The Girl from Everywhere (The Girl from Everywhere #1)(43)

I smiled back at him. “Don’t you know how to swim?”

“Miss Song. Do you think I could have lived my life on an island and not learned how to swim?”

“Why is that a given? Do you want to escape?”

He laughed and reached for me, helping me across a rocky patch of the trail where orchids bloomed at my feet and my father’s words resurfaced: “heaven in a wild flower.” The path smoothed, but I didn’t let go of Blake’s hand. “My mother talks of sending me to England to complete my education,” he said. “But no, I don’t want to leave.”

“Why not?” I asked, and then I stopped dead in my tracks. We had emerged from the exuberant undergrowth into a large clearing where, as Blake had said, a silver spray of water burst from the cliff face fifty feet above our heads, enveloping the mossy black rocks in clouds of mist as it fell to shatter the mirror of the black pool at our feet.

“Why not?” He turned to me, his face shining. “This is paradise, Miss Song,” he said, gesturing at the roaring falls. “This is home.”



Blake dropped me off at the ship near dinnertime. We hadn’t had time to explore the caves above the falls, but Blake gave his word he’d show me some day. Neither of us set a date, though; we knew the promise was empty. Despite the guavas, I heard his stomach growling on the ride back, and I hoped it was loud enough to mask the sound of my own. This close to the ship, I smelled Rotgut cooking fish stew and I hesitated on the dock. I might have invited Blake up for a bowl, if he were of another era, and I’d had another upbringing.

Bee was there on the deck, watching us impassively. Blake raised his hand to hail her, and she nodded without saying a word. His eyes sparkled as he leaned in to whisper. “She is certainly a pirate.”

“Not at all. She was a cattle herder.”

“What? Like a paniolo? A cowboy?”

“Cowgirl.”

“Like Annie Oakley!”

“She’s better with a revolver than a rifle.”

“Who cut her throat? Was it cattle rustlers?”

“A man jealous of her . . . her marriage, actually.”

“How awful.” Blake gazed at Bee. “It’s hard to comprehend all the evil committed in the name of love.”

“Or greed,” I said, remembering Kashmir and Slate and the business I’d mostly forgotten all afternoon. I took a step back, toward the ship, suddenly anxious not to have Kashmir come up on deck and see us together. “Good night, Mr. Hart.”

“Until the full moon, Miss Song.” He tipped his hat to me, as though ready to leave, but he did not go. “I would like to ask,” he said after a moment. “I would be honored . . . if you would attend as my personal guest.”

“Oh? Oh! Oh, ah—I was attending with, uh . . . with my tutor, actually,” I finished lamely. Puzzlement flickered across Blake’s face; it was a terribly unbelievable story, for the time. “He is also my dancing instructor,” I extemporized.

“Do you dance much on the ship, then?”

“Ah. Well. You must have heard that dancing is a cure for seasickness!”

“Odd,” he said. “A sailor who gets seasick?”

I laughed a little. What else could I do?

“Well,” he continued, dropping the point. “Perhaps he would prefer to have the evening off? There are many events in Honolulu that night.”

“I . . . I know he is eager to attend the ball.”

“Ah. Then I will be pleased to see the both of you there,” he said, but he seemed less pleased than he had a moment before. He tipped his hat again. “Good night then, Miss Song.” He turned Pilikia toward home. Her ears swiveled forward, and she broke into a trot with little urging.

I climbed up the gangplank; here, on the deck of the ship, I was once more on firm footing. I met Bee’s eyes. “He doesn’t have any cattle either,” I told her, and she laughed.

Kashmir and Slate had not yet returned, so I needn’t have worried about being seen, though I could have been worrying about where they were. But I was too hungry to worry. I ate so fast I barely tasted my dinner, outpacing even Rotgut, although that may have been because he was telling me about the rock lobsters he’d caught on the reef, while I was focused more single-mindedly on consuming them. It was only shortly after I finished my bowl that I heard Kash and Slate tramping across the deck above my head.

After a moment of consideration, I made up two conciliatory bowls of stew and carried them topside. I found them together, their heads close. The captain’s face was drawn, and though they spoke in low tones, his gestures were emphatic, and he broke off abruptly when he saw me approach. Kashmir accepted the bowl gratefully, but Slate just shook his head.

It had been years since I’d last bothered trying to insist. I dug into the stew myself, more slowly this time. It was very good: huge chunks of white lobster in a broth rich with butter. Rotgut loved to eat well, and it showed in his cooking.

“So,” I asked. “How did it go? On a scale of one to treason?”

Kashmir barked a laugh, but Slate waved a dismissive hand. I pursed my lips. “I was worried about you,” I said to my father. He didn’t respond. “Worried you’d get shot.”

He folded his arms and glared off toward the blackness of the open sea. “We weren’t shot.”