Lara and the Witch Thoughts

I went to the library and quite by accident, got out the Lara and the Witch novel I wrote in 2021, "When You Need It Most."*  I had given myself more than an hour to write, and I thought I would briefly format it, make sure it was in the same font, and number the chapters, and before I knew it, they announced the library was closing, and I'd only gotten a third of the way through it . . . and done no writing at all.  That was a bit vexing.

And while I'm on the subject . . .

In between chapters of "Cormorant"--which really ought to be the priority, darn my eyes--I've started recording chapters of "The Company You Keep," which is yet another LATW novella, this one about the girl meeting another witch (or someone who claims to be a witch, anyway).  And I started noticing little inconsistencies or contradictions with the other stories, such as the names of teachers, or Lara's classmates, or whether she wears her pendant always or never, or a friend who's never come up before (not just a friend, but a best friend), or the fact that Holcomb has a friend who wants to use Lara's blood for an arcane ritual . . . even though this friend has never been mentioned before or since.

I remember being a teenager, and reading a short story collection Orson Scott Card wrote, and discovering contradictions and discrepancies, that upset me at the time (it was "The Worthing Saga," I believe, though it has other names, for some reason).  There was a chink in the armor, or at least an editor asleep at the wheel.  Now I get it, though.

So, my question to you is: Does it matter?  Do inconsistencies between stories detract from the enjoyment of the stories?  Is it important that they be addressed in future stories?  If I say Lara's best pal is Chlamydia Donaldson in one story, but say her best friend is Gonorrhea James in another one . . . is that a mistake, or something I should rewrite to correct?

This is kind of new territory for me, so let me know what you think.

*I opened it because I couldn't recall which story it was, looking for one I had stopped halfway through.  It will come as no surprise to you (if you know me) that I couldn't remember what it was about, even though I found bits of it familiar (and even thought about a scene where Lara realizes the truth about the people she's living with earlier in the week . . . thinking it had been in a movie I saw, not something I had written).  That's pretty weird.