Robert Ross sits on his haunches near a railroad track and watches a horse and dog, dressed in a tattered military uniform. He has a pistol in his hand and has “wandered now for over a week” (13). Surrounded by burning wreckage, he is the sole survivor of a train crash. Robert approaches the horse and checks the saddle, noting the two animals’ familiarity with one another. He rides the horse along the track towards Magdalene Wood, and when the horse whinnies, he stops and opens the stalled carts of the train, unleashing the trapped horses. They ride off together under a red moon.

The narrator states that “all of this happened a long time ago. But not so long that everyone who played a part in it is dead” (14). People say that Robert Ross is dead and look away. He was allegedly “consumed by fire” but “people can only be found in what they do” (14). In the library, there are “boxes and boxes” (14) of old documents and photographs, so much so that “a whole age lies in fragments underneath the lamps” (14).

In 1915, old photographs show a society preparing for