These were thoughts that crept in when it was dark, and the sea was too quiet, and she got trapped on the hamster wheel of her own mind. She tried not to think of them in the light of day, but there were some things she couldn’t ignore even then.

Some irksome, devastatingly attractive, Jamie-shaped things.

She’d hardly seen him in the days since the woods, and they hadn’t been alone once. This could admittedly be a coincidence, but Mika was quite certain he’d deliberately pulled away and had gone back to avoiding her. When they’d got back to the house that day, there had been something like panic in his eyes. Panic, and guilt.

They were adults. If he regretted what had happened in the woods, he could just say as much. So why hadn’t he?

Once the mayhem and festivities of the Solstice were done, she decided, she’d ask him.

And it did indeed promise to be full of mayhem and festivities. On the eve of the Solstice there was still so much to do that Mika’s mind boggled. There was a winter-themed paper tablecloth for the girls to paint and decorate so that it could adorn the table on the day; they hung up a bird feeder and filled it with a winter feast of nuts and berries; and a large, fluffy spruce was lugged in from the garden and promptly decorated in the ugliest, most ostentatious manner possible. The house and garden were festooned with fairy lights, porcelain ornaments in the shapes of penguins and polar bears, and metal statues of reindeer that lit up when plugged in (or when spelled by a witch, thereby removing the necessity of needing them to be in range of a socket). Ken, having never had the privilege of an enchanted greenhouse before, was over the moon about harvesting all kinds of unseasonal herbs, veggies, and fruit; Jamie cloistered himself in the library to plan a snowflake hunt; and Ian and Lucie’s activities in the kitchen led to the entire house smelling wonderfully of apple cider, boozy pudding, a slow-roasting ham, and cinnamon. For her part, Mika helped whoever needed it at any given time, finding it the most natural thing in the world to fit into spaces that seemed to be made for her.

Circe, on the other hand, was most displeased. She was a sweet, placid, lazy creature who loved her routines, her companions, and, above all, her naps. She disapproved strongly of all the noise and activity, and expressed her displeasure by retreating to the relative peace of the library to sulk and demand Jamie’s attention.