It’s too quiet today. Even more than yesterday. Stagnant. I walk through the village, listening for sounds that I usually take for granted. This house usually has a radio drama going or the news, and Janet Murrow’s mid-terrace cottage next door has cats that she likes to talk to. Even when the pub’s not open, there are normally noises behind the closed door, chairs scraping against the bumpy wooden floor, casks of bitter being heaved into place. There are always early risers with their dogs or their walking sticks for company. I’ve got my polite face on, ready to smile and nod in a carefully carefree way, but nobody’s here.

It’s like I got the Day wrong. People don’t die, they vanish.

Maybe I’m one of the dead and I don’t know it. I’ve been hit by a tumbling branch and my body is back there on the drive, and whatever’s left of me has walked away, oblivious.

Stupid thought that gives me a stupid chill down my stupid arms. I stop and rub them, staring into the darkened window of one of the northern cottages butting up against the lane. The curtains, white with little red roses embroidered throughout, are so tightly shut that they look more like a photo of curtains plastered onto the glass.

My eyes adjust until all I can see is myself in the window, transparent. I’m not looking for proof, I know I’m not fucking dead, but I can’t stop staring.

There’s a small noise behind the cottage door, a rumble and hiss. Someone’s put the kettle on. I break, smiling, my reflection smiles back, and I continue on before anybody catches me being myself.

I scan the road ahead for Max, but he’s wandered. Probably headed out for the heath, drawn by the intoxicating smell of wild goat poop. I swipe my hair back, regretting this little jaunt already. It’s all fun and games until you have to drag your seventy-pound dog out of the pile of dung he’s rolling in.

I shield my eyes as I step out of the village and peer out to the heath. I can’t remember the last time it was so cloudless here for so many days running. Everything is glittering sharp, like my vision’s been corrected after a lifetime of not knowing it was blurry, but even once my eyes adjust, I can’t see any movement in the distance that looks like Max.

“Can’t have gone far,” I mutter, the go-to line for when anything goes missing here on Lute, apparently.

Where are all the villagers? Can’t have gone far.

I still don’t know what possessed Charlie to go exploring on his own. Even he doesn’t seem to know, and that bothers me even more.