Bad Claw Lodge is an ugly wooden box done up in white gingerbread trim. Two stories. A listing porch, a banging screen door. Little dormer windows tucked under the flaking, papery eaves. The island is probably worth three million, Fleur says. The lodge? Some day it will blow out to sea, and I will get down on my knees and thank God. How big is the island? Harper asks. Two miles. Something like that. You can walk around it in half an hour. It gets bigger after every storm. But then the mainland is getting smaller.

There are buckets and pans set out on the painted floor of the lodge. On counters. On the mildew-stained couch and in the fireplace. It rained all night, Fleur says. All morning, too. I thought it would rain all day. The roof is a sieve. She takes them upstairs and down a hall so low that Harper must duck to get under a beam. Here, she says. Bathroom’s next door. The water is all runoff, so if you want a hot shower, take it in the afternoon. The catchtank is on the roof. There’s space enough in the room they’re sleeping in for one twin bed, shoved up against the window. There’s a three-legged table. On the bed is a Pyrex mixing bowl with an inch of rainwater at the bottom. Fleur says, I’ll take that. On the little table is a piece of taxidermy. Something catlike, but with a peculiarly flattened, leathery tail. It has an angry face. A wrinkled, whiskery snout of a nose. What’s that? Harper says. A beaver? Fleur says, That thing? It’s something native down here. They had poisonous claws, or laid eggs, or something like that. They’re extinct. That’s worth a fortune, too. They were such a nuisance everyone just eradicated them. Shot them, trapped them, cut them up for bait. That was a long time ago, before anyone cared about stuff like that. Anyway! They never bothered to come up with a name for whatever they were, but then after they were gone they named the island after them. I think. Bad Claw. That thing is definitely worth more than this house. Thanh checks his phone again. There’s no signal here, Fleur says. You have to go back to the mainland for that. Harper and Thanh look at each other. Is there a phone in the house?

There isn’t.