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‘Are you taking a break any time soon, lad?’ Margie called.

Abel looked over his shoulder then down at the trays. ‘What do you expect me to do with this lot? The limbo?’

Margie cackled. ‘So much of your grandfather in you.’

Stevie noticed that Abel didn’t exactly seem pleased to hear this. In fact, by the way his jaw was moving it was like he was grinding his teeth. ‘When things are quieter, I’ll take my ten,’ he said finally, and quietly, disappearing inside.

‘Oh, I bet. Ten minutes is more than enough time to chat up my customers!’ She winked.

‘Gran,’ Abel said flatly, ‘I’m not interested in anyone in this village. You know that.’

Margie rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever you say, my boy.’

‘I’ll, um, see how Suse is doing.’ Stevie set off a few paces behind Abel, still very conscious of how tight her outfit was and cursing the unusually flattering mirrors in Honeycomb Corner Vintage.

The pub was full to the brim and crackling with chatter and laughter: minotaurs squeezing past warlocks on their way to the loos, a leprechaun spilling the dregs of a Guinness on his curly green shoes. There was not an inch of free space available at the bar. The queue was at least three people deep. But at the centre of it, an elbow leant on the polished wood and her false, jet-black lashes batting languidly, was Susie, who looked like she had all the time in the world to focus on just one customer.

Stevie had spotted him on her first night in The Witch’s Nose. It was hard not to. He might not have been the tallest or broadest man in the room, but he was certainly the best dressed. In her line of study, she could spot a pair of Italian handmade boots a mile off. This guy wore well-tailored clothes with confidence. Nothing about him screamed ‘Look at me!’ and somehow it made him all the more magnetic.

Tonight, he had made a small nod to the fancy dress theme: he’d gelled the curly chestnut hair at his temples into two horns and put kohl around his eyes. Some kind of devil. And the grin to match as he flirted with Susie at the bar.

‘Any chance of a pint?!’ a local yelled from the other end of the room and Susie rolled her eyes, walking slowly away to take some orders.

‘Keep a lid on it, you rabid crew,’ Margie hollered as she emerged from the kitchen doors and the whole place cheered. In a flash she was passing out drinks and clearing a little of the backlog. Stevie saw her beckon to Susie, whisper something in her ear with a roll of the eyes and then point in the direction of the barn. Susie tried to look chastened, but her happy yelp escaped her all the same. She found Stevie in the crowd as she ducked under the bar’s flap opening and pushed her way over.

‘I’m free for half an hour. Dance?!’

‘Yes, totally! What about your friend, though?’

‘Hm?’

‘The guy at the bar. The devil incarnate?’

Susie bit down a smile at one corner of her mouth. ‘Oh, Mark. He’s staying in the campsite. We’ve been chatting the last couple of nights.’

‘He’s staying at the campsite? Really?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

Stevie snuck a casual glance back in his direction, at the crisp claret shirt he wore with an impeccable collar, and his very clean shave. ‘He doesn’t look like he’s just stumbled out of a tent, to me.’

Susie grabbed Stevie’s arm. ‘Wait, can you hear that?! They’re playing our anthem!’ She dragged her new friend through the jam-packed crowd. It was like trying to pull a whippet through a colander.

‘Hey! Ouch. Wait up!’

As they finally emerged into the more spacious but just as sweaty dance hall, Stevie had a chance to tune in to what was playing. ‘Is that Kate Bush?’

At the centre of the dance floor, right under the glitter ball, they found Temperance, and Susie instantly mirrored her sister’s body language: grinning madly, flopping their arms back and forth in the air like willow trees in a hurricane. About five or so other women were part of the waving act, bursting into song all around her. Dry ice rolled around them in huge waves, making Stevie panic for a minute that she’d lose her new friends all together.

Temperance clocked Stevie and squealed. ‘Stevie, don’t you love this song?! It’s our absolute classic. We used to do the dance on the green when we were little and charge people to watch,’ she yelled over the speakers.

‘What dance?’ the intern yelled back in total innocence.

She might as well have said she’d never tasted ice cream or never dipped her toes in the sea. ‘WE HAVE TO TEACH YOU!’ Temperance pretty much shouted in her face. Her eyes were glossy but focused as she pulled Stevie to stand right next to her. ‘It’s an essential part of English culture! And you did say you wanted the full English experience this year, right? Now wait for the chorus to start again and then follow me. Or just move your hands past your face like this, like you’re clearing a really fogged up mirror. OK?’

‘I think!’

Susie nodded. ‘You’ll get it in no time! It’s so fun, seriously.’