A monk, dressed similarly to Lucien, although he was much older judging from his gray hair and wrinkled face, led them inside and bolted the door. Without speaking, they followed the monk down narrow stone stairs barely wide enough to fit Boar’s broad shoulders. Once in the basement, the monk lit a lantern using the candle he was carrying. The room, which was probably once a root cellar, was empty, except for a pile of barren burlap sacks.

The monk glanced at Lucien, then quickly ascended the stairs.

Lucien took out his piece of slate and chalked a drawing.

“You need to tend to the mules?” Ollie asked.

Lucien nodded. He tucked away his slate and left.

Boar picked up the lantern, scanned the cellar, and walked to the far end of the room.

They had barely spoken all day. But that suited Ollie. And judging by the way Boar had selected a spot in the opposite corner, he suspected the man had no desire to be near him as well. So Ollie layered pieces of burlap and sat down to rest.

An hour later, Lucien returned, carrying a small baguette and a clay pitcher of water.

Boar took the pitcher and gulped, then placed it on the floor.

Ollie picked up the pitcher and drank, the water cold and laced with minerals. As he finished, he noticed that Lucien had broken the bread into thirds.

“Where are we?” Boar asked.

Lucien shook his head.

“Best we don’t know?” Boar asked.

Lucien nodded.

“Fair enough.” Boar bit into his bread.

As Ollie chewed his meal, he noticed that Lucien wasn’t eating. Instead, the monk placed his food into his pocket, then prepared a bed of leftover burlap. Ollie had expected that Lucien would sleep upstairs, but perhaps the swinging corpses, within a stone’s throw of the monastery, were a daily reminder of how the Nazis dealt with resistance fighters. It was probably safer, Ollie believed, for the inhabitants of this abbey to isolate themselves from Lucien as much as possible or require him to keep close tabs on the smuggled guests.

Boar finished his bread, took a spot on the floor, leaned back, and closed his eyes.

Lucien extinguished the lantern. The room turned black.

Ollie curled up on the floor and tried to sleep, but as he lay on his side, the book containing Susan’s messages pressed against his ribs, resurrecting thoughts of what might have been. He spent the next few hours deliberating whether there was anything he could have done to change the course of events.