That morning, when she’d finally woken again, tired but somehow refreshed, she’d gone to the front door, accompanied by the yawning children. The dark hadn’t quite left the sky and the snow was still falling in spirals—more gently now—but there were pink streaks across the rooftops between the gaps. It was gorgeous. And now this.

Clutching her phone, she went upstairs for breakfast.

School was indeed canceled, much to Sofia’s disgust, even as Jack and Phoebe were yelling with joy and dashed to pull on their Wellies over their pajamas. Skylar was trying to get them to eat their soaked oats. It wasn’t very good of her, Carmen knew, but she felt a slight satisfaction in the children listening to her, and as soon as Phoebe started to talk about last night, the other two shushed her immediately.

“Whatever happened to my Valvona and Crolla basket?” Sofia was complaining, looking in a cupboard. “I was going to donate it to the homeless.”

Skylar looked sternly at the children. “There wouldn’t be any stealing, would there?”

Carmen and the children exchanged glances—the children’s faces were terrified.

“Because you know we’ve talked about things that are kind? And unkind?”

“I took it,” said Carmen instantly. “I’ll get you another one. Or two maybe.”

“You ate an entire basket? By yourself?”

“Yes, I did.”

“All the crystallized ginger?”

“I love crystallized ginger.”

“You ate an entire box of crystallized ginger? Between yesterday and today. After most of a pie and a can of beans?”

“Chill out, sis,” said Carmen. Nothing could dent her good mood today.

“That can really mess with your stomach pH?” said Skylar. “I mean, any amount of sugar is poisonous, but that sounds lethal?”

“Well, if I die you can say I told you so,” said Carmen, winking at the children and deciding to keep her exciting Blair news until Sofia wasn’t being annoying. Plus, she wouldn’t put it past Skylar to have some dig about how someone texting her would give her brain cancer?

The house had quieted by the time she had to go to work; the children had joined their friends in St. Mary’s Cathedral Gardens down the street, the vicar cheerily promising to judge a snowman competition. She opened the front door.

In the first shining moment, she saw the whole strange-familiar world, glistening white. The roof of the terrace opposite was mounded into square towers of snow, and beyond them all the walls and houses and churches were buried, merged into one great flat expanse, unbroken white to the horizon’s brim. Carmen drew in a long, happy breath, silently rejoicing.

And now her phone was dinging.

“Babe, I’m stuck! Didn’t you know what I meant? There’s no flights out!”