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until we get back.” He laughed and then explained that his business, like everyone else’s, slowed to a crawl when the seasonal residents packed up and went home.
    “I’ve always meant to go south for the winter like so many people here do, my parents included,” he said, pulling on his jacket, “but I never quite manage to do it. There’s something about this island in winter that intrigues me. I love the solitude. It’s like the whole place exists just for me.”
    “I’ve been feeling exactly the same way,” I told him. “Like I’ve walked onto my own deserted movie set.”
    “You get it, then.”
    I nodded. But I didn’t get it, not really. To me, the emptiness was more than a little unsettling, as if I were wandering alone in a graveyard. I felt it encircle me as we walked out the door and into the wind. The scent of rain was hanging in the air.
    “My car’s out back,” he said, leading me around the building.
    Car? As we rounded the corner, I saw what he meant. An enormous white horse—the kind of animal that I imagined had pulled fire trucks in the past—stood tied to a railing. Behind it stood a contraption that could only be described as a buggy. It had two wheels, a seat designed for two, and a canopy over the top. Looking up at the heavy gray sky, I wished for a real car—or at least an enclosed carriage like Henry’s.
    “This is Tinkerbelle,” he said to me, reaching up to scratch the horse’s nose.
    It struck me funny, such a dainty name for such a massive, muscular horse. “I had a very tiny cat named Tinker-belle once,” I teased him. “It suited
her
.”
    He laughed, held out his hand to help me into the vehicle, and glanced upward at the rain clouds. “I hope we make it before the downpour.”
    I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance and hoped so, too. “How far do we have to go?”
    “Only a couple of miles.” He untied the horse, hopped into the driver’s seat, took the reins, and made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Let’s go, Belle.”
    And we were off. At a snail’s pace. Belle was in no hurry to deliver me to my past and seemed unconcerned about the impending rain. I, on the other hand, couldn’t get to the house quickly enough. “You know, I could run faster than this,” I said, giving William a sidelong glance.
    “You’re free to lope ahead of the buggy any time the mood hits you. But don’t lag behind. It can get quite unpleasant in back of a horse.”
    I laughed. “Hey, you must have a whole staff of people who do nothing but clean up after horses. I haven’t seen any—evidence—the whole time I’ve been here.”
    “We do indeed,” he said. “It’s the most glamorous job on the island. We usually save it for the spoiled children of wealthy seasonal residents.”
    I was grateful for the bit of levity. As we got closer and closer to the house, the reality of my past life here was looming larger. I felt almost suffocated by it, but somehow the sound of Belle’s hooves on the cobblestones, along withthe swaying of the buggy, had a calming, almost hypnotizing effect. It was the heartbeat of this place.
    “I love that sound,” I murmured, referring to the hoof-beats. “It’s a sound from the past, isn’t it? Our ancestors heard it constantly as part of their daily lives, but now it’s almost nonexistent in our world.”
    “It’s funny you picked up on that. I always imagine what it might’ve been like in New York or Chicago a century ago: no cars, people coming and going in carriages, business deliveries being made by horse-drawn wagons. Hoofbeats everywhere. That sound was the constant din of traffic back then. They probably didn’t even hear it or register it, because it was always there, every time they went out in the street. We’ve replaced it with engines and motors.”
    “And radios.”
    “And most recently the constant chatter of people on cell phones. That’s my pet peeve, by the way, the privilege of listening to somebody