They’re somber as they tie up to the innermost dock, stretching lines out in every direction until it looks like Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is caught in a spiderweb. Willa uses the dinghy to set the anchor in the marshy shallows near shore. Once she’s back on board, they deflate the little boat and stow the outboard in a cockpit locker. Taylor takes out the speargun. “Just in case.”

They walk a little way up the road to have a look around, but there’s nothing to see. There are no houses or shops or restaurants. The people who live on the island have either evacuated or are holed up in their homes, making it feel as though Willa and Taylor are utterly alone. The air is hot and dense in anticipation of the oncoming storm, and the first raindrops fall like tiny bombs. They run back to the boat as the drops turn to a downpour, soaking through to their skin.

31.4178° N, 81.2958° W

Believe the unbelievable.

Taylor

EVERY TIME SHE THINKS THIS is the hardest rain she’s ever experienced, Mother Nature—well, Hurricane Dorian—seems to prove Taylor wrong. For a while they were able to keep the hatches cracked to let the air circulate, but the cabin has become a sauna and they’ve stripped down to their bathing suits, trying to stay cool.

Now the rain is coming down sideways and working really hard to get into the boat. It drips from windows they thought were watertight. Drips from the bolts on the ceiling where the mast connects to the deck. It vibrates the companionway hatch boards and sprays through the cracks between. All this, and the hurricane hasn’t even hit yet. Taylor peers out her (leaking) window into utter blackness and it feels like the world has vanished. She looks away, hating the feel of being so alone.

“I figured out ‘Believe the unbelievable,’ ” she says, dropping onto her bunk, avoiding the growing damp spot.

“Yeah?”

It’s weird to actually be talking to Willa again. She wonders if this is temporary. “I think Finley wanted us to take a ghost tour of Charleston, or maybe Savannah.”

They didn’t do anything noteworthy in either city—just docked, slept, ate, and kept on moving south. Taylor bought snow globes, but there aren’t any memories attached to them. They haven’t done anything memorable since North Carolina. It’s her own fault, and Taylor’s pretty sure getting caught in a hurricane is at least half her fault too. She should have been paying better attention to the weather instead of feeling sorry for herself. She feels a tiny surge of relief when the corner of Willa’s mouth hitches up and she nods.

“That makes total sense. Finley always liked creepy, oddball stuff.”