‘Afraid how? I said to him. What colour this fear? I asked him. What shape? What feel? Where does it come from? Go to?

‘“It’s the colour of green ginger. It’s the shape of a metal coil. It’s the feel of sorcery.” I believed him. I still believe him.’

‘You do?’

‘Well, no. Not with all of me. Not with the part of me that sits here in the white man’s resort with you. Not with the part that waits for Leonard and Laedi. The part of me that knows the villages down here, that knows the magic worked in these fjords is strong yet – that part of me, yes, it knows. The part of me that waits for Jericho and Bili and is afraid for them.’

‘Isn’t sorcery the reason that’s there when there is no reason?’ Martha says.

‘How western you are, Martha. Reasons. There are no reasons. There are mysteries. There are things that happen for the reason of happening. And there’s magic. Do you look at these fjords, these still waters, and not think that in the deep water there is a force that could bring you down? Do you think nothing lives down there but mackerel and squid? In the caves and holes that go into the seabed, under the ledges?’

‘You’re an inland man. You don’t like water. It makes you suspicious.’

‘Ah, Martha. Even you talk of mystery.’

‘The mystery of the human heart,’ she says. ‘That’s what I call a mystery.’

‘So is death.’

‘For death there is a reason, you know that. A heart attack down there under the water. A sea snake.’

‘There was no mark,’ Milton says.

‘There was no autopsy.’

‘There was no reason. It was time. Aaron knew. Rika knew long before. It was made to be time. There was a force at work. Strong force, no matter what you call it.’

‘Angel,’ Martha says. ‘That was Rika’s mistake. She should never have told Angel.’

‘They knew anyway. They didn’t know how, but they knew she’d done something to stop a child. All Angel did is tell them what.’

They are on uncomfortable terrain, and while it doesn’t embarrass Martha, it does him – this matter of Rika’s infertility, and Angel’s betrayal when she told the women in the village about the coil inside her, drilled up, mincing the sperm, killing the spirits of babies. So Milton slopes off to bed with an apologetic half-smile, leaving Martha alone on the veranda with a bill to sign.

BILI AND JERICHO ARRIVE LATE THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON. MARTHA has read her way through another morning of waiting. The sky is overcast, and Milton is down on the wharf when the dinghy comes into the fjord, but it’s not until they’re at the bend on the way up the hill, Milton hollering to her on the terrace, that Martha sees they’ve arrived and hurries to meet them. The clouds are darker, and the first drops of rain are splattering onto the path, and there, striding ahead, is Bili. She’s taller than Martha remembers. Her hair is tied back in a knot, and she has a small canvas pack on her back. There’s a lot of her grandmother in her – wide mouth, prominent cheekbones, large, slightly hooked nose – but where Simbaikan walked with a determination that had her all knees and angles, Bili walks with the confidence of a modern future.