“That’s right. We went back to Anne Bonny and Mary Read after that.”

“I’m excited to find that picture,” I say, trying to gauge her facial expression in the dark. “I remember there’s also one of you in your pirate blouse.”

“There is?” she says, and yawns.

The tiniest, faintest voice has occasionally whispered in my mind that there’s some chance our box might not be there after all these years, but I refuse to believe the universe would do that to me—to us. And most important, Ruth’s never said it. So I won’t either, even to myself.

The program from the concert is now on Ruth’s shelf, along with the crow’s feather I gave her when we got back, and the tattoo sheet still poking out from under her notebook. I smile at the irony, thinking that giving her a tattoo, even a fake one, maybe wasn’t the best idea.

“Better sleep now,” I say.

She turns on her phone, and in its glow I climb up into my loft. I make sure my magazines are stacked neatly in the corner, find Murphy, and snuggle in. I check my phone one last time before setting it at my feet.

In the last forty-five seconds, Ruth has liked every one of my Instagram pictures.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next morning I’m already thinking about the Something Old part of my plan when I wake up. I glance at my phone, and Ruth’s likes are still there. I smile and hop down from my loft, not even caring that my hair must look like I got dragged through a wheat field. “Morning!”

Ellie turns and smiles at me, a book in her lap. “Morning,” she says.

I open the tiny cupboard above the sink and pull out one of those doll-size boxes of Trix you can get from a gas station. I set myself up at the table with a paper bowl and plastic spoon and pour my cereal. I’m thinking about how life in an RV with a bowl of cereal in your hands and a shipwreck ahead of you is just about perfect.

And then I look up and see Ruth.

She’s leaning back with her hood up, eyes closed, and earbuds in. Her face is gray and I have to ponder for a moment, because she looks more virus-sick than anything else. Part of me hopes that’s what it is, because if she’s got something viral like a cold or a stomachache, that’s something I can actually help her with.