It’s a bit stilted, formal—one might easily guess that Charlie’s been reading classics at school—but he’ll grow into it, find his footing. He’ll have time to do it, if tomorrow goes as planned.

It was Jo’s idea, in a way. It took Mrs. Wickett four more years to pass. Jo was the one to sit with her through long nights, keeping vigil in case she woke up crying out for her husband or her son, others whose names were unfamiliar. When Elsie finally slipped away, peaceful, relieved, I told Jo how good she was to have taken such care of her.

“No,” Jo said. “It was cruel. We should have let her go when she wanted to go.”

The conversation unspooled from there. We made some discreet calls, and in the end, there were more volunteers than we could take.

None from here. When we put the idea to the council, there was initial resistance, cries that it should be us, an outburst that ended when Jo stood up and asked for volunteers. We left it a month. No one stepped forward. It wasn’t long before I overheard hushed talks at the Dane’s Head about how in keeping this plan was with the old pact. Diana Shaw focused that keen curiosity of hers into endless web searches, hunting for clues about the very first tithes. Who knows whether all those ancient sacrifices were taken solely from among the people of Lute, or whether they included Celts of faith from Britain and Brittany as well? Perhaps some of our blessings would be bestowed upon families from the mainland in their turn.

Hard to call any of this right with any conclusiveness, but it’s right enough for now.

Harder to say whether it will even work. Lute might not accept outsiders alone. We’ve timed it as close to dawn as we can, but the island plays tricks, gets funny, holds all the cards, and we know it. We offer—it’s up to Lute to accept. And if it all goes wrong, if we wind up among the dead, we accept that too.

Jo’s waiting at the house with Sally and the others. They’ve gone straight back to the old ways, poring over books for solstice feast recipes, for the most authentic rituals, not the invented one they used to perform like a dance. They’re still hoping to grasp some ineffable element from long ago, something true. It helps that our new warden holds a Ph.D. in neolithic British history from Cambridge, and that, unlike John, she believes. We pray to the Shining Ones now, the Tuatha, the doorway they hold open between worlds. We made our procession, and each of us, even the children, cut open our hands and spread our blood on the tithe stone, hoping it would be enough.