He turned in at precisely the point his father had taught him to – between the humped rock and the one they called the ‘jagged tooth’ – his mouth already open to announce their joyous arrival. But the words stuck in his throat at what he saw there.

Linus and Bell sat up as they drifted into the lee of the island cluster, all straightening as they saw it too – a wall of sea mist ahead of them, rising like a steam above the water, perfectly caught within the walls of the lagoon.

It was a common enough sight out here – the sky could be a cloudless, singing blue overhead, but the scattered dots of land would be all but lost to view as the marine mists rolled and billowed, smothering and obscuring even nearby isles from sight. They usually passed quickly enough, sometimes in just a few minutes, others in an hour, or several.

Still, this one was dense. The islands’ feathery green-black silhouettes quickly faded from sight, becoming shadowy and crepuscular. Emil took off his sunglasses as the murk enveloped them, his hand hovering lightly on the tiller as they edged in, cutting the speed further as even the warning sticks became difficult to spot. The mist was gauzy and diaphanous from a distance but inside the mass, it was as dense and opaque as a cumulo nimbus; the endless sun was finally blotted out and everything seemed to slide forward a notch, like a car shifting gear – day became evening, summer became autumn. It felt impossible to recall the open brightness and warmth of even a few moments earlier, for it was cool in the gloom, the only sound the boat sluicing through the eerily calm waters of the inlet.

Bell looked across at him worriedly – possibly even accusingly; perhaps she would say he should have known this was a possibility – but he was oblivious to her censure, his jaw set in a rigid lock, his eyes moving fast as he scanned for the markers that would tell them where they were. Ripping the bottom off the boat out here was a distinctly dangerous prospect. In the space of mere minutes, the over-reaching, buttery sky had dimmed and closed down around them, blotting out the rest of the world so that nothing existed beyond the confines of this boat. Had they been in a bigger vessel, they would have had radar equipment to guide them through, but the two oars on the floor by their feet were the only back-up system on board here.

No one spoke. Shapes emerged from the gloom, receding again in the next breath: a bird flapped its wings in a nearby tree, startling Bell so that she gave a little gasp; a ripple creased the water as a fish surfaced, then sank back into the depths. To their left, a vague mass drifted past. Or rather, they drifted past it. Emil could just make out the spiny points of pine trees, higher in the skyline than anywhere else. They were in the right place, at least, and he pushed on the tiller lightly, guiding the boat closer towards the landmass, remembering there were no rocks in front of the island’s apex.