As we approached, Oahu opened her arms as if to crush the vessels gathered before her into an embrace: schooners and trawlers, cargo ships wallowing in the water, American gunners sullen as threats, and canoes darting among them like swallows. Above the waterline, volcanic peaks caught the clouds in their black teeth, their sides riven by emerald valleys sewn with silver waterfalls. In the east, the crater of Diamond Head blazed scarlet in the sun.
What would we find? Was Lin waiting for Slate’s return, scarcely half a year gone by, while he had journeyed, longer than Ulysses had, to come back home? Was this the end of my father’s odyssey? And if it was, where did that leave me?
Cast adrift? Set free? Or dragged below the water?
But our arrival hadn’t erased me. It might be possible for two versions of the same person to coexist: one who knew the thrill of adventure, and another who knew only the comfort of home. Briefly, incongruously, my mind conjured up an idea I hadn’t envisioned in a long time: a mother. I imagined her arms around me, cool and soft, the opposite of my father’s fierce embraces. She was his harbor; could she be mine as well? I shook my head. Of all the tales I believed, this was somehow the most implausible.
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.