Sing For The Coming Of The Longest Night Iona Datt Sharma Katherine Fabian by Iona Datt Sharma; Katherine Fabian 9780463531822, 0463531825 instant download after payment.

The glitter is everywhere. Layla has found it inside her phone case and inside her bra. It's insidious and it has that horrible Play-Doh smell and it doesn't even make sense, glittery face paint for the donkey in the nativity play. But Amy wanted to be a fairy princess donkey, and Layla had two utility bills to pay and two slices of buttered toast to unstick from the wall and didn't have the energy to argue. Amy is impressively sparkly even from here.

Her name isn't really Amy, of course. It's Ambika, after an aspect of Parvati. The vedic Ambika was consort of Shiva, goddess of strength, abundance, and retributive justice, and now the beast of burden in some white-people creation myth. Which is unfair, given that the people concerned were actually first-century Palestinians and Layla had three hours' sleep and is just in a horrible mood. Katrina is the one who's good at all this crap. She charms all the mums and dads, remembers their names, asks if they're skiing this year. Layla just chews her hair and wishes she were literally anywhere else, including the mortuary. But Katrina had a client emergency and Layla could get away from work early – she's a pathologist and among their many other virtues, dead people don't complain – which is why she's sitting in this dusty hall at Our Lady Star of the Sea, C of E Infants, breathing in disinfectant as the Archangel Gabriel forgets his words.

"I bring you tidings of great joy," Layla murmurs, alongside half the audience all aching to put the child out of his misery. The old biddy sitting next to her seems surprised she knows the line, which is more-than-usually racist given Layla spends so much of her time at these things. School plays, PTA meetings, bric-a-brac sales, music recitals, demonstrations from the magic classes. Amy and her little sister, Jae – who is currently sitting at the front of the hall with the rest of her class, last seen picking her nose but not, thank goodness, eating it – are growing up in a