The edge of the new year had arrived and there was still one lone mince pie left.

It had survived Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and the long, ambling procession of customers who drifted in with home-made paper crowns and tired smiles. By the morning of the thirty-first of December, it sat alone on a china plate behind the bar of The Squid and Teapot, slightly overbaked, the pastry cracked at one corner, the sugar on top no longer sparkling but settled into an unappetising crust.

Philomena noticed it while wiping down the counter.

“I’m not throwing that away,” she said.

Rhys, who had been about to suggest exactly that, paused with the cloth in his hand.

“We could offer it to someone,” he ventured.

Reggie was warming himself by the fire with a favourite book and a tot of something restorative – for purely medicinal reasons, you understand. He peered at the pie over his spectacles.

“I can’t imagine anyone wanting that,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean it isn’t meant for someone.”

Philomena frowned at him.

“That’s a very odd thing to say before breakfast.”

Reggie closed his book with care.

“There’s a strange atmosphere about The Squid lately,” he said. “It’s something I’ve sensed before, when I was in India.”

“Now that you mention it,” said Philomena, “things do seem a bit out of kilter. It’s as though the inn is waiting for something.” 

Outside, the fog lay low against the windows, and the world beyond appeared to have disappeared completely. The wind, which had spent the previous week flinging itself about with unwarranted enthusiasm, had fallen completely still, as though pausing to listen, and the mince pie was left where it was.

By mid-morning Philomena had changed her mind. She went to fetch it, determined now to stop this nonsense and at least offer it to the crows, but the plate was empty.

She stood quite still.

“I don’t suppose either of you moved the mince pie?” she called.

Rhys shook his head from the hearth.

Reggie, from his chair, did not even look up.

The plate, when she examined it more closely, bore the faintest smear of filling at its edge, as though a finger had tested the sweetness and thought better of it.

Philomena replaced the plate on the counter and said nothing.

By the time the kettle had boiled for the fifth time and the morning had properly established itself, the mince pie had reappeared.

It now sat on the broad windowsill by the front door, the china plate balanced neatly between two sprigs of holly that Philomena was quite certain had not been there before.

No one commented on this at first.

Hopeless has long taught its residents that drawing attention to the wrong thing is the surest way to encourage it.

Rhys was the one who eventually broke the silence.

“That wasn’t there earlier.”

Philomena nodded.

“I know.”

Reggie lowered his book a fraction.

“Well then,” he said, “we appear to have an itinerant mince pie in our midst.”

Drury, who had stationed himself in front of the hearth, rose and padded over to the windowsill. He sniffed the air, wagged his bony tail once, and lay down beside the door, as though posted there on duty.

The day passed in its usual unhurried fashion.

Norbert Gannicox, who had become somewhat besotted with the recently improved menu, came in for tea and toast. Even Mrs Beaten dropped by for a buttered scone. Tenzin swept the back steps, pausing often to admire the way the frost had appeared to sprinkle lace along the edge of the barrels.

During the afternoon, Philomena went to check on the whereabouts of the pie. It had moved again.

This time it occupied the settle by the fire, positioned carefully at the warmest corner of the snuggery. The plate beneath it had been turned so that the crack in the pastry faced the hearth, as though whatever had arranged it preferred to see its imperfections clearly.

Reggie regarded this development with interest.

“Someone is making sure it doesn’t go to waste,” he observed.

“Or making sure it’s noticed,” said Rhys. “Maybe it’s the Tomte.”

“No, that’s not his style at all,” replied Philomena. “If he had wanted the pie, it would be gone by now.”

As the day wore on, the fire drew better. The chill that had lingered since Christmas Eve seemed to have lifted. Even the fog outside decided to loosen its grip, retreating just enough to allow the suggestion of the harbour beyond the glass.

When evening fell and the lamps were lit, the mince pie had reached the foot of the stairs.

Philomena found it there while fetching fresh candles, the plate placed with deliberate care on the bottom step, as though waiting for someone who was slow in coming.

She stood looking at it for a long moment.

“We’re being reminded of something,” she said softly.

Reggie, who had followed her, inclined his head.

“New Year’s Eve is a threshold,” he said. “Some things prefer to be acknowledged before the door is closed.”

They did not touch the pie.

That night, long after the inn had settled, and the last glass had been rinsed, and the wind had returned in a gentler mood, the mince pie vanished for the final time.

In the morning, Philomena found a single currant by the hearth, and a faint dusting of sugar on the edge of the bar.

Nothing else.

But the year turned easily, and The Squid and Teapot felt, for no reason that anyone could properly name, as though something that had been owed had, at last, been paid.

On the sixth day of January, when they had taken the last of the decorations down, and she had carried the holly out to the edge of the woods, Philomena paused on the threshold of The Squid and Teapot and closed her eyes. For a moment – and it was only a moment – she had the peculiar impression that something within the inn had nodded to her in approval. She smiled, closed the door, and the year, which had been waiting patiently for permission, finally began.