Marieke insisted my recollections of that time were wrong, that I deliberately skipped over all the good things about my parents. She claimed we’d once been inseparable, like the three fishermen from the lullaby, sailing our shoe into the sky to catch falling stars. I didn’t remember it that way. Even as a child, I knew I was different, a changeling belonging to another family. I wished I could give Marieke what she wanted. It would be so easy to lie and say I remembered only kindness and warmth, safety and protection. But it would not be true. And the truth was important to me. It was what drove me to uncover the stories woven into the clothing I was charged with preserving. Human history and textiles were inextricably linked; one could not exist without the other.

‘It doesn’t matter now.’ Standing up, I jammed a pair of archival gloves into the suitcase, hoping she’d take the hint and leave me to finish packing. By some extraordinary stroke of luck, I’d managed to nab one of the last flights out of Sydney today. The plane didn’t board till six, but I wanted to get there early so I could sit in the lounge and write out the contingency plan I was formulating – an emergency response to counteract damage inflicted on the improperly handled artefacts. I needed to try contacting Liam again, too. His mobile had gone straight to voicemail. He was probably up to his elbows in lab work or stuck in some dusty archive.

Marieke sighed. ‘I always thought Hilde would run off with you to the mainland,’ she said. ‘But she stayed on the island, against all the odds.’

I crossed the hallway to the bathroom to retrieve my toothbrush, ‘Maybe you didn’t know her as well as you thought.’

‘It wasn’t that. She met someone. They were together for years.’

I froze. ‘Like… a boyfriend?’