Brenton sat behind Norah and she leaned into his bent knees while he stroked her hair; her eyes were closed. Reese bent over a pile of driftwood and dry leaves, lighting a match for a fire. Revvy squatted at the sea’s edge, lifting handfuls of sand, then letting it dribble from his fingers.

He looked up at them first as they returned—the same people, but different. All previous assumptions were now false, and the ground Amy had once based her other decisions on shifted beneath her.

“Hey, dude, where’ve you two been?” Reese called out.

“Sorry, Reese. We got turned around and I thought I found a tiny-leaved buckthorn . . . time just got away from us,” Nick said.

Time just got away from me, Amy thought.

They gathered around a campfire built with Reese’s adept hands, and conversation turned to life stories, as it tends to do when the sun has set, the waves are slapping and the fire lights faces as magical as they were originally meant to be.

Revvy tossed a ghost-crab backbone that looked like a snakeskin necklace into the fire and they watched it crackle. “Man, what’s your story, Nick? How do you know Mrs. Reynolds?”

Amy was sure she wanted to hear his answer more than they did.

“We went to college together.”

“And?” Revvy asked.

“And our children are dating now. Amy told me about this island and what you were trying to do—and I thought I could help.”

“Your kids are dating? Like each other?” Revvy asked.

“Like each other—yeah,” Nick said.

“Okay. Well, whatever brought you here, I’m psyched you showed up. We could use one more person—Brenton over there is the blooming botanist, but we could definitely use an expert.”

“Revvy, you been to any more of the islands around here?” Nick asked him—adroitly changing the subject.

“Totally. I camp out on Otter Island all the time, and kayaking through the rivers and Sound is my main escape.”

As Revvy and Nick talked of islands and wildlife and escape, the last pulled-taffy strands of sunset faded. Amy leaned back on her elbows into the sand, lifted her face to the sky. The stars were clearer out here—like scattered embers.

“I can’t just sit on the beach all night,” she finally said into the peaceful silence.

“Yes, you can,” Nick said.

He was right, but she was too comfortable—it was a scary, loose-jointed feeling and she’d felt it before. She needed to get back to her dorm room, her real job.

“I have a ton of papers to grade tonight.”

“We’ll get you home before class,” Reese said, and everyone laughed.