The Watchtower

like skimmed milk. I untied her scarf from around her neck, soaked it in water from my own canteen, and pressed it against her forehead. I could feel the heat of her skin through the damp cloth.
    “I think we should get you in the shade,” I said, scanning the hilltop for a cool spot. A sign pointed farther down the path toward the HÔTEL DE VIVIANNE , which I gathered from the guidebook was a Neolithic stone circle. But the sign said it was still a kilometer away. The trees here were all too stunted and prickly to offer shade under the noonday sun. Across the field of grass I spied a broad rock protruding from the ground like the spine of some ancient reptile. Perhaps on the other side of it there would be some shade.
    “Come on,” I said, “I think I see a good spot.”
    Octavia shook her head. “I just need to rest a moment. You go on…” She raised her large, liquid eyes to mine. They seemed to swim in her pale face like swollen raisins bobbing in vanilla pudding.
    “I’ll just go see if there’s shade over there,” I said, alarmed at her appearance. The last time I’d seen someone look this bad was Melusine when she melted into a pile of goo. “I’ll be right back.”
    “Be careful not to get lost,” she said, her eyes drooping. “Use your compass.”
    “Okay.” I took the compass out of my backpack. I didn’t really need it, of course. I had the compass stone embedded in my hand, but I thought it would reassure her to see me pointing it at the rock and reading off coordinates. “Fifteen degrees northwest,” I said aloud, slipping the chain of the compass over my head for good measure, where it bumped against my watch chain. When I looked down, though, I saw that Octavia had already closed her eyes and slumped down to the ground with her back against the rock. Her eyes twitched beneath her eyelids as though she had fallen asleep and was dreaming … of whom? I wondered. Adele? Or the amie she’d come here with in the late-nineteenth century? As I followed a narrow path across the waist-high grass, I wondered if thinking about her old lover would qualify Octavia as a “faithless lover.” Could she be trapped in this valley for such a small indiscretion? It didn’t seem fair, especially for an immortal creature who had lived for centuries. How could she help but have loved others before she met Adele—maybe dozens of others? How many women might Will have loved over the centuries? He’d told me when we first met that he’d loved the original Marguerite, but that he’d avoided her descendants. That last part hadn’t turned out to be true.
    In a vision granted me by a brooch I’d found in John Dee’s antiques shop, I’d relived the memory of one Marguerite Dufay, who’d had an affair with Will in the eighteenth century. Then I’d watched them dance at Versailles, Will’s eyes gleaming behind his masquerade mask. I’d watched Marguerite try to save Will from a gang of street thugs and die in the attempt—her last sight Will’s face above her. She had certainly loved him. Had he loved her? I found myself hoping so even though the thought gave me a pang of jealousy. If he hadn’t, it might mean he was a terribly shallow man—as vain and shallow a young man as he had conceded himself to be when he’d fallen for the first Marguerite.
    I’d reached the large rock outcropping now and saw that it formed a ridge above a gorse-filled glen. The wind was cool here and smelled sweet from the purple gorse, but there was no shade. Below in the glen, though, was a circle of standing stones—dolmens and menhirs that had once been the site of some sort of prehistoric worship. Perhaps it was the Tomb of Morgane advertised in the guidebook and the path through the grass was a shortcut. It looked as if it could be a tomb. Two stones leaned together to form an arch in front of a shadowy passage into a raised mound. I couldn’t tell from here how far the passage went into the mound—and the thought of entering a Neolithic tomb made me shiver—but at least the archway would give Octavia a respite from the sun.
    I turned around to cross the field, but I couldn’t find the path I’d taken. The wind had picked up, whipping the tall grass into a choppy sea. That was why I couldn’t see the path, but it didn’t really matter, I knew that the rock where I’d left Octavia was fifteen degrees southeast from where I stood. I didn’t need to look at the compass because I had one embedded in my