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I had just picked up my sandpaper to smooth out the doll’s features when the bell rang in the store.

“Should I go this time?” Helena asked.

“No,” I said. “I can handle another poke at my spinsterhood.” And no doubt that was what awaited me. It was rare a customer didn’t bring up my lack of a husband. Man or woman, young or old, I baffled them all.

The customer behind the counter wasn’t another grandmother here for a birthday present and a not-so-subtle insult aimed at my unusual choice in garments.

No, this woman was younger, perhaps my own age of twenty-eight. Her hair hung loose down her back, and it was pitch black with not a single hint of brown even where the pale sunlight from the window caught it. Her eyes were the shade of hazelnuts. An unusual sort of coloring for someone around here. The strangest part of her, though, was that I had never seen her before. As an artisan and a shopkeeper, I knew just about everyone in Norstad and this woman… If I had seen her before, I would most certainly have remembered because she was… well, she was very beautiful.

“Welcome,” I said.

She blinked at me, as if my greeting had startled her. “Thank… thank you.” Her words had a strangeness, too, an unusual lilt, and perhaps she was from some foreign land?

“What can I help you with?” I asked, placing my hands flat on the counter.

The woman blinked again, then glanced over her shoulder. “I’m here about the position. The… the one in the corner of the window. If it’s not filled?”

It was my turn to blink. I hadn’t expected an applicant so soon. And certainly not someone so… well, unusual. “It’s, um… it’s not,” I managed. “Perhaps we ought to talk over a cup of tea. In the back? If you want? It’s more private.”

Again, the woman glanced over her shoulder. “All right,” she said.

The store held two doors to the back—one leading to the workshop and another to the living quarters. I walked to the latter and held it open for her. Picking up her hem, she followed me, and I led her through the narrow corridor, past the parlor and the dining room to the kitchen. There I could speak to her while I brewed us the tea. It was the warmest part of the house too, and judging by the redness of her cheeks and the way she rubbed her hands together, she was quite chilled. She wore no gloves despite it being October.

“Please sit,” I said and held my hand out to the little table where Helena and I ate on the rare occasion when we didn’t take our meals next door.

She did, and I studied her out of the corner of my eye as I filled the kettle with water from the bucket Helena had fetched this morning. The woman was… well, oddly dressed. She wore no cloak or jacket, just a shawl over a simple high-necked dress in a midnight blue velvet. The shawl was beautifully crafted, in a lace pattern in a thin, ivory yarn.

The stove was still hot from the coffee Helena had brewed us this morning, and I placed the pot down. Feeling self-conscious was something I had grown out of long ago, but next to this woman, I felt plain in my pants and shirt. Most people rewarded my obstinacy of dress with a frown at the very least, but this woman hadn’t even glanced at my pants. In fact, she seemed sort of… dazed, perhaps? As if she had just woken from sleep.

“Maybe we ought to start with names,” I said as I dumped a teaspoon of tea leaves into the filter in the pot. “I’m Selma Selander.”

The woman frowned as if she had to take a moment to recall. “My name’s um… it’s Lilja Norling.”

Lily. Somehow that fit her very well. With her heart-shaped face, pale skin, and large eyes, she did have the delicate but vulnerable look of a flower.

“And where are you from?”

The woman—Lilja—frowned at her hands which lay folded tightly on the table. “Up… up north. Far away.”

So not a foreign country as I had assumed, but maybe the Sami lands? Although she hardly looked Sami either.

“So you’re the Selander of Selander Toys?” she asked.

“I suppose. It was my father’s shop before it was mine. He was the first Selander.” I placed two empty cups on the table. “What I’m looking for is someone to help out in the store this Christmas season. Someone to take orders and payments so that I can work in the shop.”

Lilja turned her dark eyes on me, and for the first time, I read an emotion in them—surprise.

“You make the toys?” she asked.

“I do, and we have many customers for Christmas, and so I’ll need someone who can handle the store on their own.” The water was boiling, steam rising from the spout, and I poured it over the leaves. Placing the pot on the table, I sat down across from Lilja. “Do you have any experience working in a store? References perhaps?”

She looked down at her hands again. “I confess I’ve neither. I’m from a place with no shops, but I can read and write and do sums well enough.”

Experience with ledgers and orders would have been preferable, but it wasn’t crucial. It was simple enough work, after all.

“Do you know anything about toys?” I asked.

“Just that… that they’re for children.”