Alex’s eyes widened. “There’s a whole shipload of them sunk off Ishibashi’s island.”
“I’m not surprised to hear that. Some scientists went in search of the missing fleet,” Kaylee said. “But they went missing too.”
“Ishibashi, Ito, and Sato?” guessed Lani.
“For sure,” said Kaylee, nodding. “I forget the name of their ship, but it was well documented.”
“Oh!” said Alex abruptly. “I saw the name. Some of the letters were missing. K-O something number five.”
Kaylee looked sharply at him. “That’s it! Kaiyo Maru Number Five. You saw it? It was Ishibashi’s ship?”
“That’s what Ishibashi told me,” Alex said. “I transported it from under the water and put it on the shore so they could get their stuff if they wanted to.”
“And they did,” said Sky. “Remember the telescope Ishibashi showed us?”
Alex nodded.
Tears welled up in Kaylee’s eyes for reasons she had trouble articulating. “No one has ever returned from a triangle,” she said. “I guess . . .” She trailed off, gazing across the dining room deep in thought. “I guess I always thought the people had died. And the ships and planes that disappeared were at the bottom of the Devil’s Sea, so deep they were unable to be recovered. I never imagined there was an actual place where people could survive . . . and thrive, even.”
Sky frowned. “If the scientists are from your world, are you saying that it’s possible we all came from there? That we were somehow swept into the Dragon’s Triangle? Because I’m pretty sure I wasn’t. I was born on Warbler. So was my mother.”
“Not you specifically,” Kaylee said. “But maybe your ancestors. Your grandparents or great-grandparents or who knows how many generations ago were lost at sea, succumbing to the grasp of the dreaded triangle. And instead of dying, they found themselves here.”
“Like the people in the vessel?” Sky asked. “Several months ago a . . . a thing fell from the sky and landed in the water.”
“An airplane,” said Lani.
“Right,” said Sky. “The people inside were dead, though.”
Kaylee nodded. “I suspect they came from my world,” she said. “If no one on all the seven islands you’ve visited manufactures or flies airplanes, they must come from somewhere else, right?”
“We have parts of airplanes upstairs in the Museum of Large,” Alex said. “Mr. Appleblossom and Mr. Today kept them from years ago.”
Kaylee looked at the others, puzzled. “But I don’t understand something. Didn’t anybody ever tell you stories about how they came to be here? Your grandparents or anyone?”
“Not in Quill,” Lani said. “No storytelling allowed. Or writing things down.”
Kaylee shook her head. “That’s right,” she muttered. “What a strange place.” She looked at Sky. “How about you on your island?”
Sky pointed to the scars on her neck. “We didn’t exactly have a chance to talk a lot, and we didn’t have school like the children in Quill did—we just worked from the time we were able. But I know my mother and her parents were born on Warbler. You’re the only one I know who just showed up here and survived.”
“Well,” Kaylee said, “there are the scientists, too.”
“Oh yes,” said Sky, “I forgot. They never told us, though—you did.”
“And Talon, maybe,” suggested Lani. “He said he didn’t remember how he arrived on Karkinos, but he’s been there for thousands of years.”
“Well . . . ,” Kaylee said, screwing up her face a little as she was about to object, but then didn’t see the point in it.
“And Issie,” Alex said, sitting up. “She’s been looking for her lost baby for seven hundred years, remember? I wonder if she was swept into our world while she was looking?”
“And now maybe she’ll never find her child,” Sky said sadly.
They were silent and thoughtful for a long while as they contemplated the origins of everyone they’d met in their tiny, seven-island world.
Lani’s interest returned to the map. “What’s the name of your . . . of the place you came from?”
Kaylee found the spot for her. “My family is here in a city called Manchester-by-the-Sea. It’s part of the state of Massachusetts.” She glanced at Lani, who seemed enormously interested. She added, “But my ancestors are actually English—from here, across the Atlantic Ocean.” She pointed to a piece of land to the right.
“I wonder where my ancestors lived,” said Lani. “Do you think they were English too?”
Kaylee studied Lani. “Well, if I had to guess, I’d say you’ve got some Asian roots, or maybe Polynesian or Hawaiian. . . .” She shrugged, but then searched for and pointed out the locations she was mentioning.
Lani turned to look at Kaylee, incredulous. “How in the world would you know that?”
“Because of the way you look, I guess,” said Kaylee, almost apologetically.
“No way. Seriously?” asked Lani.
Kaylee nodded.