The more obvious effects over the next couple of weeks were found in the kitchen. It had been, it turned out, surprisingly galvanizing. Konstantin realized that if he was sacked, everything was going to get massively worse for him and Bjårk massively quickly, and he set about trying—just a tiny bit, and he wasn’t very good at it (it would still never have occurred to him, for example, to make his own bed in the morning)—to try harder.

He practiced his chopping till he found, after many bloodied fingers and a lot of strangulated swearing, that he could chop everything quickly and efficiently—if not up to Gaspard’s standards, certainly a step up from his own.

IONA GOT ON it the day after the dinner. This was exactly what they needed, she figured. She’d tag it a million times. She remembered that viral video that was just a dog running around a park. This would be much better. And it would show off the beautifully curated shots of the island and the hotel itself. She was looking forward to this.

She posted it at nine P.M. , the time statistically most people were scrolling lazily through their feeds, looking for something to distract them. And she ran it all in capitals. OMMMGGGGGG FUNNIEST VIDEO EVER! YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS!!!!!! she typed, hashtagging it a million times with #funnyvideo #funnydogvideo #dogvideo #restaurantfail #hilariousvideo #manfallingover and literally everything else she had ever heard of, posting it simultaneously to her Facebook and her mum’s Facebook. Her mum was amazing at sharing all sorts of crap and had about nine thousand old lady friends around the world who also loved sharing absolute crap, so even though there was absolutely nobody Iona’s age on Facebook anymore, she expected it to get good currency nonetheless. And she sent it to the Twitter accounts of all the newspapers she could think of. Sometimes they had more space to fill than people realized. Iona liked Mure, in a faintly haughty fashion, but she knew she was destined for greater things. This was just the start she needed.

Nothing. After an hour she crossly shut down her phone and went to bed.

Chapter 26

T he snow lying was such a surprise. It was usually cold enough—that was rarely a problem on Mure. It was instead whether the wind would cease for long enough for snow to fall and lie on the roads, across the fields, gently papering everything in its soft and lovely gentleness.

Bramble had barely seen snow, and being particularly old, and also a dog, he couldn’t remember if he had or not and charged out into the lower field, rolling on his back and tossing himself around, paws in the air, like a much younger dog. Then it soaked in and he stopped liking it so much and slinked back in to dry himself off in front of the fire. It did not smell good.

THE CHILDREN WERE having such a good time up at the school that Lorna, the headmistress, gave up on trying to get anything done and took the two classes outside for a healthy snowball fight—no hitting in the face and no rocks in the snowballs and no putting down necks were the rules, but there were still a few tears here and there. Mrs. Cook, the only other teacher at the school, already had the urn on for hot chocolate, so tears were assuaged and little pink hands and noses warmed after the laughter and exercise of the morning, and Lorna resumed reading The Dark Is Rising, their Christmas book, although as the room warmed up and the hot chocolate took effect, more than a few of the little heads began to nod. It had been a long term, after all; everyone was more than ready for the two-week Christmas break. And she still hadn’t heard from Saif.