“I mean, I wouldn’t go to my mum if I needed soothing, because she has the maternal instincts of a dustpan. But I’d go to yours,” Ameerah added.

“Do I really look that bad?” Nory asked.

“Worse,” said Andrew, squinting at her. “I’ve seen more color on a peeled parsnip.”

“Has my mum been on the phone with you?”

“Yes!” They shouted in unison. Matilda, thinking it must be screechy time at Serendipitous Seconds, let out a piecing scream of delight and clapped her hands.

“Relentlessly,” said Andrew.

“I’m afraid to check my phone between court sessions because I know I’ll have thirty-six voice mails from Mama Sash,” Ameerah added.

Nory pulled a face. “Sorry about that. She overly worries.”

“I’m not sure she’ll be able to hold out until we head down for Christmas on the twenty-third,” said Ameerah. “Jake may have to start tranquilizing her.”

“I’m still not sure about being closed on Christmas Eve. It feels like shopkeeper sacrilege.” Nory was worrying at a thread on her jumper.

“That’s your dad talking,” Andrew chimed in. “We both agreed back in the summer that we would have Christmas Eve off this year. I honestly don’t think we’re going to make a killing, saleswise, the day before Christmas. All the offices around here will be shut already; this is Shepherd Market, not Oxford Street. The kinds of people who want to buy vintage books as gifts will already have done so, trust me.”

Her friends were looking at her with pained expressions. Nory surmised this was probably a fifty-fifty split between worry for her and being worn down by her mum’s incessant phone calls. She should have known better than to sob down the phone to her mum; sobbing was guaranteed to fire up her mum’s fix-it receptors. And when Sasha Noel was on a mission, she made the Terminator’s efforts look half-arsed.

“You’re right, of course you’re right.” Nory threw her arms into the air in surrender. “We’ll close for Christmas Eve, and I’ll call my mum and try to calm her down. Now hand over my goddaughter, you baby hogger.”

Nory hugged Matilda close, and when the baby rested her head against Nory’s chest, she bent her head to sniff her hot little neck. Why did babies smell so good? Matilda looked up and made a noise that sounded distinctly like a meow.

They all looked from one to another, stunned.

“Did she just meow?” Ameerah asked.

“It sounded like it,” Nory replied.

“My daughter’s first word can’t be ‘meow’!” cried Andrew. “It should be ‘dada’! This is all Mugwort’s fault.”

“I think Matilda’s a bit young for first words yet, to be fair,” said Nory.

“Not if she’s a child prodigy, she’s not. She could be, you know. Seb agrees; she’s uncannily clever. We think she might be gifted.”