“Really.” Back on my freedom hobbyhorse; without a phone, I am not tethered to anyone having access to me anytime they want, with their texts and calls. Joellen has her phone; I can always find a landline to get to her. She and the parents can call the school if they need me, and outside of school I am always where I say I will be. Libraries and school have all the computers and interwebs I need. I am impeccably reliable and so have earned the right to not be under constant surveillance.

“Huh.” I could hear her wheels turning, but she said only, “Walk near civilization for now. Need some money?”

“I’m okay,” I said. Never be needy. Never be a burden.

“All right. See you in two hours, not a minute past.”

“Two hours. From now. I’ll be back here. Got it.” I learned years ago that the best way to avoid getting accused of being late, missing curfew, misbehaving, was to repeat their words, exactly what a parent says, right back to them. Helps them remember.

“Can you find your way?” Francine asked.

I nodded through my swollen throat. Could I find my way back? What had I agreed to? Alone on an actual island. With bats.

“Joellen says I’m meant to be your last,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Okay then.” She put the map in my hand. “Let’s be each other’s.”

Her smile made my throat feel a little bit better.

Chapter Four

NO FOSTER PARENT HAD EVER let me just take off for a walk like that, and definitely not twenty minutes after arriving, especially not in a brand-new town. Francine was a puzzle. Maybe, since I was her last, there was no reason to be meticulous. Coasting to retirement.

The first thing I always do when I move into a new house is get back outside as fast as I can and walk beneath the open sky, where I am still and always home.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

I walked the island that first day, across a quiet highway to a trail through a forest wilderness, back out to the road to a path beside the harbor, boats docked and bobbing in the ferry’s wake, and then the main street. Shops lined both sides, not chain stores—candles and books and toys. A sign guiding me to the internment museum. Post office with a thousand paper cranes folded from express envelopes suspended in its branches. A candy shop. I ducked in and bought a pack of Fruit Stripe gum. Outside, people and dogs walked around me, and then in the sea air there was the aroma of baking bread.

Across the street. Blackbird Coffee and Pie. Like the four and twenty.

Joellen will love this.