Two walls of people crowded close and linked hands, forming a corridor for them to pass through. Some wore nylon bibs with the Red Cross logo. It was all so confusing. Ana turned to Pars.

Who are these people? she asked.

They’ve volunteered.

For what?

To keep the press away.

The Dutch girl muttered: We’re fucking celebrities.

Mrs. McIntyre waved them on. Ana clutched Pars’s elbow; she didn’t even realize it. They were ushered behind police barricades. An enormous white tent rose on the rocks a hundred feet from the water. Naval officers in bleached uniforms stood in formation, hats over hearts, brass buttons winking in the sun. Someone said: an honor guard.

What would Russell think of all this? Ana wondered. All these people who had come to watch, to help, to gawk. All the signs along the roads, the complete strangers who’d tearfully handed her flowers in Halifax. She’d been touched; she’d been angry; she’d been moved—time and again. But this seemed a ritual hazing, a wedding reception line. What was it about violent mass death that brought everyone out of the woodwork? Hundreds died each hour, each day, in hospitals, on freeways, and no one showed up to witness or weep. Why had all these people come now?

They passed through the gauntlet and out into the relative privacy of the rocks. Under the white tent, tables lay piled high with holly wreaths, bouquets of roses, pieces of paper to write notes on, small teddy bears for children to toss into the sea. On one table stood dozens of bottles of corked seawater for the families to take home. Ana wanted none of it, not the wreaths or the roses or the water; if anything, she’d want to toss herself into the sea.

I’m going down to the rocks, she announced.

Pars said, Good idea, he’d join her.

They wandered away from the others, through the low heath, past large slabs of granite. Tiny pitcher plants shivered in the cracks between the rocks. Some of the boulders were black; others white. Signs in several languages warned to keep off the black ones.

Why just the black rocks? Ana pondered out loud.

She didn’t expect an answer. Pars sank his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker.

I wouldn’t know, he shrugged. It’s like a chess game? One is more slippery than the other?

Ana wanted to feel the water on her face. She picked her way to where the rocks became smoother and cupped pools of seawater, the green of radiator fluid. Mounties stood stationed every few yards to keep people from the edge of the rocks. The water itself was cordoned off with yellow police tape. The entire Atlantic, Ana thought, was a crime scene.