“Oh, Ron…” she murmured to the lonely, empty room. She glanced at the clock again. 1:37 a.m.

She closed her eyes and began planning another meal in her head.

Chapter 16

MARTY

Pip went to the Mirissa post office to mail bone samples to different labs in the UK, and Marty, Rad, and Jacky visited a few shops, purchasing food and other necessities for the excursion on the Oannes. At 10 a.m. they were about to set sail when Marty spotted Elsa hurrying down the pier.

“Hello!” he called from the deck, waving to her. “Have you come to see us off?”

She stopped at the bottom of the gangway. “Good morning, Dr. Murdoch,” she said, slightly out of breath. “Actually, I’ve reconsidered your offer. I’ve decided to accompany you on your voyage, if the invitation is still open?”

“Of course it is!” he said, pleased that she had changed her mind. He noticed she was wearing a medium-sized backpack. “I see you’ve packed light?”

“I’m a simple person.”

“Well, come on aboard then. I’ll show you to your cabin.”

∆∆∆

Marty spent some time on the bridge with Pip, charting their course, before settling in front of his computer in the salon. Demon Island, he learned, was one of Sri Lanka’s eighteen national parks. Unlike the others, however, it was designated a wildlife sanctuary in 1964 and visitors were not permitted. Moreover, little scientific research had been undertaken on the island over the last two decades due to the civil war that had consumed the country. All of which meant there was little information—at least in English—about the place. Nevertheless, Marty did come across one curious story which, if true, might explain the island’s nefarious moniker. It occurred in 1703, while Sri Lanka was under Dutch colonial rule. At the time the island had been named Wormerveer, after the town in North Holland. A Dutch soldier named Jeronimus Pelgrom, stationed on the mainland, was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to spend the rest of his living days marooned on Demon Island. He was provided a tent, water, seeds, tobacco, clothing, a Bible, and writing materials. He wasn’t expected to survive six months. When soldiers returned to collect his corpse, they found him gaunt but alive, having survived by eating sea turtles and seabirds and drinking rainwater. He was also raving drunk. As a former distiller, he had learned to brew a potent spirit from the roots of a native plant. He claimed the island was cursed by God and haunted by evil spirits, and he begged the soldiers to take him back to the mainland. They did not, and the castaway Jeronimus Pelgrom was never seen alive or dead again.

When Marty checked the time, he was surprised to find that almost three hours had passed. He stood and stretched and went to the aft deck. The sun was a blistering gold disc in the blue, cloudless sky. The calm ocean appeared to stretch to infinity with not a speck of land in sight. Jacky sat at a table beneath a large straw sunhat she had purchased in a surf shop, earbuds in her ears, working on her laptop. She gave him a quick wave before resuming her work. Rad lay stretched out on a deck chair in a red bikini she’d bought at the same surf shop. She’d slathered herself in sunscreen and was reading a Clive Cussler hardcover novel from the bookcase in the salon. The Pomeranian was curled in a ball on the deck next to her, apparently sleeping.