Tamar and Margot turned their full attention back to organizing new homes for newly assembled families. There were other houses to be viewed, and far more professional agents to deal with at the same otherwise august estate agency, even if those agents did show a puzzling deference to Miss Maszkeradi, describing her as the agency’s “ace.” Perdita was on hand to advise, but she had school too, and as she herself put it, “I’ve got this social life now . . .”
GCSE exam time was drawing near, and Harriet had example flashcards to prepare, buzzwords to imprint, flagging attention spans to boost, and like any conscientious teacher, she overprepared to the extent that if her students slipped even half of these terms into their answers, they’d do all right. There was a surprise email from Alesha Matsumoto of the Parental Power Association too; Alesha asked about Perdita and hoped Harriet wouldn’t miss very many more meetings. So Harriet turned up at the next PPA meeting. Both Perdita and Margot tried to make Harriet promise she wouldn’t bring gingerbread this time, but she appeared in Gioia Fischer’s sitting room with a defiant look and a repeat tin of gingerbread for each PPA member. And she was welcomed with open arms and without exceptions. Eh? She’d expected to have a chance to say something snippy to Emil Szep; Emil Szep, who’d “very much hoped” she wasn’t saying his kids were bullies; Emil Szep, who’d said that to her even as Perdita lay in a hospital bed. But this same Emil Szep was overjoyed at Harriet’s return, was the soul of solicitousness, was the first to tuck into the gingerbread, and said so many worshipful things that she had to be gracious. In a quiet moment Harriet went up to Hyorin Nam and whispered: “Did something happen to Emil? He’s making me think of that man whose personality completely changed after a brain injury . . .”
Hyorin said: “I’ll tell you later. In the meantime . . . what about us, Harriet Lee?”
“Us?”
“I thought we were friends.”
“Eh?”
“Well, it looks like one thousand paper cranes and one recipe do not a friendship make. Fair enough, but that brilliant news about Perdita getting well—why did I have to hear it from Alesha and not from you?”
“Oh—” Paper cranes and a recipe do not a friendship make . . . what was it Harriet had been half thinking at the time . . . that the cranes and the danpatjuk were two signs, but she should wait for the third. It hadn’t occurred to Harriet that she herself could bring about the third sign.
“I,” said Harriet.
“Yeah, you,” said Hyorin.
“I think I owe you a coffee.”
“And?”
“Cake?”
“And?”
“A turnip that’s actually a convincing marzipan replica of a turnip?”
“And—”
“What more do I owe you, Hyorin Nam?!”
“I just wanted to see if you’d keep adding things.”
Over coffee Hyorin revealed that Emil Szep’s personality change was political: he was plotting to replace Gioia Fischer as head of the PPA. Rather than abstain from voting, Harriet asked if there wasn’t a third way.
“Couldn’t you just take over, Hyorin?”
“What, you want me to get in Gioia’s way at the same time as causing a problem for Emil? This is like asking someone to stand between two axes aswing, all for the sake of a paper crown.”
Harriet saw she had some work to do. There was a third way, and the third way was PPA member recruitment. Her gingerbread came in handy there.
As for the third house and the last last last last chance to meet Gretel, Harriet didn’t forget about that. She remembered all right, but in the midst of revision sessions and PPA meetings, in the midst of film nights and arts and craft classes (Harriet, Hyorin, and Alesha were learning how to paint on glass), Harriet Lee occasionally put a question to herself: Would I drop all of this and go if Miss Maszkeradi phoned right now and said this island house had been secured?
Most likely yes, Harriet would go. This was Gretel-related, after all. But she’d go at walking pace instead of at a mad dash.
One day, on her way to work, Harriet Lee saw that a shop had opened on a side street she normally crossed as a shortcut. She was running late for a staff meeting, and the display in this shop window extended her delay: it teemed with detail, like a Bosch painting, or the ascetically decadent gates that lined the streets of Druhá City. The scene was a valley-wide picnic. A river rushed around a series of bends, whispering like starlit silk, and hills shot up and dropped flat in its wake. The picnickers were teddy bears, and they were feasting on latticed jam tarts—ah, that must be what was on sale, that’s what all this made Harriet want to go in and see about—what kind of jam tart could inspire such unions and divisions among these valley-dwellers, such feats of physical strength, such breakthroughs—for instance, the intellectual one that Tesla look-alike over there seemed on the brink of?
She checked her phone—she’d come back. Or maybe looking just once was enough; all her experience as a baker combined with years of experience as an eater told her there was no way these jam tarts could taste as good as they looked.
Someone came to the shop door as Harriet turned away: “Excuse me—excuse me!” Harriet turned back and saw the shop’s proprietor; they both smiled. Ever since Gabriel and Rémy had first graced her bedside, Harriet had looked upon beauty as an amusing thing for nature to do. The perfect coordination of different shades of sun-blushed brown seen here, for instance—skin, eye color, short hair that waves as if air is water. This person wanted to know why Harriet hadn’t come in. She tapped the window as if reminding the teddy bears to be on their best behavior.
“I mean—is the overall effect too twee? Do I add more bears? Subtract some of the food? I was thinking of doing that any way, because of mice. I don’t know . . . I like it as it is, but . . . you didn’t come in. What am I doing wrong?” The woman was a native speaker of a Romance language; Harriet couldn’t narrow down the accent any further than that—and another thing: there was a sudden click of precognition, on then off, the near future as a memory, there was romance with a lowercase “r” too, this woman would nip Harriet’s lower lip just before they kissed for the first time. And Harriet would like it. Really, really, and a lot. It was a slightly awkward thing to know about someone before knowing their name. So Harriet introduced herself and learned that the woman’s name was Salomea. She told Salomea she loved the window display and that she’d be back later.
(Later, when I’m not in workwear, later, when I’m wearing a more appropriate shade of lipstick and am ready to praise your baked goods no matter what, later when I’ve had time to daydream about this a little bit more, later when I’m not running late anymore . . . )
“When? What time?”
“Salomea,” Harriet said, then went quiet. She didn’t know what to say next. Salomea opened the shop door and waved Harriet in: “After you.”
Inside, the shop was more laboratory than toy shop; tubes and vials . . . vials of jam . . . and sparkling glass cloches through which you could see mannequin heads wearing jam tarts with a certain insouciance, as if the pastries were berets. Harriet sat down at a round table in the center of the room and Salomea assembled a selection of bite-sized tarts; as she did so, she told Harriet that bite-sized was best, that as an infant she’d waited until she had two good strong teeth and then, hello, world; she bit her way through it. “If I have a gut feeling that something will taste good I just bite it. It’s really worked out well; you’d be surprised . . . but I suppose the problem with instinctual biters is that they usually can’t be bothered to take another bite; they just leave the rest . . .”
Oh. Still, remembering how delicious seeming biteable to Salomea would turn out to be, Harriet still found the courage to attempt flirtation. “Which two were your first teeth?”
Salomea laughed and showed her, laughing still more when all Harriet could think of to say was: “They look sturdy; you can tell they’re pioneers.”
Harriet tried not to look at her phone when it rang—it would only be someone from the university—but it was Miss Maszkeradi. To Salomea, she said: “Sorry—just a second—” and to Miss Maszkeradi, she said: “Hello?”
“Hello, Harriet, are you busy? Is this a good time to talk?”