As I say warm, her head darts to the fire, the men throwing desultory buckets of water onto it, and she lets out a burst of shrill laughter.

“Come on, take my coat.” I slip out of it and wrap it around her, then shudder myself. “And tea. A cup of tea. I know a place.”

Her red eyes go as wide as Emma’s. She nods, lips clenched tightly. I can see a sob bottling up behind it. She slides her arms into the coat, one, the other.

I offer her a hand up, and she takes it. Her palm is dry and calloused.

“Where are your shoes?” I ask.

“Everything was in the tent.” Her face crumples, her body falling with it.

I catch her by one armpit, pulling her upright again. She’s a good three inches taller than I am, but I somehow find the footing to keep her standing. “You’re going to be okay. We’ve got you now.”

I glance at Brian and Matthew, including them in that we. Matthew’s only answer is a slight rise of his head before he walks away toward the line of fake firefighters.

His wife and daughter died in a fire. How can he stand to watch this?

I watch him take a bucket and heave it onto the flames, then I blink hard and rope my arm around the hiker’s waist. She leans against my shoulder, heavy as a landslide, and we plod together up the gravel track to the village.

We don’t talk. Our footsteps are loud and rhythmic and soon begin to sync, left, right, left, right, soldiers marching away from battle.

“Tea,” I repeat, mainly for the comforting banality of the word. We’re in Britain, and this is what we offer. This is what we do. “Not far now.”

9:30 A.M.

Lute’s minute cluster of gray stone buildings looms larger with every step, and my eyes grow blurry. I stare instead at the sky, a gull circling high in the blue. This stranger begins to cry against me, a low, wavering moan like a song.

There’s a puffin standing in the lane. I’ve never seen one in the middle of the island before. It seems confused. Maybe it’s looking for John.

I start crying now, and the tourist stops, abruptly, her song finishing. She straightens, lessening the pressure against my shoulder.

I glance at her bare feet. “Are you all right?”

“What do you mean?” She stares straight ahead.

I look back and see flecks of red on the path behind us. She’s cut her foot. Doesn’t even feel it.

Ahead, the puffin’s gone. Must have flown off fast.

The light is off at Jo’s tearoom. I rap on the door anyway. The hiker’s shaking in earnest now, her teeth chattering like a windup toy. She stares up at the weather vane on the roof, the running horse.