For the book, Ned’s father had to balance the things he wanted to photograph with pictures that matched Lee’s text. That was partly Barrett Reinhardt’s job: to merge the work of two important men in a big project. His idea, apparently, was to have smaller black-and-white pictures tucked into the text that Lee had written, along with Marriner’s full-page or double-page colour shots.

Ned didn’t feel like looking at fountains. He knew what he did need to do. Greg was going back up to the villa to upload the digitals from this morning and check them on the monitor. He was also going to confirm by phone the arrangements for shooting in Arles, about an hour away, the day after tomorrow.

Melanie handed Greg detailed instructions about that, printed in her usual green ink. Ned saw a smiley face at the bottom of the card. He was pleased to see he wasn’t the only one she did that to.

He rode back with Greg in the van, changed into a faded-out grey T-shirt, and shorts, clipped on his water bottle and pedometer, put the iPod in its armband, and went for a run. He had essays to write here, and a training log to complete for his track coach. Both were homework, really.

The running was better.

Melanie had told him the night before that if he went down their laneway and turned right at the road instead of left towards town, then kept going as it curved back uphill, he’d end up eventually where the road ended at some area where people biked and jogged in the countryside. She said there was supposed to be an old tower up there to look at.

It irritated him, as usual, that she was organized to the point of planning his training routes, but he had no better idea where to go, and there wasn’t a good reason not to try that path.

It was a steep downhill on their little road past the other villas, and then steadily back up for a long, winding way along the ridge above. Up-and-down was good, of course. Ned ran on the cross-country team, this was what he needed.

He’d begun to think he’d gone wrong before he finally came to the car barrier. On the other side of it he found the trail. There were arrows on a wooden pole pointing one way towards a village called Vauvenargues and in the other direction to that tower Melanie had mentioned. Someone went by on a mountain bike towards Vauvenargues. Ned went the other way.

The tower wasn’t far. The trail continued down and around it towards the northern edges of Aix, it looked like. Ned didn’t like to stop during a run, no one did, but the view from up here was pretty cool and so was the round, ruined lookout tower. He wondered how old it was.

This whole place was just saturated in the past, he thought. Layers and layers of it. It could get to you, one way or another. He took off the earbuds and drank some water.

There was a low, really lame fence around the tower. A sign said it was dangerous to cross and a bigger fence had been authorized and was coming, but there was no one in sight now so Ned went over the railing and then he bent and stepped into the tower through a crumbled opening in the honey-coloured stones.

It was dark inside after the sunlight. There was no door anywhere, just the one broken opening. He looked up in a high, empty space. He could see the sky a long way above, a small circle of blue-black. It was as if he were at the bottom of a well. There were probably bats, he thought. There must have been a stairway once, winding up, but there was nothing now. He wondered what this had guarded against, what they’d been watching for up here.

He felt himself cooling down too much in the shade, not good. You pulled muscles that way. He stepped back into the sunshine, blinking, and gazed down at the city. There was an aqueduct in the distance, on the far side of Aix, vividly clear. After a moment, Ned spotted the bell tower of the cathedral in the middle of town, and that brought him back to this morning. He was nowhere close to wanting that.

He turned and started running again, back the way he’d come, but with the stop and cooling down and jet lag, he had lost his rhythm. He found it harder going than he should have, past the car barrier and downhill now along the road. It was a good jogging route, though, had to give Melanie credit. Next time he could go the other way at the signpost, keep going, log his proper distance.

He was halfway back up their own steep road, leading to Villa Sans Souci at the top, when he realized something.

He stopped running, having actually shocked himself.

Why now? he had said, and the man in the grey leather jacket hadn’t replied. Maybe Ned had an answer, after all. Maybe it even mattered, for the first time, that when she was alive his grandmother had told him some of her old stories.

Ned walked thoughtfully up the last part of the hill and punched the gate code to get onto the property. He paced up and down the terrace for a bit, stretching. He thought about jumping in the pool, but it wasn’t that warm, and he went upstairs and showered instead, dropping his clothes in the hamper for the cleaning help. The villa had been rented with two women to work for them. Both were named Vera, which made for challenges. Greg had named them Veracook and Veraclean.

Pulling on his jeans, Ned went down and into the kitchen. He got a Coke from the fridge. Veracook, clad in black, grey hair pulled tightly in a bun, was there. She had baked some kind of hard biscuits. He took one. From by the stove, she smiled approval.

Greg was on his cellphone in front of the computer in the dining room, so the house line was free. Ned went back upstairs and into his father’s bedroom and dialed the mobile number Kate Wenger had given him.

“Bonjour?”

“Um, hi, I’m looking for Marie-Chantal.”

“Screw you, Ned.” But she laughed. “Miss me already? How sweet.”

He felt himself flush, was glad she couldn’t see it. “I just came in from a run. Um, I realized something.”

“That you did miss me? I’m flattered.” She was sassy on the phone, he thought. He wondered how she was on IM or texting. Everyone got looser online.

“No, listen. Um, it’s April thirtieth on Thursday. Then May Day.”

Kate was silent. He was wondering if he’d have to explain, then heard her say, “Jeez, Ned. Beltaine? That’s a major deal. Ghosts and souls, like Hallowe’en. How do you know this? You a closet nerd?”

“My mom’s family’s from Wales. My grandmother told me some of this stuff. We used to go on a picnic sometimes, on the first of May.”

“Want to go on a picnic?”

“If you bring Marie-Chantal.” He hesitated. “Kate, where were the Celts around here? Were they here?”

“Yeah, they were. I can find out where.”

“I can, too, I guess.”

“No, you leave the heavy lifting to me, Grasshopper. You just keep running and hopping. See you tomorrow after school?”

“See you.” He hung up, grinning in spite of himself. It was nice, he thought, to meet a girl in a situation where he didn’t have to explain her, or what was going down, to the other guys. Privacy, that was the thing. You didn’t get a lot of it back home.

THEY HAD DINNER at the villa, French time: after eight o’clock. The clear understanding, Melanie explained seriously, was that they had to eat here every so often or Veracook would get insulted and depressed (“Veradepressed!” Greg said) and start burning their food and stuff like that.

Before they ate, Ned’s father took a vodka and tonic out on the terrace while the others went into the pool. Melanie, tiny as she was, looked pretty good in a bathing suit, Ned decided. She made a big deal about the water being freezing cold (it was) but got herself in. Steve was a swimmer, had the long arms and legs. He was methodically doing laps, or trying to—the pool wasn’t really big enough.

As Ned and his father sat watching them, Greg suddenly burst through the terrace doors, sprang down the wide stone steps, across the grass, and cannonballed into the water, wearing the baggiest, most worn-out bathing suit Ned had ever seen.