Excerpt from One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I realize Josie is no longer looking at her phone. She's watching me, waiting for an answer. I put the crossword down on the coffee table.

"Lucy was in my year at school."

"Well, you're bound to bump into people, Edie. You've lived here your whole life." She takes a final gulp of tea, slips her coat on. "Gosh, it's almost three. I've got to get off. I need to nip to the shop before I collect Ocean. I don't know where the afternoons go. I'll see you tomorrow, Edie, get you a few bits from the Co-­op."

"I'll make a list," I say.

Josie looks doubtful. "Well, all right then."

After she's gone, I stand by the window, lift the net curtain, and look out over the street. The sun is slowly moving around to the front of the house. Soon it will be spilling its light across the carpet where I stand now. The kitchen gets the sun in the morning. My mother's kitchen got it in the morning, too. She'd stand at the sink, washing the dishes in a shaft of sunlight, dust particles drifting in the air. She scrubbed the dishes until they sparkled. She scrubbed them as if they could never be clean enough.

I drop the curtain. I can hear the clock ticking on my mantelpiece, the rustling of the browning leaves belonging to the horse chestnut across the road. You wouldn't know it had rained earlier; the sky is as blue as a button, the clouds as fluffy as freshly whipped egg whites. I decide to take a walk.

I need to speak to Lucy.

Excerpted from One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley. Copyright © 2023 by Emily Critchley. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks Landmark. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.