I read all about the ancient Celtic deities when I first moved here—that old academic instinct to research more and more in order to assimilate—and the irony was, I wound up knowing more than anybody else around here. I was taken with it, though, with the names, their connections to other gods, Irish, Roman. They died out through disbelief, neglect, the wave of Christianity that swept through the Isles and washed them away. But once, there was Taranis the thunderer for good weather, three-faced Lugus for good trade, horned Cernunnos for good health, the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Shining Ones, buried in the earth, sleeping, waiting.

Something ripples through me, thinking about them. Some memory, frustratingly vague. A tickle, like a dream I’ve forgotten.

I close my eyes and press my hand down; I do it, idiot that I am, but it doesn’t help me remember. I feel, hear, smell nothing to give me the impression that anything greater or stranger than myself is present here.

With my other hand, I’m still pinching that stubbed-out half-smoked cigarette. And before I know what I’m doing, I start grinding it into the stone, my jaw set at a painful angle, so incongruously angry.

I wait, again, for the judgment of the spirits here. For truth. Something.

I swipe the ashes away with a flat palm and sit cross-legged in the gravel. I feel dull, leaden.

I asked Charlie at breakfast this morning why he came here. He shrugged, went nonverbal, as he does sometimes. I didn’t press, not with every other tension brewing in the house, but maybe I should have, because the only answer I can think of now is the one Jo gave me over tea an hour ago.

Charlie came here to keep us on the island.

A chill starts to ripple up my arms, down my back. The wind blows—not an omen, the wind is always blowing on Lute—but it’s enough to make me turn and leave this pseudo-sacred spot without looking back. “Me time” is over.

The kids are up when I get home, running circles around the downstairs spaces while Sally looks on. I wave and set down my bag, swallowing the last bit of a mint I had ready.

“Where’s Hugh?” I ask, glancing around. Sally isn’t meant to mind the children. It’s not that I don’t trust her with them, just that she has enough to do around here.

“Upstairs,” Sally says. Her voice is light enough to worry me. “I wanted to ask you about the menu for this week. Kitchen’s a bit sparse.”

“No, yeah, we’re meant to be away, aren’t we?” I say. “Oh God, I’m sorry. Don’t worry about us! Take a few days’ holiday if you like? We can fend for ourselves for once.”

Sally looks stricken. Like I’ve fired her.

“Just for a few days,” I say again.

Charlie plows into my leg and hangs on, grinning up at me. I pat his head. Max joins us. I pat his head too.