“That’s good,” he said. His voice was croaky. “I didn’t die.”

“No, you didn’t die,” said Lisette. She held the canteen to his mouth and he drank. The double vision fused into one. In the morning light, she looked so beautiful that the sight of her brought a lump to his throat. She had blond hair done up in two braids pinned over her head like a halo. Her eyes were sky blue, her skin like cream. She was an angel, thought Hank. A living angel.

“You have to move to a safer place,” she said. “I’ve brought Rocinante to help.”

He eyed the cart. A tired-looking mule was hitched to it. Even the thought of moving was excruciating. She was right, though. He couldn’t stay here.

“Eat something first.” She gave him a piece of bread with a chunk of ham and a boiled egg, and a handful of ripe plums. There was a flask of warm milk—from the cow this morning, she said.

The food was so good it almost made him dizzy again. He worried he might upchuck, because he wasn’t used to food, especially fresh delicious food. Then the moment passed, and he looked at her, his heart filling up with gratitude.

“Ma’am. Lisette. That was the tastiest meal I’ve ever had,” he said.

“You are in France. All the food here is tasty, even in wartime. I’ve heard the shortages in the cities are terrible, but I live on a farm. We grow everything we need, and if the Germans don’t take everything, we manage.”

Good, then. She didn’t seem to be in cahoots with the Krauts. “I’m mighty grateful.”

Without warning, she took hold of his dog tags, two of them on the beaded chain around his neck. “Henry Lee Watkins,” she read. “And this is your serial number?”

“Yes. It’s Hank for short. A nickname.”

“And the O—that is your blood type?”

“Yes.”

“And the final line . . . Switchback, Vermont.”

Her funny pronunciation—Sweetchbeck, Vere-moh—coaxed a smile through his pain. “My hometown.” Hank felt dizzy. He couldn’t even remember what season it was. He’d left home in February, when the woods were blanketed in deep drifts of snow. Deep within the sugar maples, an awakening would begin, but the sap didn’t usually start to run until March. Once that process started, the sugar season would commence and it was all hands on deck as they boiled the sap day and night, rendering it into maple syrup.

She carefully tucked the tags inside his shirt. “You must get into this . . . hotte en bois. I don’t know the word in English. It’s a special box the pickers use at harvesttime. The harvest will not be under way until October, so this équipe will not be missed.”

The hod was mounted on a narrow wheeled cart that fit perfectly between the rows of the vineyard. She showed him how the side of the wooden box slid up so he could climb in. The thought of moving even a fraction of an inch made him nauseous. During the fall into the forest, something had gouged deeply into this thigh. He’d broken or bruised his ribs as well, and every breath he took was torture. He thought his ankle was broken or strained, too. It was swelling hard against his combat boot.