"I took the boat," said Ellen miserably. "I don't know why."

Louisa smiled. "I do." She glanced across the street. "You are as innocent as Thea, mon chéri. All of you."

"You're very kind."

"You were bewitched by Papa Jacques." Louisa shrugged. "There is no blame, for he has gone."

"Perhaps..."

"It is not 'perhaps.’" Louisa looked out at the water. "A bird has told me so. And told me you will have a happy life. So this I know."

"And you?" asked Ellen softly. "Will you?"

"Oh, yes." Louisa beamed radiantly. "This bird told me that!"

Louisa squeezed her hand. Ellen felt suddenly freed, buoyant, and full of joy. They hugged and promised to write.

***

There was something mysterious going on. Ellen sensed it in Romeo's Cadillac, and by the time they were at the airstrip, she was even more certain.

Romeo drove them directly to the tarmac. Hoagie was standing by another high-wing airplane, painted with CALYPSO'S FRIENDLY CHARTERS. It was even shabbier than the Cessna.

Next to it, gleaming in yellow paint, was parked a proud, shining relic of the biplane age. It seemed immense. Romeo parked the Cadillac between them.

Ellen got out while Mike pulled her bags from the trunk. Hoagie was smiling, but there was a question in his eyes.

He kicked the wheel of his cabin plane. "I don't really trust this kite, you know?"

He turned and opened a panel behind the rear cockpit of the biplane. He drew out a leather, fleece-lined jacket emblazoned with RAF wings, a leather helmet, and a pair of flying goggles.

He dangled the helmet and goggles. "You care to be my ballast?"

"To Nassau?" she murmured. "To Nassau, Hoagie, for La Guardia?"

He shrugged. "Or anywhere you'd like."

She pressed his hand. "It's Nassau, Hoagie, I'm afraid."

She kissed Thea and Carla and Mike.

"Mom," he whispered, "he told me what he'd like to do. I think he's too shy to press. The hell with Amity; go south."

"To Jamaica? Mike, I can't!"

From the rear cockpit they looked very small below. The engine burst into life, and they were all at once bouncing toward the runway. She peered out of the side of the cockpit. Thea was running alongside, waving. She couldn't hear and lifted one of her earflaps.

"...hello to Peeper!" she thought she heard but was not sure.

Her heart was pounding. They were suddenly bounding down the runway, as if the ancient airplane could not wait. They roared into the air above Masthead Point, turned back in a graceful bank, and made a run at the field, engine rolling.

Hoagie wagged his wings madly; craning from the cockpit, she could see Romeo's Cadillac, and Mike and Carla waving, Thea dancing between them.

Then they were climbing into the clear, cool air. She could see Hoagie's leather-helmeted head and Whiskey Cay's dazzling beaches below.

How many islands, just like this, was she leaving? And why?