Winged angel pencil design

The night the ninefifteen was held at Carrick Junction, I was up on the lamp shelf with the trimming knife, and I looked down and saw the angel on the memorial window had come off her plinth. Not truly, I know. Mr Pryce says it was the wind through the broken pane and the gaslight throwing her shadow about. But her wings had gone grey with soot, and I could have sworn the feathers were lifting like someone shaking out a wet coat.

Pryce would not let me near the ledger after that. He said I had written the wrong time against the Leeds train and the wrong name against the parcel for the vicarage, and perhaps I had, for I was half asleep. Still, I walked the platform at midnight with the lantern and stopped under her. She has her head bowed over her folded arms, the way you used to sit over your sums, and the stone is worn so smooth you cannot tell whether she is praying or only tired of waiting for a train that will not come.

Here is the thing I have not told anyone. Last Tuesday I left my watch on the bench beneath her and found it on the signal box step next morning, wound and ticking, with a single grey feather tucked under the strap. Pryce says a boy from the goods yard must have been playing a joke. The boy is eleven and cannot wind a watch to save his life.

I am taking the early mail to you on Sunday. Keep the kettle on, and do not let Mother tell you I am thin.

Your loving brother, Tom