Or is it? Because one day, only a week later, Jane was so bored, she said that she wished that something would happen…even a fire would be more exciting than sitting around. Martha stopped the discussion dead by saying “we could pretend…” Everyone knows that you can only pretend if you don’t SAY you’re pretending. Jane, Mark and Katherine came up with some wonderful ideas about exploring local places for magic, or magical artifacts, or enchanted disguised castles. One day, they even had a vehement discussion about whether magic like that in The Enchanted Castlewas real, or even possible. Many of those books contained magic, like The Enchanted Castle, by E. It was a nice walk though, and the older children liked to read aloud some of their favorite books aloud along the way. The library was two miles away from their house though, and so it took a good part of a day to travel there, select books, and come home. The children spent quite a lot of time at the library in the summer, since they could get ten books instead of three, and keep them a month, instead of just two weeks. Instead, they were stuck at home, with Miss Bick, who was supposed to watch them, but didn’t, much. Their father had died, and their mother worked as a newspaper, so they didn’t get to go away to the lake, or to camp, or to the seashore for the summer. Martha was the youngest, and rather difficult. Which she let everyone know, until Jane threatened to scream. Katherine was the middle child, and a comfort to her mother. Jane was the oldest, and Mark the only boy, between them, they ran everything. It happened one summer, thirty years ago to four children.

Half magic author