like this! This was life or death. Lastly, there were the three children, yelling, screaming, and squirming helplessly in the tight and suffocating arms of their captors…the very captors responsible for taking their parents away in the first place. The sight of the precious three being cruelly snatched and restrained amidst their screams and tears was enough to not only pierce Eglantine’s heart, but stir up a whole new wave of boiling anger rising in her currently stunned state. This was more than she could bear.
Taking a few more quick breaths, her teeth gritted, her eyebrows knitted tightly, and her arm outstretched, she silently uttered her final attempt at the spell that supposedly defeated the Nazis mere minutes ago, her gaze focused on the dozen officers before her and Emelius.
“Treguna mekoides trecorum satis dee…” she grunted inaudibly with a subtle yet forceful wave of her left hand.
Nothing. Not even a sword or piece of armor from the battle made its way towards the troop in their midst, nor did they even bother to budge. The only budging on their end was the synchronized repositioning of their rifles upward to the point that Eglantine’s eye contact directly faced each barrel hole. Another brief yet pierce pang in her heart reminded her that this was what her father must have felt like in the First World War minutes before his demise.
As the soldiers slowly inched closer towards Eglantine and Emelius, the pair was sure that they were indeed in their final moments before inevitably facing death, cold sweat running down Eglantine’s forehead the closer they stepped. All at once, she felt her stance and senses growing more numb by the second, the only thing snapping her consciousness being another piercing shriek from the children. The children. Her children. She would not let them die. Not even if it killed her.
All in a split-second, that’s when it dawned upon her. Her final decision. Her final spell. If Substitutiary Locomotion couldn’t save them all this time, she knew something else that would. Something she hadn’t thought of…until now. Until the very last second. Eglantine remembered some surprisingly useful bits of magic in times of emergency that Emelius had sent her weeks before, especially that one. The one she was told never to use unless it was a desperate time beyond measure. She had been tempted at one time to use it against the Nazis, but Emelius’ letter warning made it clear that it would do no good to do so. It could only be used for the welfare of someone in desperate times to affect the present trajectory of their life for the better. She had no one at the time. Only herself. As the saying went, “desperate times call for desperate measures.” This was a desperate time. This was her desperate measure. Now she had someone’s welfare to consider besides her own. She had four of them. Not only did she grow to care deeply. She grew to love deeply. That was when she knew she had to pull this last ditch effort of a spell to save the lives of those she knew she loved without a second thought, even if it meant giving up her own. This was now. She had to carry onward. This was do or die.
As the front line of troops were inches away from the tips of her shoes, the woman sucked in a large breath, fixed her gaze past the Nazis’ helmets and towards the eyes of the suffering and suffocating children before her. Should a few more seconds pass, the three would be killed and she would never forgive herself. She couldn’t live with that; not with how she lived for twenty-two years knowing she couldn’t save her father’s life. Whether or not she lived or died didn’t matter; there were three beloved young lives before her, and she was beyond determined to keep them in the land of the living.
Without a second thought, staring straight into the eyes of Charlie, Carrie, and Paul, Eglantine stretched out her hand, shut her eyes tightly, murmuring lightly and inaudibly, then shook lightly and abruptly followed by a heavy thud underneath her feet and a massive gust of wind whooshing past her and escaping her, leaving her slightly breathless. She had finally done it. She had cast the spell she never thought she would cast. Not in an emergency. Not in a lifetime.
Anxious to see whatever result it brought about, whether the soldiers would disappear or whether all five of them would be teleported elsewhere without the aid of the bed, Eglantine didn’t know. She then decided to open her eyes, met with the sight of yet the very things she had conjured said magic to eliminate: the Nazis. The soldiers remained standing before her and Emelius, their rifle barrels still facing the pair directly, Emelius still retaining his stance of surrender, and the children screaming and struggling just as they had seconds ago. Nothing had changed. Why was that? Why had nothing changed? Eglantine gritted her teeth angrily, her arm still remaining outstretched and her eyes in darting fixation between the soldiers and the children, until the result of the emergency spell came not within sight…but within hearing.
“No…you’re not real…you’re not real…” the quivering voice of Charlie whimpered as he struggled in a soldier’s arms. Eglantine’s eyes widened at what she heard. Were these soldiers, the very soldiers she and everyone could see with their eyes, a figment of his imagination? Of their imagination? Were they all simply seeing things?
All while the images before her hadn’t changed in the slightest, it was her eldest boy’s words that made it clear of the spell’s effect; something indeed did happen, and it clearly wasn’t over yet.
“YOU…ARE…NOT…REAL!!!” the teenage boy bellowed at the top of his lungs, his shrill tone echoing into the night sky.
All at once, the visual pandemonium had stopped. The soldiers that had once clenched the three children in their grasp suddenly let go without hesitation. The soldiers that had their rifles aimed at Eglantine and Emelius had suddenly taken a back step and turned their rifles upward so the barrels no longer faced them. In a matter of seconds, before their very eyes, and just like magic, the Nazis had vanished into thin air. They left no tracks of their existence as if they had never invaded the coast of Pepperinge Eye at all.
At that, Eglantine and Emelius remained stunned and wide-eyed at the sight, and so did Carrie and Paul. The only one that didn’t seem in the very least surprised was Charlie.
“Where did they go?” Paul asked his older brother gently, a mix of shock and relief in his tone.
“Back to where they came from,” Charlie answered nonchalantly with an absent gaze, then turned to both his siblings, “They’re not real.”
“They’re not?” Carrie chimed in, her expression just as wide-eyed as Eglantine and Emelius.
“No,” Charlie replied once more.
At that moment, Eglantine’s stomach began to churn, not out of fear or sudden relief, but out of pure anxiety. The visible disappearance of the troops were enough to convince her that her spell had indeed taken effect and protected all five of them from sudden death, yet she couldn’t help but think that there was more to the spell than just protection. It simply felt too easy. That’s when she knew…it all came down to Charlie. The very thought of what was to happen next left the woman unsettled, although she remained eager to find out nevertheless.
“None of this is real,” the young man spoke a little more loudly, and dare she detect, mournfully.
Yet another pang reached Eglantine’s already churning stomach. This was the spell still very much alive, kicking, and at work, and its proof of living shown in every word that Charlie spoke.
The thirteen year-old then began listing everything they had picked up from their adventure, from the bedknob to the Isle of Nopeepo, and claiming they were a figment of their collective imaginations. Eglantine simply couldn’t believe her ears, simply thinking to herself that there clearly was a reason Emelius advised against said emergency spell, and thinking that it had taken a wrong turn and ultimately altered Charlie’s state of mind, completely unaffecting herself, Emelius, and the other two. However, while she couldn’t believe her ears, the last thing she wanted was to believe her eyes.
Each item, from the bedknob all the way to the star had vanished into thin air just as the Nazis had. What did this all mean? Had all their adventures been a state of mind? How on earth could it be if she herself had experienced, lived, and breathed everything with these four all day? As Eglantine’s stomach somersaulted more vigorously, she couldn’t find it in herself to speak. Her breath was caught in her throat as it was already. She wished the words could come out, but they didn’t. She didn’t have the words anyway. If she didn’t have the words, she knew someone who would. Eglantine then turned her head to Emelius, the gentleman’s hand firmly pressed against his side, his head downcast, and his eyes filled with unshed tears. Never once did she consider herself a master at reading people, especially having kept away from them as often as possible, but there was just something in the man’s eyes that exclaimed dread. Pure dread unlike she had ever seen before. Before she could speculate any further, Emelius opened his mouth to speak. Now was the moment of truth…
“What about us, then, Charlie?” Emelius said in a low voice, his eyes then turning to the fragile young boy, his gaze fixated on him until he received a surefire answer.
Without a word, Eglantine looked at the boy in anticipation, attempting to keep her now-anxious breaths slow and steady. The answer she expected Charlie to speak was one she knew she too would dread if it were the one she was thinking of.
“I-I’m afraid we made you up too, Mr. Browne,” Charlie admitted mournfully and almost tearfully, looking his father figure in the eye.
Not only did Emelius’ expression grow pale; Eglantine’s stomach gave the most massive lurch that night, followed by a sharp pang in her heart. Mr. Browne. Emelius. Her dear Emelius…made up? Not real?
All she could do, her mouth completely agape, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, and her senses almost completely numb, was turn to face the man she loved, if it meant it was the last time she would lay eyes on him again. Indeed, she loved him. She truly did. She knew she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she hadn’t admitted that, even if just to herself, at all.
“I am very sad to hear that,” Emelius said shakily, tears forming in his eyes as his gaze went from the children, who gazed at him just as tearfully, then to a long, lingering, warm gaze towards Eglantine with a sad smile fixated on her eyes and her eyes only, “I had such a wonderful time.”
As Emelius took a few light and airy steps backwards, as if he were being whisked away by the wind, his gaze remained directly on Eglantine and Eglantine alone. With every small step he took, she couldn’t bring it upon herself to take her eyes off of him. He wasn’t just the man she loved. He was the man she fell in love with. He was the man who clearly fell in love with her, and he was about to be spirited away into a non-existent oblivion far beyond anyone’s reach. Far beyond her reach. Far from her. Forever. It was no wonder he didn’t want her to evoke the spell; sooner or later, it would take him away, perhaps even for good.
“Oh…” the gentleman breathed out with a sad smile, then outstretched his hand toward Eglantine, knowing full well he was on the cusp of vanishing completely and that she couldn’t touch him even if she tried, “I shall miss you.”
His words then echoed into the darkness, his form disappearing completely into the mist as if he ceased to exist. Just like that, Emelius Browne was there one moment and gone the next, and now no more.
“Wait, Mr. Browne!” Charlie exclaimed tearfully towards the wind and the spot where Emelius once stood. Just like that, it seemed he had lost his father figure forever.
Upon realizing what had just happened, Eglantine had no time to think about her aching heart towards the disappearance of this beloved gentleman. It wasn’t just his fate that was sealed. There was another fate yet to be determined, and she just knew she had to say something before it was too late, no matter if the revelation would kill her inside. No matter if the revelation would break the children’s hearts.
“I suppose…” Eglantine began softly, gathering little of what was left of her composure, and looking each of the children in the eye, especially her eldest boy. Her dear Charles. “...that I too am a mere figment of your collective imaginations.”
It felt like a knife to her heart and to her senses just speaking these words out loud, although she managed to purse her lips in a melancholy smile directed towards Charlie, whose expression broke out into one so mortified and tearful, his mouth agape and in utter shock of what the woman had just said. Both he and Eglantine wished it wasn’t true, but it was. Although Eglantine knew that she herself was real, alive, and well, it couldn’t be helped that the precious young man before her thought otherwise. That was how the spell worked, and that was what it had declared. There was nothing to be done now. No spells, no words, nothing could counter what was yet to come.
“I’m sorry, Miss Price,” the boy whimpered in a high-pitched tone, eyeing Eglantine in shock and devastation, the reality seemingly clear in his consciousness that he and his siblings were seconds away from losing her. As for Eglantine, from the moment Charlie confirmed it in his words and his tone, it was clear to her that she was all that much closer to losing them. She simply couldn’t bear it…but she had to try. She had to be strong with what little she had left of their presence in her life.
“I’m not,” Eglantine whimpered back empathetically, feeling a fresh wave of small, unshed tears in the corner of her eyes, even managing to wipe one away, this time, her vulnerability gaining the best of her no matter how steady and strong she tried to be, “I just hope that I’ve been of some help at least.”
“Oh, you have,” Charlie said amidst a sniffle, his eyes remaining on his guardian, soon-to-be no more, “We needed something to believe in…and here you were.”
Shattered as Eglantine’s heart felt by the second, a surge of warmth immediately filled its already broken cracks. Not only was it warmth she felt; it was love. Love that she never thought she would feel for the remainder of the children’s presence. Love for the children she had cared for for merely two days, and fiercely at that. She knew very well that with whatever little good deed she had done for them, while she couldn’t completely take their pain of loss away, she could at least help heal their hearts. In a way, she had. Only now, it was different. Their freshly healed hearts had been torn and shattered once again with the looming reality of losing their dear Miss Price, all because their “dear Miss Price” decided to use an emergency spell that would supposedly save their lives. Save their lives, it did; she just didn’t expect that saving their lives would include breaking their hearts.
“It’s time to look at the facts,” the young man said in a gentle yet sorrowful tone, looking Eglantine straight in the eye, “It’s time we let go of the things that aren’t real…”
He then turned to his siblings, giving them a loving yet melancholy smile, beckoning them to join him in a small embrace.
“...And hold onto the things that are.”
Upon the sight of the three siblings, side-by-side, safe and sound, and together, Eglantine couldn’t help but smile through her heartbreak. She truly had saved their lives. She had completed her mission in a matter of minutes. She knew that they would carry on just as well with their lives and go on living with a bright and promising future ahead of them, even if it meant she wouldn’t be a part of it. That was what broke her far more than the uncertainty of whether she herself would have a future of her own apart from them or not. She was still unclear on whether the spell had destined her to live, die, or to simply disappear.
“Negotiality,” she said fondly and proudly, acknowledging the wisdom she had seen her dear young Charles acquire in just a matter of two days. This wasn’t a troubled thirteen year-old boy she was witnessing; she was looking into the eyes of a grounded young man with a desire to take care of and protect Carrie and Paul no matter what it cost. Eglantine couldn’t have been prouder. If this was what being a proud mother felt like, even for a short while, she was grateful to have at least felt it in some way or form.
“Don’t go, Miss Price!” young Paul’s voice broke out with a small step forward, wide and tearful eyes looking upon hers. All over again, Eglantine swore she heard her heart break into a million pieces. How could fate play them all a cruel card and separate them from each other just as they were all on the brink of a possible future together? That was something she would never understand until the spell would take its full effect on her. With the way the children were speaking to her, Eglantine knew that that dreaded moment was close at hand. There was simply no turning back, and it hurt her deeply just thinking about it.
“It appears I have no choice,” she responded brokenly, looking at the youngest boy lovingly. Her Paul. Her sweet, youthful, and imaginative genius boy, as she fondly called him.
“We need you,” another voice chimed in tearfully. Carrie. The only girl in the family who seemed to respect and grow fond of her right from the get go. Her daring, determined, brave little girl.
Oh, how she wished she could tell them all that she needed them too, but she couldn’t. Eglantine couldn’t afford to further shatter their already broken hearts again. Even then, telling them the truth would break them either way, and it hurt her to do the breaking.
“Not anymore,” she said with a slight firmness in her tone amidst a small break in her voice.
Eglantine then bent forward and looked each of the children in the eye. “My children,” she thought to herself once more. If she could spend these last few seconds in their presence seeing them as such, she felt in her heart that she could vanish even the least bit happy as she could ever be.
“It’s just the three of you now,” she began tenderly, sucking in a deep breath, fearing that if she exhaled, she would let off a fresh amount of tears spill from her eyes. She wasn’t about to let that happen; not when they needed her to be strong for them in their final moments together.
“Be brave, have faith in each other…unflinchingly,” she advised gently, emphasizing the final word and eyeing each of them as she spoke.
The looks in their eyes were enough to break her; tearful, forlorn, devastated, and heartbroken all in one. They had just lost their parents two nights before; were they really about to lose the closest thing to another one? Was that really how the emergency spell worked? Had all they have been through been for naught?
All these thoughts flashed in Eglantine’s head as a mighty gust of wind blew her backwards, pulling her further and further away from the broken children whose eyes never once left hers. Her stomach once again lurched and her eyes began to fill with a dam full of tears. This was the moment she had dreaded from the time she heard Charlie’s voice acknowledging his imagination. She would disappear from their lives just as much as they would disappear from hers.
This was it.
“Onward…” she whispered as the wind carried her away, making sure she gave one final smile to the children before they huddled against one another, clinging in a heartbroken embrace. Further and further the wind blew her, and the chillier the breeze became, coursing through her veins and her entire being. Eglantine quickly glanced at her arms, too stunned to even think about crying, noticing that she herself wasn’t disappearing. However, as she looked into the horizon, her vision clouded deeply in a mix of pitch black and a gray, gusty mist, the view of the children being mere dots in the distance, fading with every pull backward until they disappeared from her view…and from her life.
Surely enough, Eglantine felt herself heaving with much deeper breaths than before, her face scrunching up into a sob, and tears escaping her eyes, but was stopped short when sirens suddenly rang from above her. The aeroplanes. The Nazis. They were back. Her eyes suddenly shot wide at the sound of the sirens, but before she could do anything or wriggle further, her vision, as well as the cloudy mist, faded into pitch black, and so did her consciousness, in turn, unconsciousness completely consuming her into the oblivion of her mind’s eye.
Just mere seconds after she had fallen into her slumber in the most unusual of circumstances, being carried away by the wind, a thoroughly physically exhausted Eglantine found herself lying down across her living room couch on a late afternoon, the clock before her above the mantelpiece reading six o’five. She then groggily turned her eyes to both her sides, noticing that what she was wearing now, an earthy green cardigan and a green-striped skirt, was not the last thing she wore before she woke up. With that, her eyes went wide, and she shot herself up in her stance immediately, sitting upright on her couch, her green hat–which she knew for a fact she had not worn at all the day before–fell above her eyes, then down to her lap.
For a few seconds, Eglantine turned her eyes from left to right, scanning her living room and noticing that everything was just as she had left it two days before, taking a few deep, anxious breaths. Indeed, things truly were just as she had left it, not only in her house, but in her being. She was all alone. She was once again nobody’s problem. Realizing that this was the very spot she had been on minutes before she left for the museum just two days ago, and even more so, realizing that she had seemingly traveled back in time to the day she was to pick up the package–and the children…
“The children…” she thought to herself, her internal thoughts pausing upon their crossing her mind, and remembering just how broken she had left them when the wind had carried her away, she took a few more deep breaths, and felt her chest heave in preparation for a sob.
The more her chest heaved, the more her mind replayed the previous night’s ordeal–or rather, her imagination, or worse, what could have only been a dream–the more tears fell from her eyes amidst uncontrollable sniffles. The more she thought about the children and the man she had left behind and who unwillingly left her behind, the more her tears flowed from her face dripping all the way to the top of her skirt. How could they have not been real? How could she have not been real to them? How was this all just a dream? She was certain she lived it. She was certain that they were certain they lived it. Everything was certain up until the moment she evoked…the spell. That spell. That cursed spell, while initially claiming to protect certain loved ones and maintain their welfare, had taken everything and everyone that was important to her. All she thought would be a blessing had single-handedly become a curse in mere seconds. How could that have happened? How could she have done that? What has she done?
Regret after regret, and question after question of why and how she could have prevented this from happening filled her mind as she paced back and forth across her living room in tears. Had this spell undone everything she, Emelius, and the children had been through? Has she been erased from their memory? She certainly hoped not, as she remembered every last bit of their adventure down to the last detail even in her waking moment. Do they even exist anymore? This was the question that stopped her cold. She knew that the spell would save their lives one way or another, but what did it mean? Did it mean, that for whatever reason, they have been transported to a completely separate dimension or universe from her own if it meant keeping them safe? Eglantine didn’t know.
After all this harried pacing, her left arm absentmindedly hit the side of her desk, dropping a large calendar on the floor. She then picked it up absently, then looked at one of the dates with a large circle and heavy printing of handwriting upon the grid: “August 7: PICK UP CHILDREN FROM EVACUATION CENTRE AT 6 O’CLOCK. DO NOT DELAY.”
All at once, Eglantine’s heart stopped, another lurch reaching her stomach upon reading these words over and over again, even blinking thrice to make sure she wasn’t imagining things. It was written in pen and ink on August the 7th and even encircled thrice. This was not how she remembered writing her reminder meant for August the 5th, which read “PICK UP PACKAGE FROM EVACUATION CENTRE AT 6 O’CLOCK. DO NOT DELAY. ALSO CHILDREN FROM LONDON.” She remembered it well. She wrote it after all. Only, after checking what she felt was the umpteenth time, that piece of writing did not exist on her calendar, the August 5th grid completely blank.
She then lowered the calendar, a small, shocked breath escaping her with her eyes wide and mouth agape. That could only mean one thing…the spell had truly done its magic. There were children she had to pick up today and not two days before. Could it mean that these children could be the very same children she had met and grew to cherish over the past two days?
There was only one way to find out.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Eglantine snatched her hat from the couch, brushed off any remaining tears from her eyes, and rushed out the door, immediately hopping into her motorbike and speeding off in an aggressive whir the way she never had before. Just minutes prior, in a seemingly different life, she held fast to the adage that desperate times called for desperate measures. This truly was a desperate time, and she was going after a desperate measure. If this meant she would find the children she had once lost and have them and hold them again, there wasn’t a moment to lose. She could not and would not lose them again. Not to anyone, not to anything.
Eglantine then arrived at the front of the museum in a cloud of dust surrounding her, hopping out of the motorbike just as quickly as she had driven, noticing that the museum doors were ajar. She paused for a moment, took a deep breath, then briskly walked in without missing a beat.
Upon entering the doors of the museum, what did miss a beat was her heart. The three children just steps away from her, the very children she promised to pick up, were the very same children she had spent time with for the last two days. They were none other than Charlie, Carrie, and Paul Rawlins. The three. Her three. The very sight of them was enough to warm her heart all over again, whether they would remember her or not. Only, there was someone standing in her way.
“Ah, Mrs. Mason,” she greeted with over-the-top sarcasm, making it clear that she did not like this woman. She never had; not for as long as both of them were in Pepperinge Eye.
“Miss Price,” the older farmer woman grunted. She didn’t like Eglantine either.
“These must be the children I promised to take in,” Eglantine chirped matter-of-factly, sending a warm and nearly-beaming smile their way. Try as she might, she could not let the overwhelming joy in her heart and her senses get the better of her, fighting every urge within her not to run up to them and pull them into her arms for a much-needed embrace. Surely enough, as the children met her eyes, they too looked upon her in beaming wonderment as if they already…
“Eglantine, don’t wish; don’t you dare,” her thoughts interrupted her once more. She couldn’t be one hundred-percent certain that they knew exactly who she was. After all, there was still the possibility that the spell she pulled had erased any trace or memory of her. However, she tried not to focus on that right now; she had to focus on keeping them from the clutches of the woman who indeed, more than ever, was actually the wicked witch.
“You’re too late!” Mrs. Mason bellowed, blocking the children from Eglantine’s reach, “They’re coming with me.”
“On the contrary, I agreed to take them and I shall keep my promise,” she answered, her eyes completely fixed on the children, not bothering to hide the wide smile already peering at the corner of her lips. At this point, Eglantine hardly cared if the children found her behaviour odd; she wanted them to know that she was more than happy to see them, whether or not they felt the same way. It seemed, especially with Mrs. Mason’s intimidating figure, that they would be much happier with Eglantine than with anyone else.
“Hello, children,” she greeted warmly, looking each of them in the eye, a grin already plastered on her face.
“Hello!” they all replied in unison, looking just as cheerful as Eglantine as they looked her in the eye. Upon hearing their voices, another somersault made its way to her stomach, raising yet another speculation…did they know? Did they know who she was?
“Would you please tell Mrs. Hobday they’ve been collected?” she said briskly without a beat, then beckoned the children to join her, “Come with me.”
As soon as the children rushed to her side, Eglantine found it all the more difficult to keep her secret from them. Even more so, she found it difficult once more, not to embrace them and tell them just how glad she was not to have lost them after all. However, now was not the time or place. She simply had to get them home before anything else happened; then, and maybe then, would she tell them the truth.
“Miss Price, he’s here!” Paul chimed in.
“You’ll miss him,” Carrie added.
Him? Eglantine immediately perked up. Him, who? Upon hearing this, she had her suspicions, but immediately tried to brush off the thought. Surely “him” couldn’t be Emelius. For all she knew, he could be in London running his novelty–no–performing magic tricks at the street corners. Where the first thought came from, she had no idea, except for maybe the spell having altered even his place in the world somehow.
Nevertheless, all she could focus on was getting the children out of the museum as quickly as possible before Mrs. Mason could chase after the children. There was no way she would let her snatch the children away again, not after the way she had seen them snatched the night before.
After giving one last glare towards Mrs. Mason, Eglantine and the children hurried out of the museum, just about to board the motorbike when Paul told her that he had forgotten his book.
The Isle of Nopeepo. His most prized possession. Eglantine simply couldn’t forget it, and the last thing she wanted to do, especially after last night, was let her little boy down. With that, she rushed back into the museum only to stop in her tracks, weak-kneed, blushing profusely, mesmerized, bewitched, and bewildered by the sight of a pair of sapphire orbs looking just-as-mesmerized smiling at her, belonging to a mustached man donning a tan brown coat. Who else could it be but–
“–Miss Price, I believe,” the gentleman breathed out gently, looking at her not only with a warm smile, but–dare she say–the tender look of a man quite possibly in love. As soon as she heard his voice, her eyes couldn’t once leave his gaze. She didn’t even care that Mrs. Hobday, ever the busybody, was watching their exchange front and centre, the children at bay just as they were entering the museum.
“Mr. Browne!” she exclaimed almost too cheerfully, “Mr. Emelius Browne!”
It took nearly everything in her not to launch herself into his arms in an embrace, even briefly fantasizing that she could pull on his collar towards her and find themselves captured in a long and quite possibly passionate kiss. However, now was not the time and place. Not with the children and Mrs. Hobday around.
“In the flesh,” he responded just as tenderly, smiling widely at her, looking almost as if he were containing his joy. Of course, the way Eglantine read Emelius was merely a speculation. Only time would tell if said speculation was true.
In a matter of moments, the pair spoke to one another, Eglantine wondering what he was doing in her side of town, and Emelius telling her that it was a long story, hinting that he was more than willing to sit down and spend time talking to her about it. Yet another speculation came into mind with what he would soon talk about. However, that wasn’t what Eglantine could think of at the moment, for the last thing she thought about was what he was thinking; even more so, the first thing she thought about was how to keep him in Pepperinge Eye for as long as possible without running the risk of him leaving her and the children again the way he almost had.
“Care to share it over a cup of tea?” she asked the gentleman coyly, unsuccessfully attempting to hide her blush.
“I suppose I could take a later train,” Emelius responded almost jokingly, causing Eglantine to giggle giddily. She couldn’t remember the last time she shared laughter this way without him. It seemed that Emelius was the only man she knew she could genuinely and comfortably laugh with, and she hoped it would remain so for a longer time than the present.
“Oh, the children will be joining us!” she exclaimed, suddenly turning to the three, “Mr. Browne, these are…I don’t know your names.”
She lied and she knew it. There was no way that after the last two days she would immediately forget who Charlie, Carrie, and Paul were and how much they meant to her. With the cheeky looks on the children’s faces, she had an inkling that they knew she was lying too. Perhaps they knew…
Nonetheless, they decided to play along and mention their names.
It wasn’t too long before Eglantine, feeling an intense surge of warmth at this very moment as she gained her precious four back after the looming fear of losing them just minutes before, decided that she would willingly and unflinchingly permanently keep them in her life. The way Emelius handed her the flowers, initially in Mrs. Hobday’s hands, wasn’t just any gesture he would do to just any woman. She could see it in his eyes and in his smile. She knew just how much they meant to each other, perhaps even more than just that. Emelius knew that too. Apparently, so did Mrs. Hobday, who immediately spotted the rare and bashful demeanour in which Eglantine had taken upon.
With that, after receiving her latest package–quickly noting that this reset was the spell’s doing and not her own–Eglantine gave a quick headcount of all five of them, then gave a beam towards the people she knew deeply in her heart she loved the most. This time, she felt no hint of uncertainty. This time, she knew that the trajectory of their fate had let them straight back to each other despite the wringing effects of the emergency spell leading up to this very moment. This time, she knew she could confidently say the words without any fear or hesitation, knowing full well that the future the five had together was crystal clear.
“Mr. Browne, children…let’s go home.”
Home. Hearing that escape from her own lips gave her yet another surge of warmth encompassing her being, just as strongly as the gust of wind that carried her away the night before had done. Only this time, she wasn’t being pulled away from the four precious people she would embrace as her home and her family in a heartbeat; she was thrust towards them just in time, ready to take them home. Ready to share her home and her heart with them, just as they were ready to share theirs with her.
What made it clearer still, just moments after getting off of the motorbike outside her house and after a few words were exchanged, was the feeling of four pairs of arms and warmth pulled and encompassed against and within her in a tight and loving embrace shared with the soon-to-be family of five.
Worth it. Those were the words. Despite the dread and the initial torture that the last ditch effort of a spell brought upon them all, what had first pulled them apart made doubly sure that they would be thrust together by the end.
Simply put, destiny had decided that all they needed was each other.
Eglantine couldn’t be happier.
They couldn’t be happier.
And this clearly was only the beginning.