But it was too late. All three dogs were immediately leaping up, covering Lissa with their mucky paws. She was frozen in fear. She had learned on her rounds to be very wary of dogs; many dogs in London were bred to be guard dogs and righteously defended their property whenever she walked up the path. And these hairy beasts seemed completely uncontrollable. As she tried to make them go down, she saw Joan looking at her, the stern face completely gone.

“Aren’t they wonderful?” she said. “You’re lucky. They like you.”

Lissa did not feel in the least bit lucky as she attempted to gingerly pat one on its fuzzy head.

“You’d better get used to dogs if you’re going to work a country beat,” observed Joan.

And almost completely surrounded by panting dogs—a state Joan appeared to consider entirely desirable—Lissa followed Joan up behind the square to a whitewashed stone house, separate from the others, with a brass plate on the wall announcing the GP surgery.

“Is it just you?” said Lissa, worried. “Do you take the dogs in?”

“No,” said Joan. “Bloody Health and Safety.”

She whistled, surprisingly loudly, and the dogs left Lissa alone and slunk around the back of the house. Lissa peered after them and saw a rather pretty medium-sized garden and three dog kennels. The idea of a GP surgery having a garden tickled her.

“And it’s just you?”

Joan nodded. “Yes. Small population in the village, plus hamlets and homesteads. I spend a lot of time in the car, and so will you.”

“Oh yes,” said Lissa. “They said there’d be a car . . .”

She pondered Joan’s terrible brown vehicle for a second. How bad was her car going to be? In fact, as Joan showed her behind the surgery, it was a perfectly nice little Ford.

“Of course you’ll want to cycle most places,” said Joan. “Lot easier than getting the cars up the road.”

“Cycle?” said Lissa. “What about the drug box?”

“Try not to leave it by the postbox,” said Joan dryly, “and I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine.”

They entered through the back into Joan’s office, and she started riffling through her daily files, then looked up as she remembered something. “Are you going to need time off for therapy? How are they even doing that?”

Lissa winced even to hear the word. She wanted to shout, wanted to tell everyone: This wasn’t the real her! She existed in the world! She was fun and carefree! The real her was cool! Not some traumatized wreck! Not, she realized, a patient. She looked after patients. The idea that she needed looking after . . . she couldn’t bear it.

“I’m to see someone over Skype,” she admitted grudgingly.

Joan sniffed loudly. “Of course, London would be full of therapists. Lots of crazy English. You know what you really need?”