She walked into the shelter of the great red Caledonian hotel, with black cabs lining up in front, where elegant ladies in long dresses and men in kilts were disgorging, obviously for some fancy party. She looked at the beautiful women, thinking about Mr. McCredie’s theory that they had to all be witches, and shook her head. Then she thought about Oke and Dahlia and found herself oddly sad. He was just . . . well . . . He was different from the people she normally met. Mind you, since she’d moved to Edinburgh, everybody was.

She found herself almost unconsciously scrolling down back through her text messages with Blair, even though she knew it was unwise.

She counted back. It was 10:30 A.M. in LA. He would be in a meeting. She told herself not to send him a message.

Then she thought, Oh hell, what’s there to lose?

And she typed, “Don’t tell me, your new hotel room is also a living hell.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, then sent it and put her phone in her pocket out of sight, almost daring herself not to look at it again.

She crossed over Queensferry Street and down Alva Street to the beautifully lit, perfect little house. All the houses on the surrounding streets were beautiful too, and many had matching trees in their windows, all with warm glowing yellow lights, as if there’d been a New Town community memo. There probably had been. Even so, Carmen’s tired heart lifted to see it. It was such a pretty house, and even though Skylar was inside, so were the little people, and, to her own surprise, she knew she would be so happy to see them.

Just as she was looking for her key, her phone buzzed. She jumped like she’d been electrified. It couldn’t be. But . . . but . . .

Slowly, like Charlie Bucket unwrapping his chocolate bar in the snow, she withdrew the phone from his pocket.

“Hell, darling, pure hell.”

There was a picture attached of palm trees waving above a stunning blue ocean, the sun bright in the sky, tanned figures running in the surf.

Carmen couldn’t stop grinning, all the way in, taking off her shoes, putting them away tidily, as Pippa liked to remind her, unwinding her scarf, and hanging up her coat.

Sofia had gone up to bed; Skylar was in the kitchen, trying to teach the children a song about coriander. For once, Carmen felt rather warm toward her. After all, she was just trying to do her best. It wasn’t her fault that Blair had gotten in touch with her.

“Hi, Skylar!”

Skylar looked up and sniffed loudly. “Oh my God, have you been drinking?” she said. “You can smell it all the way over here. Really, drinking is just, like, totally going to destroy your liver. Makes you look older too, right, kids?”

The children looked at her.

“Yes, I think so,” said Pippa decisively.