Was she right? I don’t know. I don’t know a damned thing anymore. It seems to me that my fate is not in my own hands but elsewhere, laid out in some grand design beyond my comprehension. The rain spits in my hair. We’re near the edge of the squall now. The blue sky beckons just above the charcoal shadow that is Ki’ilau, and I’m made of yearning for that patch of hope. Of all the things I have ever loved, the darlings who have vanished, one by one, only this remains. The weather buffets the ship. We pitch and plunge, heel and dive. What use is knowledge? All you can do is close your eyes, not even pray, because God has already decided what he’s going to do with you. God has already decreed whether you will live or not live, die or not die, and you must meet your fate as Velázquez did, stoic and obedient.

As I mentioned before, Leo cut his teeth in the South Pacific during the war, so I suppose it’s child’s play to him, bringing this mere civilian craft through a dying squall to the small dock that extends from the beach on the leeward side of Ki’ilau. All the same, the boat twists and lurches at the whim of nature, while the engine grinds us closer. Sophie snatches a coil of rope. At the last second, a wave starts us crashing into the wood, but Leo makes some final adjustment and we kiss the dock instead.

Sophie leaps to shore.

I follow her and fall to my knees, stunned by solid ground. While the two of them mess around with ropes and pilings, I start down the dock to the beach. Leo calls after me. I shift to a jog, into the soft sand to the hills beyond, and the path that leads up to the plateau where Lindquist likes to land her airplanes.

Leo shouts again. “Janey! Wait!”