Everyone has a special sign, she says. Zozie’s sign is One Jaguar. Maman’s is Ehecatl, the Changing Wind. I suppose they’re like the totems we had, back in the days before Rosette was born. Rosette’s sign, Zozie says, is Red Tezcatlipoca, the Monkey. He’s a mischievous god, but a powerful one; and he can change his shape to that of any animal.

I like the old stories Zozie tells. But I can’t help feeling nervous sometimes. I know she says we don’t do any harm – but what if she’s wrong? What if there’s an Accident? What if I use the wrong kind of sign and make something bad happen without meaning to?

The river. The wind. The Kindly Ones.

Those words keep coming into my mind. And they’re all tied up somehow with the Nativity scene in Place du Tertre – the angels and the animals and the Magi – though I still don’t know what they’re doing there. Sometimes I think I can almost see, but never quite enough to be sure, like one of those dreams that makes perfect sense until the minute you wake up, when it just dissolves into nothing at all.

The river. The wind. The Kindly Ones—

What does that mean? Words in a dream. But I’m still so afraid, though I don’t know why. What is there to be afraid of? Perhaps the Kindly Ones are like the Magi: wise men bearing gifts. It feels right, but it doesn’t stop me feeling scared, that something bad’s about to happen. That it’s somehow my fault—

Zozie says I shouldn’t worry. We can’t hurt anyone unless we want to, she says. And I don’t ever want to hurt anyone – not even Chantal, not even Suze.

I made Nico’s doll the other night. I had to pad it to make it look real, and I made his hair from the wiry brown stuff that was inside Zozie’s old armchair, upstairs in her room with her other things. Then you have to give it a symbol – I chose One Jaguar, for courage – and whisper a secret in its ear. So I said: Nico, you need to take control – which ought to do it, don’t you think? – and I’ll put it behind one of the doors in the Advent house, and wait until he comes along.