But this, this is the woman who likes to wander through my family’s house uninvited; the woman who is a wee bit away wi’ the fairies. As I watch, Carrie laughs at something Fiona has said, and Fiona herself grins and turns a little more toward me, and I see the way her thick hair fans out like a triangle around her pale face. There’s a sense of dread building in my stomach. I have to stamp on the urge to drag Carrie away from Fiona, out of the pub entirely.

“Please,” says Jamie anxiously from beside me, but my eyes are fixed on Fiona and Carrie. “She’s harmless, really. And this thing with the Manse and your father, it’s just a fascination—”

I swing toward him. “My father? What do you mean, this thing with my father?”

“I didnae mean—” He’s wretchedly uncomfortable now, his eyes jumping from me to the group, as he tries to project an air of casual conversation.

“What thing with my father?”

“Shh, please, I’ll tell you, I promise—”

“Tell me now.”

“Another time, I promise, just please, please, not the now—I cannae ruin Ben’s birthday.”

“It’s Ben’s birthday?”

“Guilty as charged.” The man himself has joined our conversation, with a bottle of Peroni in hand.

“But then I should have been buying you drinks,” I lament. It hasn’t escaped my notice that Jamie has taken the opportunity to slink away from my side.

Ben shrugs. “Bar karma: it all works out in the end.” Something beeps, and he pulls a phone out of his pocket and checks the screen. “Piotr is running late,” he says.

“Tell him to take the back road,” calls Fiona.

“Why?” asks Ben, but he’s already typing with the thumb of the hand that’s holding the phone, his Peroni held casually in the other.

She shrugs. “Not sure. But tell him.” Now that the conversational groups have merged, Carrie and Fiona have blended into our circle.

“Done,” says Ben, putting away his phone. “Anyway, Carrie—didn’t you say you two were celebrating?”

“That’s right,” Carrie says brightly. “It’s the first time we have lived under the same roof for over fifteen years. We thought it was worth celebrating.” She holds my gaze and I can’t read those gray eyes at all. Then she smiles, and something in me releases. I step forward to clink my glass against hers, and it’s like I’m watching us through the eyes of our audience, this group of friends of Ben. We look like we have a past in common: shared history, whispered secrets. We look like we could be sisters.