Samuel's eyes.

After another day, and another four pads of post-it notes, I emerged from the study like a pit pony: hairy and on all fours. Angela has noticed the beard like growth of the last week, and thankfully didn’t notice me trip on the step up out of the study. It was Samuel who drew attention to the gradual decline of the study floor, meaning that the far wall, and the mirror, is a metre lower than it should be.

Samuel was in the kitchen when I emerged, unwilling to wait for Norman and doing something ridiculous with six eggs. This was the first time I’d seen him without his vast, stained, leather coat, underneath which he wears a harness to hold a broadsword and a brass telescope. I don’t know how surprising it should be that a man with blood red eyes carries a sword and telescope, but after a day spent cataloguing magic books, I must admit I was only as intrigued as I would be if he was wearing odd socks.

I pointed the items out to him. He said it was a funny thing-
“They used to occupy the same space, so I could choose between them. Made it easier to carry, legally. But come Halloween they fell off into two separate entities, look,” he showed me the cracked lens of the telescope, “popped out into the laws of physics. Of course I was busy with the pain of my eyes reverting to normality at the time.”

“Why are your eyes red?”
“I’m a greyman.”
“And grey men have red eyes?”
“It means that I’m a demon hunter.”

I looked around me and up at the ceiling. Angela was still in her room, or preferably out.
“Hence the sword.” I said.
“Hence the sword. Not that there are any demons now. Just lots of angry demonologists.”

I thought about this for a while, and asked Samuel how he got to know my father.
“He helped me out, a while ago.”
“I thought he might have changed your eyes.”
“No. That came later. I’d joined the army, rather foolishly, because I needed proper weapons training. Your father helped me to avoid going to war. I had more important battles to fight.”

I thought at first he meant Iraq, but Samuel looks about forty plus so, counting back, it must have been the Falklands. Dad must have been thirtyish, but he was already a figure of respect and reputation.

It was only later that I realised I still don’t know why Samuel’s eyes are red.