Max almost snapped at her, “Can we look it up before we test one? Or at least ask someone what it is?”

“Promise,” said Tess who started laughing for a second until she realized Max hadn’t meant that to be funny. She hesitated. “You didn’t see anything? Really?!” she asked again. “But, what I saw was, umm”—she didn’t really want to use the word, but she couldn’t help it—“ghostly.”

The wind was blowing, as if in punctuation, a cold and scary wind, rattling the windows.

“Okay, shadowy, then,” said Tess modifying her thought so as not to frighten Max unnecessarily. “You didn’t see it?” she repeated.

But before Max could answer, Aunt Evie burst in to their hotel room without knocking. “Oh my,” she said, “put on your hat and grab your mittens.”

She probably meant, put on your mittens and grab your hat, but neither one of them corrected her.

“I think it’s going to snow,” Aunt Evie said. “It never snows in London. Well, hardly ever. And when it does,” she said, “it’s a very magical time to go out.”

Aunt Evie was wearing a gray and white scarf tied around her neck and tucked stylishly into her gray wool coat.

Max grabbed his hoodie. Aunt Evie shook her head. “Don’t you have something warmer?” she asked, and also nodded to his sneakers and suggested, “Boots?”

Both Tess and Max had lots of warm clothes as they’d been sent back to school in Switzerland in September. Their mom and dad had rented out their apartment in New York City and their mother had moved to Germany to be with their dad who was stationed there, now, in Berlin as the head of the International News Desk.

Tess didn’t really understand why they couldn’t go to the American School in Berlin. But it seemed like their parents needed a little time to try to sort things out.

Tess hated the sound of that. “Sort things out.” She and Max had heard them have a fight one night during dinner, which was very unusual. It was the night their dad had said “family conference” and told them and their mom that he’d accepted the job in Berlin. Tess understood why her mom could get mad about her dad taking the job in Berlin, but she also understood why he took it. It was an amazing opportunity. But they started to have a fight. Tess and Max excused themselves from the dinner table. Shortly thereafter, their mom had left and closed the door to the apartment so loudly the walls seemed to shake, and she didn’t come back for at least four hours.

After that, their parents had been civil with each other but somewhat distant, or at least Tess thought that was the case. Not as affectionate as they had always been.