“Lady Treadway.” The greeting jars me back to reality. He says it with a tight jaw, as always, like he can’t bear the sound of the words. He should just fucking call me Nina, like I’ve asked him to a million times.

He doesn’t even look at me as I rush to Charlie, and I don’t care. The world forms a tunnel around my son until he’s in my arms, and I’m kissing the top of his head, whisper-shouting into his hair, “What are you doing here? What were you thinking? Oh my goodness, you scared me so much, baby boy.”

Charlie blinks, dazed as I pull away to peer at him, like he’s waking up from a dream. “Why would you be scared?”

I laugh, shrill, unnerved by the look on his face. “I didn’t know where you were!”

“I wanted to see the rock. I told you.”

“The what?”

“I had a dream about the rock, so I wanted to see it. I needed to see it today.”

I shake my head. “You—?”

“The tithe stone,” Matthew says.

He’s only forty-two, same age as Hugh, but there’s something endlessly old about Matthew Clare, now more than ever. For all his Lute traditions, Hugh is a modern guy. He watches movies and checks the stock market and texts with his friends on the mainland during televised football matches. It’s hard to imagine Matthew doing any of those things. Sometimes when Ian Pike tells his stories about the Romans or the Saxons or the Normans coming here, I find myself picturing Matthew Clare among the watchers on the shore. I don’t even have to change his clothing too much.

I turn to find him staring at the long, flat, mossy rock at the edge of the clearing, a tiny plaque, oxidized green, marking the spot for visitors to reference on their island maps.

“He had his hands pressed to it when I followed him here.”

“You followed him?” I don’t mean to make it sound accusatory. My voice was just tight. All of me is tight.

Matthew flinches, his dark eyes darting away again, while John shifts uncomfortably a few yards down the path.

I force a smile. “I’m glad you did, thank God, but—”

“He was wandering along the road by himself. Looked like he needed some help.”

Now he sounds accusatory. Fair enough.

I stand, dusting myself off. “And then you came here and—why didn’t you bring him back?”

Matthew scratches the stubble on his jaw. “Like I said, he was standing by the tithe stone. Wasn’t more than a minute or two ago that I got here.”