Terrified, he tried to turn away, and couldn’t. His feet were rooted to the spot, his body paralyzed by her eyes.

She was coming toward him now, up the church walk. She was saying something to him, then she pointed to the side of the churchyard and the grave there. Only there wasn’t a body lying beneath the bare brown earth. He knew that at once.

There were tears on her face, but no hatred. He thought he could have borne the hatred, but not the pity in her eyes.

He began to walk toward her, not of his own volition but of hers, drawn to her, drawn to the drift of flowers she held, drawn to the grave they were destined for. She had brought enough flowers for the two of them to spread over the earth, to cover its ugliness. He could see it now, raw, without beauty or grace or the mercy of time, and he couldn’t face it—one more step and he would read the name on the stone, and that would be intolerable—

IAN RUTLEDGE WOKE with a start, breathing harshly from shock.

He was sitting upright, knees raised, head flung back, drenched with sweat and with horror, terrified of the heavy, suffocating blackness that surrounded him, that made him blind.

Frantic, he put his hands to his face to claw the viscous mask away and touched—not the thick mud of the trenches but his own flesh.

Surprised, confused, he tried to think. If he wasn’t in France, where was he? His hands floundered, found sheets—a pillow. The clinic?

As his eyes grew accustomed to the impenetrable darkness, he was able to pick out the ghostly shape of his surroundings. A door—a mirror—a bedpost—

Rutledge swore. I’ve been asleep—I’m in my bed— I was dreaming—

But it was several minutes before the vivid dream faded enough for him to shake off the overwhelming sense of doom it had left behind. In the back of his mind he could feel Hamish rumbling like heavy thunder—or the guns— trying to tell him something he didn’t want to hear—over and over again.

Fumbling for a match, he lit the candle on the table by his bed, then got up and switched on the light. It blared down at him from the high ceiling, garish and stark after the darkness, but he was grateful for the reality it provided, pushing back the last remnants of sleep and of his nightmare.

He pinched out the candle flame, looked at the watch lying beside the brass candlestick, and saw that the time was close to three o’clock. In France he’d often slept with a stub of candle clenched in his hand. Unlit—it would have been madness to light it—but a symbol of light all the same. He still kept one beside his bed, a talisman.