The Girl from Everywhere (The Girl from Everywhere #1)(18)

I would be a stranger to Lin. How would Slate even introduce me, at sixteen, to her, still pregnant and barely half again my age? And how would he explain the long years he’d lived without her, mapped so clearly on his face?

Although now, within sight of paradise, some of that time had fallen away. Glowing with anticipation, Slate handed off the wheel to Bee and bounded to the prow. His eager eyes roved the shore, as if for a glimpse of Lin herself, but then . . .

But then . . .

Within half a mile of the harbor, his hope crumbled, his face fell, and my own treacherous heart rose. He flung himself back from the rail, his hand over his face as though blinded, or weeping.

As we approached the island, the captain brought the birdcage out on deck. He removed the hood, and the caladrius blinked, her eyes black as polished pebbles. My protests rose and then died in my throat as the captain lifted the bird gently toward the sky. She cocked her head, taking in the water, the land before us, even my face, but she did not look at the captain before she beat her white wings and leaped into the air. He watched until she was a bright speck against the emerald isle, before he turned away once more.

I reached for his arm, but he shook me off like I was a stranger in the street and went back to his cabin. The locks clicked into place behind him.

Pity mingled with relief and made me feel seasick. I picked up the empty birdcage and crushed it into sticks, tossing it piece by piece into the waves as I scanned the shore.

What had he seen from so far away? Was it the steamships in the harbor? No, they’d been in Hawaii since the 1830s. The town by the beach? Or, there, the steeple of Kawa’iahao Church—but no, the church was finished in 1842.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Kashmir asked. “What are you staring at?”

I half raised my hand as I studied the scene, trying to see through my father’s eyes. There were flags on Iolani Palace, flying at half-mast—was there anyone Slate might have known enough about to match their deaths to a date? Then I let my hand fall. It wasn’t the black flags flying over the palace that he’d noticed, but the palace itself.

“Iolani Palace didn’t exist in 1868,” I said. “We’re quite late.”

In spite of my relief, the idea was galling. How was it possible? A date was the most basic anchor on a map. All good maps had anchors, something setting the map in the right place and the right time. Iolani Palace, for example.

I remembered it now, labeled on the page, but I hadn’t really seen it, I had been too focused on the date. I could have saved myself the worry if I’d only checked more closely.

But who drew a map and misdated it?

Kashmir shook his head. “So is the map broken, or the captain?”

I blinked. “That’s a very good question.” I crossed my arms. Slate wouldn’t give me any answers, but A. Sutfin must live here. Perhaps he could shed some light on the dates, if I could track him down.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a cowbell. Bee let the bell fall back to her belt and gestured at the mainsail: the edge was luffing. Kash and I moved to trim the sheet.

“Could be worse,” Rotgut said as he came down from the crow’s nest. “I’d enjoy a nice tropical vacation. Has the mai tai been invented yet? Maybe I’ll invent it.”

“Depending on how long we’re here, you could open a tiki bar,” I said, taking hold of the halyard. “Although I don’t know how you’d pay for it.”

“The captain should have some money at the bank,” he said. I dropped the slack rope in a tangle on the deck; Kashmir tripped and shot me a look.

“Money? In a bank? Like with an actual account and everything?”

Rotgut shrugged. “He opened it for Lin when he sailed. When he returned, he was . . . too distracted to bother closing it.”

“I see.”

“But let’s not forget the most important thing,” Rotgut said. “The fishing here is incredible.” He waggled his eyebrows. “And maybe Bee’s admirer is still around.”

“Ehhh.” Bee waved her hand dismissively.

“What’s this?” Kash asked.

“A local man sniffed around the ship for weeks. Handsome fellow. I didn’t have the heart to tell him she was already married.” Rotgut leaned close to fake a whisper and pointed at Bee behind his hand. “But she pushed him over the rail and into the bay.”

“That was Ayen, not me!”

I laughed along with them, but it was odd to consider how much history they had here, in this home I’d never known. Of course, I knew the Temptation had been docked here for almost two years. But to hear their stories, told as casually as one might open an old book to a dog-eared page . . . it was unsettling. Kashmir and I were the only ones aboard who’d never lived in Hawaii.

We sailed between the coral reefs along a meandering route of deep indigo, past Quarantine Island, the little sandbar at the edge of the bay from which clouds of sulfur smoke spewed from giant fumigating ovens. The green furze beyond the gold band of the shore resolved itself into broad-leaved bananas alongside coconut palms as stately as standards, spreading breadfruit trees, and falling, tumbling masses of bougainvillea.

Rotgut called out to a pilot ship approaching, flying the snappy flag of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The harbor master hailed us as we approached, and came alongside. His broad brown face was bisected by a thick mustache, which was very much in style in the late nineteenth century, and he introduced himself as Colonel Iaukea, collector of the port.