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ONE

MIRELLE

The silence in Mirelle’s kitchen had opinions, and they were all about her. It settled into the chair her daughter Cara always dragged slightly away from the table before she sat down — now perfectly, accusingly tucked in. It lived in the coffeemaker, which beeped its little ready chime at her while Mirelle stood at the window, studying a pigeon on the garden wall as if asked to rate its performance. It breathed out of the spare bedrooms, drifted down the stairs, and made itself comfortable in a house that used to be so loud she threatened, on more than one occasion, to go live in a hotel.

Cara had been gone since yesterday. She’d packed her whole self into two duffels and a box of books, then driven away toward her first year of college, with her older brother at the wheel and Mirelle in the driveway, smiling the smile she’d been practicing since May, the one that said: I am fine. Completely fine. Obviously fine. She was fine because she’d made coffee.

She hadn’t drunk the coffee; she’d poured it, carried it to the counter, and stood there frowning at the recipe book she’d opened to a lemon tart she’d been working on since 2019 and wasn’t going to make today either. Then, because she was not done, she reorganized the spice drawer by frequency of use.

The spice drawer. By frequency of use.

She was in trouble.

Loneliness arrived as she stood at the sink, the tap running, a cold mug in her hand. Twenty-three years of school lunches and permission slips. Knowing where everything was. And now nobody needed anything, and the kitchen was — a kitchen. Doing nothing. Loudly. Something cracked open in her chest. Warm and sudden and too large for the room.

The creature appeared on her counter.

Between the fruit bowl and the coffeemaker. Small. Glowing amber, warm as a candle in a jar. Shaped like a raccoon — if raccoons were made of light, had somewhere important to be, and were not surprised by any of it.

It regarded her.

She held its gaze.

The tap was still running.

Okay. There’s a glowing raccoon on my counter. I can handle a glowing raccoon.

“I raised three children,” she told it aloud, with great dignity. “I refuse to be defeated by magical raccoon energy.” The raccoon knocked the fruit bowl off the counter.

Magnificent. Oranges everywhere. An apple rolled under the table. The cobalt-blue bowl — the one Cara had chosen from a street market last summer, held up with both hands as if she had solved a problem — hit the tile and, by some cosmic grace, did not break.

Three more creatures appeared in the hallway doorway. Smaller. Rounder. Glowing with a softer light, like nightlights that had recently developed ambitions. They clustered at the threshold and made a sound that was somewhere between a hum and a question mark.

Sure. Four. We’re doing four. That’s fine. Four is fine. Everything is fine, and I need to call Valene.

Her phone rang before she could dial. Unknown number. Mirelle had a policy about those. A firm, well-earned one, developed after eighteen deeply unpleasant minutes last winter with someone claiming to be from her bank. But the raccoon was trying to disassemble her coffeemaker. Three more creatures lingered in the hallway, and today all her systems failed at once.

She answered it.

“Mirelle, dear.” Brisk. Cheerful. “It’s Gerri Wilder. How’s the kitchen?”

Mirelle stared at the raccoon. “I’m sorry?”

“The kitchen. I imagine it’s a bit loud right now.”

Gerri Wilder. Silver-white bob, gorgeous shoes, opinions about everything, and she had stopped pretending otherwise around 1987. They had spoken a grand total of forty words during Mirelle’s six years in Spelltide Cove, none of which included her phone number.

“How did you get this —”

“Oh, everyone goes through the loud part, dear. Nothing special about yours, except possibly the number.”

“A raccoon knocked my fruit bowl on the floor.”

“Yes, they do that. The bowls usually survive,” Gerri said. “Did the bowl survive?”

“It did.”

“Good omen. Now — Valene is at the Cauldron and Cup. Straight there, don’t dawdle on the boardwalk, and bring the raccoon. She’ll want to see it.”