Mr. Liang nodded again and said what sounded like “chintzy” or “intrinsically,” but Kevin figured he’d meant electricity.

He handed Mr. Liang a flashlight and waved good-bye. When he left, he made a point of closing the deck door behind.

By noon the rain subsided then returned with a renewed fury. At three o’clock the lights flickered in the kitchen. The radio crackled, and the lights went out altogether. Kevin heard the generator kick on in the cellar. The auxiliary lights glowed in the hallways and the kitchen. He went out to the drawing room. People were coming out of their rooms. The Dutch boy was asking questions. Pars Mansoor appeared in his doorway. Mrs. McIntyre asked what she could do.

Within the hour, all the guests had come up from the cottages. Ana Gathreaux, the Italians, even the Bulgarian; everyone but Mr. and Mrs. Liang. Mrs. McIntyre went to check on them. Meanwhile, Kevin built a fire in the drawing room, and Sheila Quinn brought a tray of sandwiches and quiche—an early, makeshift dinner. Soon the other guests in the main house drifted downstairs. Douglas called—the phone lines still worked—and said he wouldn’t be home until very late; they needed him at Government Dock. The search had been called off for the day.

The early evening passed slowly. Some of the guests took coffee in the dining room. Pars and the Italian man set candles in the billiard room and played a round of pool (they couldn’t agree on the rules, yet it didn’t seem to matter). Diana Olmstead sat with her prayer beads beside the fire. Ana gloomily sipped a cup of bitter tea, listening to the clack of the billiard balls in the other room. Only Mr. and Mrs. Liang stayed in their cottage, lest the ghost of their daughter, who hadn’t shown the night before, appear sometime that afternoon.

As the day faded outside, Kevin fed the fire until it blazed in the grate. He brought in candles and set them here and there throughout the drawing room. The generator serviced only the plumbing and refrigeration and a few scattered lights in the house, so the candles were necessary to see by. By seven, just about everyone had gathered around the fireplace. The drawing room was the warmest place in the inn, cozy, with the wind whistling outside and shutters slamming against the old house. Candles flickered on the table and the inn felt like a ship now, rain-tossed, wind-battered. Claartija deJong wandered downstairs, sleepily, wrapped in a cotton blanket, and Diana Olmstead cleared a place for her on the couch.