The Long Morning

For the first time since the war began, the news on the wireless is good. The armies have gone over; the end is near enough, at last, to imagine. Soon the trains will run properly again, and Edie Fletcher will finally go home.

But Edie is fifteen now, and home is a harder word than it used to be. Devon has become home too — the farm, the friends, a whole life she never chose and never expected to love. Leaving it will be its own kind of goodbye.

And in her pocket, worn smooth from all the years of carrying, is the front-door key to a London house she has measured the whole war by. She has waited so long to use it. Now she is almost afraid to find out what it still opens.