It took a shoulder to shove the door fully open. It dragged against the floor—which inspired him to look behind it and see that there was an arc of cleaner space where someone else had done the same and pushed it wider.

Not necessarily Beth. It could have been anyone. Tourists caught out in the rain, seeking the imperfect shelter of leaky thatch, most likely.

Then his gaze found the rickety, rotting table in front of the window. On which sat a rock. No, not a rock.

A small, water-scarred cannonball.

His heart thudded, though he wasn’t sure if it was from hope or more dread. He spun around, taking in the entirety of the cottage in one turn. Was that clean spot there evidence that someone had hunkered down here? Was that water in the ancient sink from use or the holes in the thatch?

Had Beth been here?

Probably not. But . . . but maybe so. And if so, this could be his only chance of getting a message to her.

Thinking it worth the gamble, he pulled the note from his pocket as he strode to the table. He added a line about Mamm-wynn, scrawled Beth’s name on the outside of the folded page, put it on the table, and anchored it with the lead. Finishing off the offering with Mamm-wynn’s bouquet, he backed away.

Father, draw her here. Let her find this, I beg you.

With that, he spun on his heel and hurried back outside, careful to wrestle the door mostly shut behind him.

His grandmother still hadn’t budged. As carefully as if she were made of finest porcelain, he gathered her into his arms and began the trek back to Tas-gwyn, Libby, and the boats.

Evening had found them again, somehow. Right now it was stretching through the house with long arms of sunshine that elbowed their way through the windows, but soon those golden rays would go purple and red and dusky. Then would come the grey, then the blue, then the black.

Oliver raked a hand through his hair and stared out at the familiar coastline, the familiar sea, the familiar vista. Such beautiful colors, when they were painted over the land.

Such hideous ones when they marred the flesh of one he loved. Mabena’s face displayed them all today, and Tas-gwyn’s head did too. Only his grandmother had no visible signs of whatever trauma had found her.

Only his grandmother still lay in her bed unconscious, the twelve hours since he found her passing in a blur of visits from neighbors and family and the doctor, who had quietly suggested that she’d suffered some sort of apoplexy. They couldn’t know for sure, but the evidence suggested that her own body had attacked her rather than some outside force, likely caused by her advanced age or the stress of Beth being missing.