It was proper incense, too; the kind you burn over hot coals. We used to burn it, Maman and I, though nowadays we never do. Too messy, perhaps; but it smells so good, and besides, Zozie’s kind of disorder seems to make more sense than anyone else’s idea of tidiness.

Then Zozie brought out a bottle of grenadine from somewhere at the bottom of her suitcase, and we all had a kind of party downstairs, with chocolate cake and ice cream for Rosette, and by the time I was ready for bed, it was nearly midnight, and Rosette was asleep on a beanbag, and Maman was clearing the dishes away. And as I looked at Zozie then, Zozie with her long hair and her bracelet with all the little charms, and her eyes lit up like fairy-lights, it was just like seeing Maman again, but the way she was in Lansquenet, in the days when she was still Vianne Rocher.

‘So what do you think of my Advent house?’

That’s the new display, you know, to make up for losing the lollipop shoes. It’s a house, and at first I thought it was going to be a crèche, like in the Place du Tertre, with the Jesus-baby and the kings and all his family and friends. But actually it’s better than that. It’s a magical house in a fairy wood, just like in the story books. And every day there’s going to be a different scene opening up behind one of the doors. Today it’s the Pied Piper, and the story’s mostly outside the house, with sugar mice instead of rats in pink and white and green and blue, and the Piper made from a wooden clothes-peg, with painted red hair and a matchstick in his hand for a flute, piping all the sugar mice into a river made of silk . . .

And inside the house, there’s the Mayor of Hamelin, the one who wouldn’t pay the Piper, looking out of a bedroom window. He’s a peg-doll too, of course, with a nightgown made from a handkerchief and a paper nightcap on his head, and his face drawn on in felt-tip pen, with his mouth wide open in surprise.

And I don’t know why, but somehow the Pied Piper reminds me of Roux, with his red hair and shabby clothes, and the greedy old Mayor makes me think of Thierry, and I couldn’t help thinking that, like the Nativity in Place du Tertre, it wasn’t just a window display, that it had to mean something more—

‘I love it,’ I said.

‘I hoped you would.’

On the beanbag, Rosette made a sleepy little snuffling noise and reached for her blanket, which had fallen on the floor. Zozie found it and put it over her. She stopped for a moment to touch Rosette’s hair.