I stare up at the strobing light between leaves. “I always thought the Pledge of Allegiance was a weird, archaic tradition, forcing children to recite mass oaths. Seems normal compared to this.”

Silence settles, our conversation’s first lull.

“Well. We’ll find out for ourselves, won’t we?”

John’s posture doesn’t betray the slightest hint of tension about the day to come, but something in what he’s said makes me stop walking.

“What about last time?” I ask.

He pauses too. “Ah. Well, I wasn’t here, was I?”

But—no, he’s been warden here for the past twelve years. I was sure.

He smiles over his shoulder, kneeling to pick at a bit of loose bark on a tree. “I was part-time, you see, seasonal, until the war started and transportation grew irksome, shall we say, and it had to become a permanent post, with some added responsibilities that I’d be court-martialed for revealing.”

My eyes widen enough to get a chuckle out of him, but I’m not actually surprised. I knew some of the others here had military or surveillance responsibilities, but I never let the thought go much past that. It would feel too treacherous in every sense for the only American resident here to pry into wartime matters of national security.

“Lost some friends, I have to admit.” John stands with a slow sigh. “I do have to admit that.”

It takes me a moment for my mind to pivot back to the topic at hand. Last time, seven years ago. He would have known people here who passed. Hugh’s father. The men and women who died in the pub. Matthew Clare’s family.

John swipes at his nose, peering upward. “Sometimes I wonder whether they don’t bring it on themselves, steer the course of it with their own superstition, but even that seems a wee bit woo-woo to me. Don’t like it much.”

Me neither. I don’t say it.

“Ach, would you look at that?” John tuts, his brow furrowing as he heads off the path, stooping to peek into a tree hollow. My tree hollow. “Some bampot’s been leaving … No! Worse! Christ on a bike, to pick a place like this to have a smoke!”

He holds up my stub, mouth agape.

“Whole thing could be set ablaze! Poof!”

“Especially given this dry stretch of weather,” I commiserate.

So easy, not me, couldn’t possibly be me. I wonder how many lies I’m going to tell today.

Before my face can betray me, I hear Max snuffling in the near undergrowth. I creep down the path, leaving John to his investigations. I can’t see Max but hear him, parallel to me, keeping time with my every step.

That’s not Max.