Above them, a square flag, half red and half white, fluttered on a mast in the breeze. “To warn the whole island that this vessel is filled with female incorrigibles.” Olive’s sailor grinned.

“Will ye miss him?” Hazel asked her.

Olive swatted him on the behind. “Parts of him, at least,” she said.

From the cove where the Medea was anchored, Hazel could see the busy wharf, and behind it, a tall mountain covered thickly in trees. She watched from the railing as Dunne and two sailors boarded a small boat. Under Dunne’s arm he carried the ledger in which she’d watched him write each day’s account, along with a binder filled with the women’s court records and other documents—including Ruby’s newly filled-out birth certificate.

When the boat made its way back from the pier to the ship several hours later, it held two extra men who turned out to be the superintendent of convicts and a British soldier in a scarlet uniform.

Over the next two days, the convicts were called to a makeshift office on the upper deck where they were catalogued, examined for infection, and quizzed about their skills. They were told that many of them would be sent out daily from the prison on assignment to work in settlers’ homes and shops as housemaids, cooks, flax spinners, straw plaiters, weavers, seamstresses, and laundresses. Others would work inside the prison. Insubordinates would be separately confined.

The superintendent began the assessments. When he called “Ferguson!” Hazel stepped forward.

He ran his finger down the ledger. “Height?”

“Five foot, one inch,” the British soldier said, holding a measuring stick against her back.

“Build?”

“Slight,” he said.

“Age?”

“Seventeen,” Hazel said. Dunne had mentioned offhandedly a few weeks earlier that September had come and gone, and she’d realized that her birthday had, as well.

Freckled complexion. Oval head. Red hair. Wide forehead. Auburn eyebrows. Gray eyes.

“Literate?”

“Somewhat.”

“Trade?”

Dunne stepped forward. “She has an infant, so it is my recommendation that she work in the nursery. She is quite . . . capable.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, and he gave her a smile that vanished so quickly she was the only one to see it.

Twelve hours later, as she stood on the main deck with the other convicts, Hazel gazed up at the moon, as yellow as a yolk in a cast-iron sky. By its light she could make out the phalanx of rowboats waiting to ferry the convicts to shore. The air was damp and cool. The women surged forward as the crew began loading them into boats. “Slow down, ye lot, or you’re never getting off this ship!” the British soldier shouted. “No skin off my nose to keep ye here. A prison’s a prison.”

A light rain began to fall. After some time, Olive came to stand beside Hazel, and, without a word, reached for the baby. She’d learned to anticipate when Ruby was hungry, and often appeared at the door to Hazel’s room just before she woke. Now Olive held Ruby in one arm and deftly unbuttoned her blouse with the other.