Reluctant, Cassie accepted Grace’s warm embrace with a one-armed, half-hearted hug. “Nope,” Grace said. “That’s not a hug. Twenty seconds is a hug.”

The longer Grace held Cassie, the quicker a smile spread across the younger girl’s expression, and by the time Molly had announced the thirteen-second mark, they were all laughing. Across the low fire, Kate’s gaze locked with Tilly’s. Held. Tilly smiled. Kate’s mouth grew dry. She looked away.

Kate lowered Tilly’s tea to the coffee table and examined the flames jumping inside the wood heater. She looked to the closed bathroom door. Should she throw another log on before Tilly finished her shower? Would Tilly like that? Or was it already too hot? The cottage was only small… Another log, she decided, crouching to open the glass door. Tilly always was a cold frog.

When the bathroom door opened, Kate looked up from the fireplace. Her smile slipped at the sight of Tilly’s concerned expression.

“I can smell marijuana,” Tilly said.

Kate stood. “What?”

“In the bathroom,” Tilly said, gesturing behind herself. “I opened the window to let the steam out and… Somebody in the boarding house is smoking marijuana.”

Pot? At St. Joan’s? No way. The girls wouldn’t dare. It was probably just the smoke from the cottage chimney wafting back through. “Maybe Sister Mary Monica’s smoking a joint for her arthritis,” she joked.

Tilly pinned Kate with her gaze. “Do you not believe me?”

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe her, but Tilly identifying the scent of pot? It seemed like a long shot.

“You think I don’t know what pot smells like?” Tilly’s eyes hardened. “Because you think I’m naïve?”

Well that escalated quickly… Kate pulled herself from the lounge and followed Tilly into the bathroom, distracted more by the impulse to reach out and touch her fingers to Tilly’s flannel winter pyjamas than the sudden aroma that assaulted her senses. Kate inhaled, her eyes widening as her gaze locked with Tilly’s. “I’m going to kill them,” she said. “I’m going to bloody kill them.”

She stood on the toilet and peeled back the lacy white curtain. Nothing but darkness.

With Tilly at her heels, Kate stormed out the front door in her slippers. At the side of the cottage, she looked up to the second floor. The window was closed, as were the higher east wing dorm windows.

A gust of wind picked up the leaves raked at the base of the gum tree. Together they stood, silent. Listening. As Tilly wrapped her arms about herself in the cold night air, voices carried on the wind. Kate’s gaze flickered a second time to the window on the ground floor. She inhaled sharply as the blind crashed against the windowsill. The kitchen window was open. The moonlight was weak, but it was just enough for Kate to identify a hand reaching through the window, settling the rattling blind.

“It was definitely marijuana?” Tilly whispered. “Right?”

“It was definitely marijuana,” Kate mumbled. “Stay here, I’ll deal with it.”