Sitting on the bench with Ruby, watching Mathinna make her way down the street, Hazel felt a strange and unquenchable sadness. They were, both of them, exiles, torn from their homes and families. But Hazel had stolen a spoon to earn that status; Mathinna had done nothing to deserve her fate. Hazel was marked with the convict stain and would be for many years, but it erased itself as time went on. She could already feel it lessening. She could stroll through the market with a basket over her arm, and Ruby’s hand in hers, and no one would guess. Mathinna had no such luxury. She would never be able to melt into the crowd, to go about her business without judgment and suspicion.

“Where’s she going, Mama?” Ruby asked.

“I don’t know.”

“She’s nice.”

“Yes.”

Ruby fingered the shells around her neck.

“Do ye like your necklace?” When Ruby nodded, Hazel said, more sharply than she intended, “It’s special. Ye must take good care of it.”

“I know. I will. Can we get cherries, Mama?”

“Yes.” Hazel sighed, rising from the bench. “We can get cherries.”

Hobart Town, 1843

The first meeting of the Association of Licensed Physicians in Melbourne was scheduled for mid-February, and Dunne had decided to attend. It was several days’ journey by ship; he planned to remain on the mainland for a week to learn about some surgical innovations. Maeve would stay in a small spare room at the back of the house while he was away, and she and Hazel would mind the practice. If emergencies arose that they couldn’t handle, they’d send patients to Hobart Hospital for treatment.

It was a temperate afternoon. Clouds drifted across a powder-blue sky. Gulls swooped overhead, yawping their plaintive lament. The ship to Melbourne was scheduled to depart from Hobart Town at three o’clock, and Hazel decided to accompany Dunne to the wharf, a ten-minute stroll. As they walked, they discussed a patient’s ongoing treatment, a Dickens novel Hazel was reading that featured a character sentenced to transportation, a lesson plan for Ruby.

“Eleven days,” Dunne said at the gangplank. “You’ll be fine without me?”

“Of course we’ll be fine.”

“I know you will.” He squeezed her hand. “Tell Ruby goodbye for me.”

“I will.” Ruby had been building fairy houses with Maeve in the back garden when they’d left.

Sitting on a bench at the Elizabeth Street Pier after Dunne had boarded, Hazel watched the crew of the large wooden ship scurry to raise its gangplank. The air smelled of burning wood, wildfires from just beyond the perimeter of town. She gazed out at the spinachy seaweed on the pebbled shore and the boats nodding in the harbor. Sunlight glittered on the waves, an inverse of stars.

She thought, as she often did when looking out at the water, about Evangeline, out there in the deep. She remembered a line from The Tempest: Full fathom five thy father lies. / Of his bones are coral made. Ariel tells Ferdinand that his father, who drowned, underwent a sea change: his bones transformed into coral, his eyes pearls.