If I stayed, perhaps I could merge with Licia?

For a moment I thought I saw the surface of the water, saw above it the faces of Elsa, and of Vee, and of Franklin, seeking me out. All was light and color and laughter.

I looked about me. All was dark.

“I’m sorry, Licia,” I said with the very last of my breath.

A tiny bubble rose swiftly through the dark.

Gone.

Nothing now but the sound of blood pumping in my ears, of my heartbeat slow and strong.

But Elsa. But Franklin. But Vee.

I can’t stay, Licia.

I curled my knees into my stomach, crouched for a moment, feet planted on the fjord’s rocky bottom. I raised my arms above my head. I pushed hard, upward, toward the world of the living, swimming for my life, fighting to keep the water from spilling down my throat.

Three strokes, and the water began to lighten. I saw shadows above me. Two more strokes, and the shadows resolved into shapes. Arms. Legs. Bodies in motion.

I was at the surface, breathing gratefully, surrounding by light and by people, laughing now. United by something more than grief, as we swam together in a sea of flowers that reached almost to the island.

Milla was waiting at the gate, as if she had known I would come.

“He’s at the barn,” she said as I got out of the car.

I walked past fruit trees where turtledoves billed and cooed. There he was at the side of the red-painted wooden building in his gray shirt and his gray robe, kneeling beside Arno. On the ground before them four rabbits were laid out, each bleeding delicately from a tiny wound in the shoulder. Two small-bore rifles stood nearby, barrels pointing toward the sky.

Arno saw me first. He smiled. He tapped Bror lightly on the shoulder, staring at me all the while. The dark rings around his eyes were gone.

Bror followed Arno’s gaze. He jumped lightly to his feet. “The hero returns.” He stepped forward. We embraced.

“You . . . are less troubled, Cal Curtis.”

“Doesn’t sound like me.”

He held my forearms, scanned my eyes. “No, something in you has changed.”

“You saw the broadcast?”

“Very good it was. And yet . . .” His eyes were searching mine. “I feel it is more than this.”

“Maybe . . .”

He looked back at Arno. “The boy’s mother will be coming for him soon. You don’t mind if we continue?”

“Of course not.”

Bror returned to the rabbits. He knelt. From a pocket he took a roll of canvas, which he unfurled on the grass. A set of cook’s knives, black-hilted, eight in all. Arno looked down at the knives.

“Choose,” said Bror.

The boy’s hand floated toward an eight-inch blade.

“You need a four-inch knife.”