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Berit swallowed. Strange. She was nervous. Another unfamiliar feeling. She glanced down at her watch. Half two. Almost time to head over to Tawny Hall.

What the...?

She moved around the kitchen table and leaned over the sink to get a better look out through the little window onto the street.

Sure enough, there was a young woman standing on the gravel path leading to her cottage, and she had a suitcase.

How long had she been there? Now that she thought about it, Berit wondered whether she hadn't heard a knock at the door a while back. Yes, she had heard something, but it had been so quiet that she had barely paid any notice to it.

Right then, she realized her mobile phone was ringing. She found it in the living room, buzzing wildly, the name DON'T PICK UP!!! flashing on the screen.

She picked up anyway. She always did.

"What do you want now?" she asked, making her way back through to the kitchen and peering out through the window. The young woman was still there.

Berit's literary agent, Olivia Marsch, ignored her whining tone. Her own was so professionally cheerful, it wouldn't have sounded out of place coming from a preschool teacher. "How's my favorite author?"

"Ha!" Berit muttered. She knew full well she wasn't Olivia's favorite. Her agent was unfailingly fair in that regard; she loved her authors in strict order of their sales figures. Berit wasn't sure, but she suspected that she was currently Olivia's seventh or eighth favorite and that she was dropping rapidly in the ranks.

"Has your new assistant arrived yet?" asked Olivia.

Berit froze. "My what?"

"Your new assistant. I've sent her to help you. She can stay in your spare room."

"In my spare room?"

Either she had gone crazy or the world had, thought Berit.

"You're always complaining that there are too many people bothering you, so she can help with that."

"I don't need a damn assistant."

There, she had said it. Now all she had to do was stand her ground. Conversations with Olivia were a little like trench warfare: you simply had to pick a position and then hunker down.

"She's already on her way. Left civilization early this morning."

"Hold on a second," said Berit, leaning forward over the sink again until her nose pressed up against the glass. The sun-bleached curtains left behind by the previous owner tickled her forehead. "What does she look like, this assistant of yours?"

"Young woman. Mousy, shoulder-length hair. Terrible posture. Remind her to stand up straight if you have the time—not that it's ever made any difference when I've done it. When I last saw her, she was wearing a thin, beige coat. All very boring."

The young woman outside had shoulder-length brown hair and a boring

beige coat.

"Oh Christ," Berit muttered.

"No need to thank me. Only the best is good enough for my authors."

"She looks about fifteen!"

"Turns nineteen this summer. Or is it eighteen? No, nineteen."

"And what the hell am I meant to do with her?"

"Give her plenty of food and water and take her out for a walk three times a day. How do I know? You're the one always complaining about being overworked and isolated in your little house in the sticks. And not even the fashionable sticks! Honestly, I've never heard of anyone moving to inland Cornwall. How are you going to write your warm, cozy novel about a woman in the media who inherits a cottage in Cornwall if it's not even by the sea? Where's the hot fisherman going to come from, I ask you? Not that you've considered any of that, I'm sure. You authors are always so impractical."

"I'm not going to write some Corni—"

"That's why I'm sure you'll find some use for her."

The young woman had taken out her phone and was now standing with it clamped to her ear. Trying to reach Olivia, no doubt.

Berit looked down at her watch again. It was now eight minutes to three, which meant she was officially late.