“They can be a nuisance,” he admitted. “So you’re probably right.” He knew if he didn’t make some small concession, she’d drive the point into the ground.

“Old Jim said you were crazy because you saw a kangaroo around here.”

“Maybe you need to stop hanging out with Old Jim.”

“I wasn’t. He lives in a dump. He came to see my mother.”

Ah—gone to see the doctor. A sense of relief came over him, or maybe it was just the cold sweat of his exertion. Not that there was anything wrong with Jim, but the thought of her roving so widely and boldly bothered him. Even though Charlie had told Saul more than once that Gloria knew the area better than he did.

“So did you see a kangaroo?”

My God, is this what it would’ve been like having kids?

“Not exactly. I saw something that looked like a kangaroo.” The locals still joked about it, but he swore he’d seen it, just a glimpse that first year, exhilarated from the rush of exploring so many new and unfamiliar hiking trails.

“Oh, but I forgot. I came over here for a reason,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Old Jim said he heard on his radio that the island’s on fire, and I wanted to see it better from the top of the lighthouse. The telescope?”

“What?” Dropping his shovel. “What do you mean the island’s on fire?” No one was over there now except members of the Light Brigade, as far as he knew, but part of his job was reporting incidents like fires.

“Not the whole thing,” she said, “just part of it. Let me take a look. There’s smoke and everything.”

So up they went, Saul insisting she take his hand, her grip strong and clammy, telling her to be careful on the steps, while wondering if he should have called someone about the fire before he confirmed it.

At the top, after pulling back the lens curtain and peering through the telescope, mostly meant for stargazing, Saul discovered that she was right: The island was on fire. Or, rather, the top of the ruined lighthouse was in flames—several miles away, but clear through the telescope’s eye. A hint of red, but mostly dark smoke. Like a funeral pyre.

“Do you think anyone died?”

“No one’s over there.” Except the “strange people,” as Gloria had put it.

“Then who set the fire?”

“No one had to set it. It might have just happened.” But he didn’t believe that. He could see what looked like bonfires, too, black smoke rising from them. Was that part of a controlled burn?

“Can I look some more?”

“Sure.”

Even after he had let Gloria take his position at the telescope, Saul thought he could still see the thin fractures of smoke tendrils on the horizon, but that had to be an illusion.

Strangeness was nothing new for Failure Island. If you listened to Old Jim, or some of the other locals, the myths of the forgotten coast had always included that island, even before the latest in a series of attempts at settlement had failed. The rough, unfinished stone and wood of the town’s buildings, the island’s isolation, the way the sea lanes had already begun to change while the lighthouse was under construction so long ago had seemed to presage its ultimate fate.