The voyage passed as though it were a dream. Once Samuel Dias began talking, he didn’t stop. He spoke about Brazil and Morocco, and of the great flocks of birds in Africa and the beaches in Portugal so hidden a man would never be found, and of islands in the middle of the sea where the only residents were the turtles. He told her of places where men wore scarlet scarves and painted their eyes with kohl and women dressed in silk and calico, their heads covered. In time, Maria talked as well, admitting that her robber father could recite entire plays without taking a breath.

“But why would a man in his right mind memorize another man’s words instead of speaking his own?”

“That’s what a player does.” Maria shrugged. “He pretends to be someone he’s not.”

But wasn’t that what they were doing? He pretended to be a man who hadn’t spent his life running away, and she pretended to be a woman who could reveal her true self. And yet they talked, so much, they didn’t notice when the seas changed from blue to gray. Whenever Samuel’s pain was at its worst, Maria went to his bed, her body folding next to his. She wrapped her arms around him so he wouldn’t thrash in his fits of anguish. He was ablaze with fever, although his other symptoms—the headaches and rashes and bleeding—were gone. Night after night, she went to him unbidden, despite her vow to do otherwise. It was a dream, she told herself. Only in the fleeting hours of dimming light, the hours when it is said the soul can travel freely, did she come to his bed without shame, wishing to be nowhere but where she was, in the wide and glittering sea.

As they neared Boston, and his health improved, Maria came to know Samuel’s stories, as she knew him. She hadn’t understood how her mother could love a man who could only speak words written by others, and was pleased that Samuel was nothing like her father. Here was a man who was filled with words, and Maria found she was intrigued. It occurred to her that Hannah had raised her to value words above all else. Samuel could not stop talking, and she could not stop listening. One night as they drifted off to sleep, she thought she heard him say Don’t leave me, but by daybreak she’d convinced herself she’d only imagined his plea. Men like Samuel Dias didn’t say such things, and neither did she; they had both been hardened by burnings, and had good reason not to trust the world.

Cadin often settled down beside the ailing man, making a nest in his quilt, allowing his feathers to be stroked when he usually only let Maria near. The bird was at least sixteen, and likely had aches and pains himself. Whenever Samuel turned his head, Cadin tried to steal one of the gold earrings he wore.