After that, you might start to feel wanderlust, which is the opposite of homesickness, and makes you want to go anywhere and do anything. Most people have both homesickness and wanderlust in them. They are good things – keeping us grounded, and keeping us moving.

But they can be uncomfortable, so in this box is a houseplant that might help. It’s some rosemary. When your wanderlust gets bad, just smell it, and remember that there is time for everything – time to rest, and time to be on the move – and that if you really want adventures, you will always find them. Sometimes, they are on your doorstep.

Come and see me soon!

Yours,

Sister (Commandant) Marguerite x

Max finished reading, and looked up at the little slice of sky above. It shifted colour very slightly, and a bird wheeled overhead, then went off somewhere else without her. She didn’t mind: her eyes were heavy, and her head was full. For Max Morel, for now, it was time to rest.

Acknowledgements

My first thank you is an unusual one, to someone I have never met: Mark Smith, aka “The man in seat 61”. His website, www.seat61.com, is an incredible resource for train travel. Thanks to his detailed instructions, I was able to plot this book from my little flat in London, and later, go on the journey myself.

Huge thanks to Sam Plumb, Dylan Townley and Erin Simmons for their wisdom as I drafted and redrafted and had meltdowns, etc. And thank you to my editors, Sophie Cashell, Lauren Fortune and Genevieve Herr, for all their support-and-sagacity.

Sean Williams and Marco Guadalupi made this story into the beautiful object you are holding now, and I am not over it yet (whenever you are reading this, that will still be true).

And – of course – thank you to Bryony Woods, the extraordinary agent who made it all happen.

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Sylvia Bishop has recently graduated from Oxford. She is one half of the brilliant improvised comedy duo Peablossom Cabaret. She is also the author of

Erica’s Elephant and The Bookshop Girl.

Follow Sylvia on Twitter @sylviabishop

Marco Guadalupi is a digital artist from Brindisi, a little sea town in Southern Italy. Before becoming an illustrator he was a writer, and has always enjoyed telling stories.

Follow Marco on Twitter @marcoguadalupi