“What’s the longest you’ve ever spent in one place?”

I smiled grimly, picturing the silent, echoing halls of my parents’ house. “Eighteen years.”

“And since then?”

I shrugged. “Nine months, tops? I wouldn’t want to be anywhere longer than that.”

“Why?”

I shrugged, staring ahead. The land turned back in on itself, the coast curving and forming small coves. Yellow gorse carpeted the fields to the left. A hedgerow wound closer, enough that I could see the fuchsia flowers tangled in the green. “I don’t know. I just get such wanderlust, and if I can’t go I feel empty and constrained and whenever I move I feel like I can breathe easier. Don’t you feel...exhilarated when you make the perfect drive, and you didn’t think you were going to but you do, and everything is just perfect for a moment?”

I glanced sideways to see if he thought that was silly and mad and impractical, like most people did, but a small, crooked smile lifted the corner of Mike’s mouth. He stopped walking and regarded me with those warm brown eyes. “Yeah.”

I took a step closer to him. I could smell his aftershave, a scent already becoming familiar to me. “That’s how I feel when I’m in a new place. When I excavate a new site.” I hesitated. “That’s how I feel about Ivernis.”

His throat and jaw worked, his brows tensing, but he didn’t look away. “Why can’t you just go back to Ecuador? Why does it have to be here?”

I smiled a little wistfully. “Don’t get me wrong. The Inka were badass. I mean, they conquered most of South America. They had an advanced road system and they drafted soldiers intelligently and they had the most gorgeous ashlar masonry you’ve ever seen.

“But it’s not the same. I know that’s silly, and part of it is just me...anthropomorphizing the site, but it doesn’t get to me the same way Ivernis does. It doesn’t sing. Sure, I would be happy working there—I was happy, it was amazing—but Ivernis— This is the only thing I want to do for the rest of my life.”

“I understand that.”

I glanced over at him. Most people I knew cared about what they were studying, maybe even loved it to a degree, love mixed with irritated and aggravation—but they didn’t obsess. But Mike O’Connor... “You do, don’t you?” I looked out over the endless fields. “What would you do, if you couldn’t play football? How would you feel? Like a musician with broken fingers? Like a runner who’s lost her legs?”

He pressed his lips together. “You’re not being fair.”

I sighed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

We were silent until the hill crested and the land fell away before us. To the west, the water stretched out, a flat blue under bright sky, while a mile in the distance a tiny village lay nestled between two hills, a patchwork of pastel houses with slate-gray roofs. Beyond it, the hills climbed again, brushed with green grasses and black stone dotted with purple.

Before the village, midway down the hill, a church rose up, the Gothic steeple perfectly piercing the sky. Moss covered the roof of an ancillary building. It looked so surreally perfect that my heart ached and my feet stopped.

Mike must have been paying attention, because he turned impatiently. “Aren’t you coming?”

“It’s beautiful.”

He grinned. “Kind of like the fields were beautiful? You’d probably find something good to say about the subway.”

I made a face at him. “And you’d probably say Rome is just a pile of rocks.”

He laughed. “I’m not that bad.”

We reached the church. Cypress trees stood before it, their branches curved tightly up toward the sky like they had been cultivated, while apple trees formed looser circles, blue peeking in between the leaves. Everything felt still and quiet as we curved around the old building. A tidy graveyard spread down the hill, while manicured grasses framed plots and placards.

“Oh, look.” At the back of the cemetery, by swooping, draping trees, a Celtic cross stood alone. I cut through the graves, fixed on the marker. Beneath the dark green moss, the stone was worn and dark, smoothed by age and pitted by weather.

“Natalie, I don’t think—”

I crouched down and tried to make out the year. 1158. I reached out and then hesitated, my fingertips centimeters from the stone. The instruction not to touch art hovered between me and the cross.

But with living history, maybe it was meant to be part of our world. My fingers landed on the stone, cold even after an afternoon soaking up the sun. I could feel the aerated bubbles of rock as I brushed my fingers over the surface. “Look at this. Eight hundred years old. Eight hundred years old. And just sitting in a village graveyard, of no note, no record, just...here.” I shook my head. “It’s amazing.”

My fingers traced the carvings, the Celtic knots, etchings that had been chipped out eight centuries before I was born. This was the direct work of some nameless artisan. That’s what always got me. How very close I was with this unknown person. How very far away.

So many people, lost to obscurity. So many stories I could bring back.

It took me a while to notice the silence. I got lost easily, tangled in thoughts and time and other worlds. Usually someone called my name or touched my shoulder to get my attention, but this time Mike’s silence outgrew my own, and I turned to see him standing across the small graveyard, silent as the stone saint behind him.

He didn’t move as I came up by his side. I followed his gaze to the stones he studied so carefully.

Martin O’Connor. Ellen O’Connor. Kathleen O’Connor. Mary O’Connor. Sean O’Connor.

I swallowed over the sudden lump. “You okay?”

He shrugged. “It’s not like they were real to me. I mean—”

“I know.”

He nodded. “But it’s sort of funny—all of their names written out. And—” He nodded at the newest-looking stone, still sharp cornered and smooth.

Patrick O’Connor.

The bottom of my stomach fell out. “Ah.”

“And then—it’s like no one else ever left. I feel— Would my dad have wanted to be here? Should he have been?”

I didn’t know what to say or do. I wanted to comfort him, but wasn’t sure how. I reached down and laced my fingers through his, and stepped sideways until our arms lined up against each other.

He squeezed my hand, and we stood there, staring at the O’Connors.

“What happened to your dad?”

The tension seemed to drain out of Mike’s body, and he leaned slightly into me. “Car crash. The other driver was drunk.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “What can you do? You can be the best driver in the world, and it doesn’t matter if someone smashes into you.” His fingers squeezed mine. “My mother sat down on the kitchen floor and just started crying when they told her. I’d only heard her cry once before. I waited until everyone was asleep and then I broke into his whiskey collection.” He took a deep breath. “On the third night I found Lauren there, and then I poured out all of them.”

I leaned into him. “You were a good brother.”

He shook his head. “I left them six months later for college.”

I turned my head up so I could see him, staring stony-eyed across the graves. I reached up to touch his cheek, so he turned to look at me. “And do you still feel guilty?”

His eyes tore through me, wide with remembered pain. “I feel guilty about how happy I was to leave.”

We heard the clearing of a throat and looked up, our hands falling apart. In the still, silent cemetery, it seemed only right that the only person was a thin man with thinner white hair, dressed in a well-worn brown tweed suit. He nodded at both of us, but it was clear his attention latched onto Mike. “You’ll be Brian’s son.”

Mike looked swiftly at me, and then gave the older man a bright smile. Back to normal, friendly Mike O’Connor, without any trace of sadness or discomfort. “Yeah. I’m Mike O’Connor.”