The front window sits bare for a moment. Lucy turns back, waves quickly, surprised, swipes the dust off with her forearm, and closes the shutters with a clack. Exhibition closed.

I keep walking.

Four houses down, the pub at least is open. It’s not until I reach it that I remember how early it is, nine in the morning, and yet a couple old men, Tim Blanchard and Lannie Joiner, sit playing chess at one of the picnic tables in the front, pints already mostly finished.

They lift their glasses to me. I smile as if nothing were off.

It’s a holiday already, I guess. They think this might be it for them, after tomorrow. Mrs. Wickett certainly does, but she still tends to stick to tea, at least in public spaces.

When I’m old, I’ll drink beer whenever I damn well please.

I don’t dare day drink these days. You can’t exactly lie in bed with a hangover, eating cheese-drenched pasta and watching movies when you’re thirty-seven and a mother of two—even if you are Lady Treadway of the Lute Island Treadways and everyone climbs over one another to wrest all life responsibilities out of your soft, useless hands.

People might talk. People already talk. I should go have a swift half with Tim and Lannie.

I’m still looking back toward the pub when I hear the tinny jangle of a bell, turn, and gasp to a halt seconds before a bicycle slices past, inches from running me down.

Of all the crazed cyclists, it’s PC Brian. At the sight of him, police-uniformed, astride what looks like an old lady’s bike, complete with wicker basket, I burst out laughing.

He puts a foot down and tips his cap to me. “Apologies, Lady Treadway! You’ll find we’re all a bit wild round here ’til the Day’s over. Then it’ll go quiet round here for a few months.” He points at me. “Enjoy the madness!”

“I … uh.” I hold my chest, catching my breath until my giggles subside. “Yep!”

Brian careens away, straight past the pub, despite Tim’s and Lannie’s shouted entreaties. Where is he going? Just riding around Lute ringing that bell for the fun of it?

There’s no madness to enjoy in the churchyard. It’s crypt quiet as ever, a few scant birds jumping from arch to arch on the front edifice of the gray stone building, warbling as they wander.

This church was the very first thing I spotted when we arrived here by helicopter nearly seven years ago. I saw St. Joseph’s from the air, a great, gray, slicing spire, much taller than any of the other buildings on the island, even Alder House with its three high-ceilinged stories.