The next day, driven by spite at her mother, she called a meeting with Hannah and Noelle. Instead of Hannah’s office, she asked them to meet her in what she thought of as neutral territory: the library. Tucked into an architecturally improbable room at the back of the inn, the library was so filled with memories that walking inside felt like being punched in the solar plexus. Built-ins lined the walls, jammed with all sorts of books people read on vacation and then left behind to make room in their luggage.

The books were not organized in any perceivable way, instead piled, jammed, and inserted wherever there was room. Discovery by a reader was left entirely to happenstance. This was the room Miriam had spent all her winters curled up in. This was where she’d met Miss Marple and decided to be her when she grew up. It was the place she went to in her head when nothing felt safe in her life. Her parents never ventured there, which was how it had become her go-to childhood haven.

Her little pocket notebook was full of ideas, and they had coalesced into a plan—or at least the start of one. She needed the others to finish rounding it out. She had sketched out a calendar on butcher paper on the wall in her room: Twelve Months in Christmasland, and pinned it with cards she’d gathered from area artisans, tiny renderings of social media ad runs, and printouts of other event destination farms with details about how much they charged.

When Hannah and Noelle arrived at the meeting, she handed them each a sheet of bullet-pointed ideas.

“Wow, you really are Hannah’s cousin,” Noelle observed.

“I have the beginning of a plan, maybe,” Miriam said, standing nervously as they sat down. “Not a whole plan! That has to be all of us together. But hear me out. I know I have a lot to learn, and some of these ideas might not be workable or might make things worse instead of better. That’s why I’m bringing them to you, the experts.”

Hannah and Noelle had a silent conversation with their eyebrows, which Miriam couldn’t interpret. Noelle gestured for her to keep talking.

“Okay, I know this is a terrible name, but my idea is basically Carrigan’s All Year. Make this a tourist destination in spring for Easter egg hunts or a fancy-dress Matzo Ball for Passover. A food truck festival in June and a Fourth of July carnival—no fireworks near the trees, Noelle—a Purim parade, weddings, bachelorette weekends. We need to be an event destination.”

“Where are we going to have all these events, that I assume I’m going to plan?” Hannah asked, sounding unconvinced.

“In the barn?” Miriam ventured.

“Where are the tractors going to live, if we have weddings in the barn?” Noelle said.