He wants to know, and me to find out for him, she thought, and then a fuller understanding fell on her in a flood of startling light. No, more than just this one episode. He wants me to finish it for him, all of it, The Braithwaite Gathering. Maybe to look for the sin, maybe because we are all of us bundles of our ancestors, bound to them, they to us, by the long chains of our genes. They, too, are part of our gathering. To look back to them is to look toward our own futures. Blood is destiny. We can change our fates if we are wise enough and strong enough, but before the wisdom, before the strength, there must come knowledge of the blood and all that is in it, the poisoned and the pure.

Corinne, cupping her ear: “Myles, did you hear me? I said supper’s ready.”

“Yes, yes, yes, I heard you,” He whipped his chair into a sharp right turn and said, “C’mon, Cousinniece, I’ll tell you what I know about Cyrus at dinner. You’ll need to know about him before you start. A hard man, hard as a white oak plank.”

3

NATHANIEL KEPT Double Eagle’s log up to date from the very first day. Sybil shows it to me: a blue bound book about eight by eleven inches, smelling of mold and mildew, the cover water-stained, and the stiff pages stained as well, with brownish spots that make some of the entries illegible or nearly so. But the first one is not. I can see it plainly in the desert light pouring down on the interior courtyard of Sybil’s house, so far from the sea. Nathaniel’s handwriting—graceful strokes of a young man trained in the old school of penmanship—is easily read. 11 June 1901: At 8 a.m. today Nathaniel Braithwaite placed in command of this vessel until Sept. On board as crew: Eliot Braithwaite, Andrew Braithwaite is how the first entry begins. The next sentences are equally terse: Cast off from Mingulay at ten a.m. Very light airs. All sails set. SW by ½ W. Destination unknown at present.

I am struck by that starkly evocative phrase, Destination unknown at present, but Sybil remarks that she is more intrigued by the time lag. It should not have taken them two hours to hoist sail and cast off. There might have been a number of explanations for their lingering—maybe they cooked a hearty breakfast for themselves, maybe they were waiting for a wind. But Sybil imagines a different reason: They must have felt more orphaned than liberated, abandoned to their own devices, which would have seemed in woefully short supply.

She has looked back through time and seen the three dumbfounded boys standing at the schooner’s rail.…