The enchantment had worked as a strange kind of cycle. The romance novels were attached to fluorescent tubs of diet milkshake powder called Shake Your Stuff. People who read the books got obsessed with wanting to look like the thin young women on the covers, despite the fact that they were always in peril of some sort, being chased around a desk by a man in a suit, or tied up and dangling upside down off a cliff. The books contained a spell that made people want the milkshake powder, which in turn contained a spell that made people want the books. It had been a hard cycle for Cait to break, but she’d been going to a women’s group at the university that had helped her.

Soon there was the sound of the front door slamming, and then a blast of cold air that smelled of snow and outside. Ten minutes later Cait came back with three portions of french fries, three mushy pea fritters and three giant pickled onions, all wrapped up in paper.

“All they had left,” explained Cait.

“A feast!” said Orwell. “And a student gave me a box of homemade candied fruits the other day too. She was thanking me for something—I forget what. We can have them for dessert.”

“Is there enough electric on the meter to have it in front of the telly, do you think?” said Cait. “Candlelight Challenge is on tonight. And then Knitting with Kittens.”

“No,” said Orwell. “We’ll eat at the table like a proper family.”

Effie and Cait both sighed. This meant that Orwell would insist on having “A Conversation.”

“So,” he began, as they started tucking in to their alarmingly bright green mushy pea fritters. “What do we all think about this galloglass theory then?”

Effie’s heart jolted a little as it always did now on hearing the word “galloglass.”

“How are we supposed to know what we think?” said Cait. “You’ve been hogging the book all afternoon. Poor Effie hasn’t had the chance to even look at it.”

“It is oddly absorbing,” said Orwell. “Much more than I thought it would be. I’m going to have developed such a brilliant question to ask on Monday night that when the vice-chancellor hears it she’ll promote me on the spot. You wait and see.”

“Well I hope it’s not enchanted like those Matchstick Press books,” said Cait.

“You mean figuratively, of course,” said Orwell. “Books can’t be literally enchanted.” Orwell usually claimed not to believe in magic. Sometimes, though, usually when he was sad or drunk, he admitted that he was actually afraid of it.

“Yes, well,” said Cait, in her I’m-Not-Going-to-Start-an-Argument voice. “You’re not the only one who’s interested in this. There’s been a lot about galloglass theory in the local paper. And the students are planning on boycotting Jupiter Peacock’s lecture.”

“Why?” said Orwell.