The shopkeeper broke into a wide grin. “Good day, Syms Covington!” he boomed, and gave my hand a hearty shake. “The boy hisself. Your adventure, sonny, is the talk of the town, from harbor taverns to ladies’ drawing rooms!”

I relaxed as I remembered this was Australia, not England, and that the rules of scruffy boys not being allowed in fancy shops didn’t work quite the same here. Even the accent was different. The Australian voices sounded like everything was a question that hadn’t been answered yet, as if anything could happen here on the other side of the world.

I returned the shopkeeper’s firm handshake with a squeeze. Arm slung across my shoulder, he led me along the row of fiddles, describing the benefits of different woods, pegs and strings, makers, dates, and nationalities. I couldn’t keep up.

Mr. Darwin took a violin down from its hook.

“I know it can’t replace Scratch. But I think it’s time you coaxed out a tune again, don’t you?”

I took the beautiful fiddle from my master. This instrument had a fancy chin rest, and my jaw nestled perfectly. It felt different to the hard lines of Scratch. My hands shook.

When I drew the bow across the strings, I caught the scent of pine rosin, and the first few notes took me back to the Narborough shore, filling the gaps in the tiny boat’s seams with that precious rosin. By the second bar, I closed my eyes and I was spun back, way back, to when I was the smallest of boys, only just able to stretch my arm to grip the fiddle’s neck, and Da’s rough fingers covered my own as he helped me draw out my first note.

The first two months back in England, Mr. Darwin and I were busy every long day making sure the specimens that had been shipped back were safely preserved and stored.

Now Mr. Darwin hunched over his mahogany desk in his new rooms in Cambridge, working on a paper that would be his first presentation to the Geological Society in a few weeks’ time.

I pried open another crate of specimens. This one was from Patagonia and was solely fossils. I lifted out a huge ancient bone and remembered the mother dragon attempting to heave herself from the lava. I shook my head, trying to scatter the memory. More of Mr. Darwin’s shipping arrived every day at Woolwich docks, and it seemed my job of cataloging and then sending on to the appropriate gentlemen would never be done. The day was cold and gray, as it had seemed to be every day since we had returned, and there’d be many more like it, as it was only December. What I’d do for just a flash of that Australian sun on my face. But truly, I had little to complain about. Mr. Darwin and I shared a comfortable lodging—my work was steady and well paid, and best of all, Farthing barely left my side.