Bottle in hand, I wandered from the shadows beneath the deciduous and coniferous trees to the marshy edge of the bank. There wasn’t a patch of blue left in the sky, and it was no longer a question of if it would storm but when. I wondered what this meant for us. Would the boatman return early to pick us up? Or would he wait out the storm…which could last…how long? One day? Two? Surely he wouldn’t leave us stuck on the island for that long? On the other hand, if the rain and wind and flooding were bad enough, he might not have a choice.

Oddly I found I wouldn’t mind being stranded on the island. I’d always been a nature person. When I was five years old my father sold the patent to one of his inventions for a good chunk of cash and bought an RV to travel the country. Most of what I remembered from my childhood involved national parks and campfires and breakfasts at interstate McDonald’s. I didn’t attend grammar school. My parents homeschooled me—or RV-schooled me, I guess you’d say—though this involved less arithmetic and history and more hunting, fishing, and basic survival skills. Only when I was old enough to attend high school did my parents settle down in a trailer park in Vegas, where they still lived today.

So, sure, as far as I was concerned, roughing it for a day or two on the island would be a bit of an adventure. Pepper and Elizaveta were good company. Pita and I would likely make up by nightfall. I’d have to put up with Jesus and Nitro, unfortunately, but whatever. And this place would be something else at nighttime, wouldn’t it? The Island of the Dolls in the dark—how you were supposed to see it.

Three dolls to my left caught my eye. They were tied to a tree, one at chest level, the other two much higher. How Solano got them up there, I didn’t know. I doubted he had a Craftsman ladder tucked away somewhere. Then again, living fifty years on an island by yourself, you had time to build yourself a ladder.

The doll at chest level was one of the more normal looking ones on the island as it hadn’t yet been disfigured by the elements. It had a button nose and chubby cheeks and a frisky smile. Actually, it sort of resembled Pepper. It even had short black hair, which I thought I could style into a pompadour.