Tess turned back to look at the table again where the boy had been. Spotless, not even a hint of a chocolate or a tea stain. Perhaps they’d changed the tablecloth in an instant, too.

“No, thank you,” said Aunt Evie to the waiter who was standing at attention. “Everything was perfect. Tess?”

“Absolutely perfect,” said Tess without missing a beat.

The waiter started to clear their plates. Tess heard something rustling behind her.

She turned and saw at the now empty table something that seemed to be tapping at the long white tablecloth which practically touched the ground. Tapping might not have been the right word. Tess was sure she saw something darting around under the tablecloth. And then a paw appeared for a moment and disappeared. And then a baby calico cat appeared. It had stripes of orange even down its tail. It was playing with something intently, batting something back and forth, as if it was playing a game.

Tess nodded to Max who was paying enough attention to her, now, to look back at the table. Max smiled.

It was definitely a kitten. It was having an excellent time pushing whatever it was on the ground and jumping a bit to catch up, as the object rolled every time the cat tapped it with its paw.

The cat was definitely visible in the dining room, now, if anyone did look down. And Tess was afraid that in London, cats might not be supposed to be in a dining room, not a public one anyway, and was going to get into trouble any minute—especially if that overly attentive waiter looked down when he came back to clear their tea cups.

Tess reached down to try to pick the kitten up—and the cat thought that was a game, too, and batted the round object directly to Tess. It hit the side of Tess’s foot and rolled to a stop. The baby cat ducked back under the tablecloth leaving what looked like a marble on the floor next to Tess’s foot.

Tess leaned down and picked it up. She held it up to the light. It was clear glass and had a red swirl in it, along with a tiny patch of black mixed into the swirl.

Tess held the marble up to the light, in order to see it better, and the spiral inside started to spin, as if Tess was spinning the marble, except she wasn’t. It was just the inside of it that was twirling, all by itself, strangely, almost the way a screw spins, so the spinning is almost on a diagonal the faster it goes. And it was starting to spin really fast.