Page 76 of The Strawberry Thief

Of course. She knows the recipe. Straight from the Criollo bean, sweetened with cane syrup and vanilla and spices and topped with a spoonful of whipped cream and a dash of red chilli. She makes it as well as I ever did, perhaps even better. She pours a cup for each of us. I reach out a hand; she stops me.

‘Wait.’

Smiling, she reaches behind my back. I feel the tiny tug of the pin as she removes the paper fish. Her laughter is warm, and I feel it like sunshine on my dappled skin.

‘Rosette?’

She shakes her head and grins. Her eyes are filled with mischief. I feel a surge of joy at the world, because my daughters are in it.

I kiss her again. ‘You got me,’ I say. ‘Now, what about that chocolate?’

It is my recipe, and yet it is not quite familiar. A little less sugar, a little more vanilla, or cardamom, or maybe turmeric. In any case, it is sweet and good, and it smells of other places, of wonderful things to discover. But it also smells of home; of the scent of fig leaves in the sun, and Armande’s peaches cooking. It smells of moonlight on the Tannes, and the scent of Roux’s tattooed skin against mine. It smells of the past and the future, and suddenly I realize that I am no longer afraid of anything that future may bring. The hole in the world has somehow been filled. I am whole again, and free.

‘This tastes different,’ I say. ‘What did you change?’

‘Trade secret.’ She smiles.

And then I see it in the air; a shimmy so pale and fleeting that it was almost invisible. My summer child has skills of her own, skills that are different to mine or Rosette’s. Where will they take her? Where will she go? What winds, what oceans will she ride? What lives will she change forever?

I finished the chocolate. ‘It’s very good. Even better than mine, I think.’

‘Of course it is.Imade it,’ said Anouk. ‘Mine was always better.’

She handed me one of the finishedmendiants. A fat black cherry for the nose; a candied lemon slice for the mouth. She had made all her chocolates into little faces. Features added in gold leaf; almonds, raisins, poppy seeds. All of the chocolates different, all of them marked with her signature:

Love me. Feed me. Free me—

And all of the chocolates were smiling.