MINDFUL HUMANS MAY VISIT THE RAPTURE BIRD SANCTUARY FROM APRIL THROUGH OCTOBER. PLEASE PAY FEE TO TOUR THE ISLAND INDEPENDENTLY TO THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER.

NO OVERNIGHT STAYS. NO FIRES. PICK UP YOUR TRASH. DON’T PICK ANY VEGETATION OR FEED ANIMALS. STAY ON THE DESIGNATED TRAILS.

PEACE BE WITH YOU.

“Oh my God,” I whisper as Lucky trudges up behind me. “How did I not know this was out here? This should be a huge tourist attraction for Beauty. This is … amazing.”

“Yeah?” he says, hefting the strap of the cooler across his chest.

“Yes.” I swing around, trying to take it all in. “Look at all this. Everything.”

“Everything?”

“Like, okay, first of all—I love beach roses. They’re better than garden roses, because they’re the outcasts of the rose kingdom, and wherever we’ve lived up and down New England, there they are, like a good luck sign that smells amazing,” I say, smiling.

“Never thought about them that way. My mom calls them trash roses.”

“My mom says they’re magnets for bugs. See? Outcasts of the rose kingdom.”

He nods. “I can get behind an outcast.”

“And second, the website for the island isn’t half as weird as this sign, so now I’m totally intrigued about what’s here. But, oh my God. This sign! Wow!”

He shrugs. “Told you.”

“Lucky.”

“Was I right, or what?”

“You were so right. Hold on a second. I need to set up some shots from different angles,” I tell him, and he agrees, cheerful and patient, watching me work as I capture the strange sign. He even helps boost me up by my waist, letting me stand on his bent knee, so that I can get a better shot from above.

How could all of these things exist on one tiny island—the Narragansetts’ settlement, the religious colony, the pig farming, wars, hurricanes … all of that, only to be deserted and forgotten? It’s as if it’s one big time capsule of humanity’s successes and failures, and all that’s left is a marker of what happened. A marker, a sign, one last communication: Don’t forget us.

The best sign in all of Beauty.

Maybe the best sign in my entire collection.

“It’s so weird and beautiful,” I tell Lucky after I change out my film.

“Just you wait. This place gets weirder, if you’re interested in exploring?”

“Well, I didn’t come all the way out here to get back on the stupid Narwhal, I’ll tell you that. You promised me a colonial ghost town.…”

“Did indeed,” he says, looking upward. “Wish the sky looked a little better. The forecast said the storm passing over Connecticut should miss us, but those clouds are starting to worry me. Should probably ask the lighthouse keeper about them. No one knows weather patterns like sailors and lighthouse keepers.”

“And meteorologists, maybe.”