Don’t be stupid, it’s a job, Carmen had been about to say. Then she remembered yesterday, when a very small child had come in, clutching some fairly sticky coins in his hand, and had marched forward, closely watched by his father, and asked loudly for a copy of The Dark Is Rising, and Carmen had asked if he wanted it wrapped up and he shook his head very firmly, because it was obvious he was planning on reading it the very second they left the shop, and Carmen had understood and counted out the child’s change very carefully and told him to enjoy it.

“Hmm,” she said.

“Shh!” He suddenly hushed her as they stole up the steps past the large church building. “Can you hear?”

If she strained her ears she just about could.

“They’re rehearsing. For the big fancy concert at the castle nobody can get tickets for. But why would you need tickets?” He looked at her, smiling. “Come with me.”

There was a little side door off the steps that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t specifically looking for it. Glancing up and down to make sure there was nobody there—though not many people wandered this close, as it looked like it led somewhere private—he slipped open the plain black door.

Inside it was pitch-dark and he hushed her as she giggled. They found themselves in some kind of backstage passageway. It felt more like a theater than a church: it was the assembly hall of the Church of Scotland.

The sound had now become very loud, but somehow quiet at the same time. It didn’t sound like a choir. It sounded like one multi-throated being, muffled in the dark passageway by cloths hanging down the walls.

“Wha-at can I give him, poor as I am . . . ?”

They crept around to where a tiny chink of light appeared in the wall and they could peer through the gap.

There were choirboys in red-and-white soutanes and older men in black singing. There was a smaller section of women to the side, dressed like waitresses in black skirts and white shirts. The men were definitely more glamorous, thought Carmen.

The choirmaster wore black spectacles, and his hair was gray and curly. He was concentrating ferociously on a huge book in front of him on which lines of music notation were densely printed and occasionally gesturing in one direction or another, or pointing at the pianist in the corner, or looking up for reasons Carmen didn’t quite understand.

As she was looking at everything, Oke, she noticed as her eyes adjusted, wasn’t doing any of this. He was standing, leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. He opened them when he realized she was watching him and, to Carmen’s surprise, brought a flask out of his backpack.

It was full of hot chocolate.

“Don’t have too much,” he whispered. “You might spill it or feel sick.”