I still don’t know to where. A staging post outside the police station, maybe, awaiting an official reckoning from the mainland tomorrow.

No. There’s nothing official about the Day.

I picture them—I’m sure of it, somehow—laying her down in the grove beside the tithe stone, beside John, identically shrouded, and the strangers or whatever remains of them. It’s the right place.

I imagine something else now, as vivid as a memory. A procession of islanders walking from the village to the grove. They volunteered to be sacrificed, John told me once, insisting almost gleefully that the forensic evidence proved there was no struggle before the blow. I picture them honored, garlanded, all in white, fighting to keep their chins up, their feet moving forward, willing their eyes to keep shining with pride instead of terror.

A sound makes me turn. Not even a sound—a vibration, a feeling in my stomach, my legs, the sense of people marching. It’s not the men carrying Avery, probably just my mind filling in the imagined procession, but there’s something more rigid about it. Thump. Thump. Thump. Like an army.

My heart pounds as I cover my eyes, straining to scan the horizon. No ships. No planes, no invading force. We’re fine.

And now the sound’s gone too, like it never was.

Lute goes a bit funny on the Day.

Down the drive they go. Where did they even find that pure white sheet? Someone offered it from their linen closet. Not us; Hugh wouldn’t offer a damn thing today. They probably have seven folded up neatly somewhere, bleached and reused every seven years. I might know the answers to these things if I’d believed before today. But I never would have believed. This is just the way of things. They were right; I had to experience it, and it’s not over yet.

I see that white flash through the line of trees once, twice, and I keep watching, even though I know that every bit of Avery is gone now.

My heart feels like something is handwashing it, wringing it out, over and over. Maybe half the people die from accidents on the Day and the others die of grief.

Ian and Jenny Pike have come with a few other villagers. They hold each other tightly, watching Avery go, then whisper something to each other and slide apart. Ian looks over at me with a sad nod, and I nod back, not just hello, but yes, I see it now, you were right.

He knew I didn’t believe that night at the Dane’s Head when he leaned on the bar and told me the story of the first Day, nearly two thousand years ago. The day the sacrifice was changed from voluntary to random.

The pub was hushed that night, completely rapt, though the others must have heard Ian’s retelling dozens of times before.