The Girl from Everywhere (The Girl from Everywhere #1)(60)

He was quiet so long I thought maybe he’d gone. “As you say,” he said, finally. I didn’t hear his footsteps as he left, but I did hear his door open and close.

I sighed, and Blake dropped my hands and stood, taking a step back, suddenly quite formal. “Perhaps rather than—” He cleared his throat. “Perhaps I might indeed take a moment to speak with the captain.”

“What for?”

He straightened his shoulders. “I am no scoundrel.”

I pressed my lips together and took a step back myself. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

“Have I flattered myself to think you’ve enjoyed the time we’ve spent? I am not asking for a promise. Only an opportunity.”

An opportunity—and an escape, although not the one I’d planned. I imagined it then, not just another week, but another year, another decade—a lifetime here in the place of my birth. Learning more than what I could in books, in paradise before the fall.

Although fall it would.

Knowing what I knew, the choice should have been clearer, but looking into Blake’s eyes, I couldn’t find the words to give him a real answer. Instead, I resorted to cowardice. “My father would likely refuse.”

“Perhaps he’s never considered that a ship is not the best place for a lady.”

“I’m not a lady, Blake. I’m a sailor.”

“But so nearly a local. You may consider extending your stay—just for a time? A year? Two? We could explore the hidden trails and the secret caverns and live on fish and fruit. I could even teach you to surf if you miss the rhythm of the water.” He took my hand again and stared into my eyes. His own were the color of the open sea. “We could map every hidden spot on the island.”

“Blake.” My mouth was dry. All I could add was “Please.”

He clenched his jaw, locking all the objections he wanted to make behind his teeth. Blake was indeed a gentleman. He stood the next few minutes in excruciating silence, his hands clasped and his head bowed, before I crept out of the room to check the hall.

The coast was clear, and quietly, we went above. Rotgut didn’t look at us, but he did raise one hand in a salute.

I walked Blake to the gangplank, where he stopped. “Come, Mr. Hart,” I said.

He opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then his eyes fell on the red lei lying on the deck, and he sighed. “Do you know, it’s customary for people leaving the islands to toss leis from the boats, in the hopes that they, like the flowers, will return someday to Hawaii’s shores?” He put his hat back on his head. “Good-bye, Miss Song. It’s been quite an adventure.”

I didn’t want to watch him go, but it was difficult to turn away. Once he was out of sight, I picked up the lei and let it fall onto the waves, where it floated like blood in the water. Would I ever reconsider? One day, might I grow old seeking a map of this place and time?

The thought terrified me.

I had promised myself years ago I’d never make my father’s mistake. I was not meant to drop anchor or seek harbor.

I went below, out of the island sun and away from the sight of the town, to hide in the bosom of ship, but she was like a sleeping beast. I didn’t know whether I was safe under her protection or caught in her claws.

My room felt claustrophobic when it never had before, so I made a halfhearted attempt at clearing the floor, piling my clothes against the trunk, and stacking the books Blake had so nearly taken up. Half of them had been printed in the next century, although they covered the last few millennia. The Gods of Egypt, the Prose Edda, and here, Beowulf in the original Old English, the story of a hero who saved his people by killing a monster. Of course, if you consider Grendel’s mother, Beowulf was the monster who murdered her son. I closed the book and placed it atop a book of fairy tales: the old ones, the Grimm ones, the ones without happy endings. The ones that had been real.

Why did the stories I knew best never end well?

But why too did I feel at home among them?

I could never give up the myths, the maps, the ship that had shaped me. Blake’s home might be paradise, but my home was the Temptation.

The last book in the pile wasn’t a book at all, but the covers of the hymnal that protected the map Joss had sold me. I sucked in a breath. I knew then how to get my father what he needed. I took the map with me as I went above and, with a new sense of purpose, knocked on Slate’s door. “Captain?”

It was a moment before he responded. “Yes.”

He was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his elbows on his knees, his palms open toward the sky, his jacket flung over the chair. By his mussed hair and flushed cheeks, he must have just lifted his head from his hands, but when he saw the look on my face, he scrambled to his feet. “You found something.”

I met his gaze. “You’ll teach me.”

“Yes.”

“Then this is the last map I help you with.”

“I promise,” he said quickly, but I shook my head.

“I’m not asking you,” I said. “I’m telling you. This is the last time.”

He caught his breath, then let it out, something softer than a sigh. “I always knew you’d abandon me once you knew how.”

“I’m not abandoning you,” I said. “I’m letting you go.”