Finally, at around 4:00 P.M., everything was ready, and Carmen stood back. She flicked the switch, and suddenly, at last, the shop was alive: the lights of the train and the stations and the little lamppost that came with the house glowed golden and beautiful, as did the working fairy lights that she had hung in the tiny windows of the house itself. And the little train, now with a tiny holly wreath around its front engine, tootled on toward the tunnel before the station, and at last, on the busy thoroughfare that is Victoria Street at Christmastime—at last, there was a crowd outside their shop.

Carmen put up a sign—“Children’s Story Time: 4:00 P.M. on Wednesday”—and for once was happy as she locked up the shop (she had decided to take over the keys, given Mr. McCredie’s rather lackadaisical approach).

“Good night,” she said.

Mr. McCredie shook his head. “What? Oh,” he said, mumbling slightly.

“What?” asked Carmen.

“Well, I have always loved my books. But . . . I don’t think I have ever enjoyed being a shopkeeper before.”

Which sent Carmen home in such a good mood that it made it even odder that that night she had the dream.

THAT NIGHT, BUNDLED in the single bed at the bottom of her sister’s house. Carmen had the oddest dream. She was on a train.

It was an old-fashioned sort of train, with compartments rather than everyone sitting in the open, and she was sitting on a long seat, covered in a dusty, carpet-like material, with straps above and a mesh luggage rack.

Outside the old window, which was also covered in mesh for some reason, she could catch a glimpse of the snowy woods the train was hastening through, with a clickety-clack on wooden rails that felt oddly comforting.

She realized suddenly that she wasn’t alone in the carriage and looked up sharply. A woman wearing a pink hat so tight to her head it appeared to be molded on looked up too and smiled sweetly. She was wearing pink lipstick and reading a book called Up on the Rooftops.

“Tell him,” she said pleasantly, but as she spoke Carmen knew they were growing closer and closer to a tunnel, even as the snow fell more and more thickly and the train sped up, and the woman opened her mouth wider so she could speak above the shrill sound of the whistle blowing as the tunnel got closer and closer and the noise got louder and louder, and the woman’s mouth got wider and wider and she was saying something, screaming something, but they crashed into the tunnel, and Carmen jolted and woke up, completely confused and unable to recognize where she was, frozen. It was pitch-black outside, but according to her phone it was after 7:00 A.M.

She sat up in bed, keeping the duvet pulled around her.