I glance back one more time, and it finally hits me—why it felt so strange when I met them yesterday. They’re young. Fighting age. I’ve gotten so used to our population change here, all the old folks and children, so many people in the middle now gone abroad. Half the population of Lute, at this point. In the weeks after the second draft, it had felt like I was back at Gran’s retirement community.

These campers are in their twenties, healthy, fit enough to travel here, to hike and build fires. Why aren’t they in the war?

I close my eyes and pick up my pace. It’s not my business, not my problem. None of this is.

By the time I reach the grove, there’s a roaring in my ears, the wind and my pulse shouting over my thoughts, shoving them away.

I slide between the trees, blink blearily at the leaves shining like stained glass above me, and locate my little stub. Lighting it with a match, I lean against the smooth trunk of a neighboring oak and draw several quick, woozy drags.

Only then do I hear it.

The sound. A low drone, so soft and uniform it feels like it’s coming from the ground. The hair on my arms rises.

My fingertips sear sharp—the match has burned down too low. I bite my lip, wave it until it’s dead, drop it, and suck my finger, all in silence.

When I shift my weight, I feel a stick crack under the ball of my foot. I hear my own breath and I hear them. More than one person. Their voices don’t waver, don’t pause for breath, one unnatural, long note.

I peek through the trees, dizzied by the shifting light. I can’t see anything but grove, but I know where they are. My stomach clenches, turns over, roiling with fear and something else. Familiarity. This tune that’s not a tune, I’ve heard it before.

I feel, strongly, that I shouldn’t be hearing it now.

Still, I have to see.

I don’t use the trail. I pick my way in silence between wide oak trunks, holding my breath, exhaling slowly. I press my white fingers against the oak bark, begging it for protection as the figures emerge like spirits taking form.

Not spirits. Neighbors.

I see five, no, seven men and women, dressed all in white. If they’d been wearing robes, I might’ve fainted dead away or, more likely, burst out laughing, but these are normal clothes, trousers and button-down shirts, all plain starchy white.

The noise they’re making, though, that drone—it’s unnerving. They form a loose, rotating circle, hands raised skyward with every step, then dropping down to their sides once more. Some of them are slower than the others, and with good reason. They’re so very old. I haven’t seen Mrs. Morris display this much energy in the seven years I’ve known her, and even Diana Shaw is keeping pace on her prosthesis, loping along with an elegantly slow limp, like the waves of the ocean.