CHAPTER 6

THE MAUI AIRPORT IS TWENTY degrees cooler than Los Angeles, but it’s still sweltering, just in a different way. No trade winds, apparently, so even though it’s open in most parts, the air isn’t moving, and there’s a volcanic haze courtesy of the Big Island’s Mauna Kea. The moisture makes Julia feel like she’s trapped in a sauna, and the place is packed, too, a mosh pit of distracted tourists, pale, thick-waisted Midwesterners loading up in the gift shops, Japanese taking selfies, young lovers walking languidly, holding hands. A few professionals in business suits here and there, cutting through the tourists, focused on point A, point B, not even looking where they’re going because they already know. It doesn’t help that she got exactly zero sleep the night before; maybe an effect of the wine, her nerves, hard to say.

But the worst part is that the promised escort was a no-show—Someone will be holding a sign with your name, Bailey had told her—and even though it’s a small airport, even though she’s walked the length of the concourse at least three times, she can’t seem to find the gate for the flight to Kapu, and no one she’s asked seems to know anything either. She’s directed to talk to a supervisor at her arrival gate, check Visitor Information, call the company that booked the trip (no office hours on Saturday) . . . has she tried searching online? Julia can’t help but shake the feeling that she’s being purposefully misdirected. There’s something about the way eyes shift; they look down at the floor, over her left shoulder, at a piece of paper that’s become suddenly interesting. Smiles grow still. Pensive.

For the fifth time, Julia flattens her inkjet copy of the itinerary on the desk at Visitor Information. “It’s a charter flight. A private company. You’ve never heard of it?”

The woman behind the counter has long black hair and a plumeria flower behind her ear. A metal name tag, KALANI. She scans the itinerary as if it’s the first time she’s seen it (it’s not).

“No, like I said, I don’t know, but I’m new here. If you call the company you booked it through, I’m sure—”

“I tried, but it’s Saturday and the office isn’t open. Please, is there anyone you can ask . . . ?”

Sweat beads Julia’s forehead, trickles down the curve of her spine. There’s a family standing behind her; she feels the press of a toddler against her legs. She’s holding up the line.

“You have my bag, right? I checked it at LAX. It must be somewhere.” Christ, if they lost my suitcase, I’m screwed.

“I can try calling my manager again. . . .” The woman looks over Julia’s shoulder at the people behind her. “I’ll be with you folks in just a minute.”

The toddler starts stomping; out of the corner of her eye Julia catches flashes of red light from the baby’s sneakers.

“That’s okay,” says Julia, taking her paper. “I’ll ask around some more. Hopefully my bag hasn’t already taken off without me.”

The agent gives her a courteous smile, barely able to hide her relief. Julia steps away from the desk, decides on taking another pass by the gates. Will they take off without her? What if they found the secret compartment in her suitcase? She gets a vision of a SWAT team pouring out of a navy van.

Don’t psych yourself out, Julia. She pulls her cell phone out again—a burner she’d bought out of a vending machine—dials a number Bailey said was secure. She’s already left two voice-mail messages—where the hell can she be? Maybe something more sinister is at play.

Maybe you should go to the bar, says Ethan. Have a drink, wait in the air-conditioning until the Great White Witch calls you back.

“Fuck you, Ethan,” she whispers.

You have to forgive him before you can truly move forward, Dr. Stolz would say.

She wishes they’d all get the fuck out of her head. Christ, she needs to get a grip. She eyes the bathroom, thinks about going in, splashing some cool water on her face for a cogent moment, but just then an Asian-looking pilot strolls down the concourse with a small rolling suitcase, crowds of pasty-white tourists parting before him. His blue shirt remarkably crisp despite the humidity. He might know.

Julia raises a hand and approaches him. “Excuse me . . . can you tell me which gate is for private charter planes?”

He stops, and smiles broadly. “Can do. Where you going?”

“Kapu.”

His smile falters. He looks away. Here we go again. For a moment, there seems to be some kind of an internal struggle, and just as she’s sure she’s going to get the runaround again, he seems to make a decision. He looks her in her eyes, dead serious.

“That’s really where you’re going . . . ?”

“Yes. Why, what’s the problem?”

He hesitates again, then says, “Not a lot to do there. Just one beach, bad currents. Big bugs, too, the size of your fist. If I were you, I’d just stay here on Maui. Much nicer. Lots of great hotels, great food.”

Julia feels a trickle of sweat drip down her forehead. “I’m not going there for . . . fun, exactly. And I really need to catch my flight. If you could just point me—”

“I heard one time, someone came back with rat lungworm disease. I have a cousin who treated him at Maui Memorial.” He sounds genial, friendly, but there’s a current underneath of things unsaid.

She doesn’t have the time, or the energy, to figure out what. “Um . . . thanks,” Julia says. “You know what, I’ll ask the front desk—”

“It’s not for you.” The shift in tone is so abrupt she’s momentarily shocked into silence.

“It’s sacred,” he continues, looking at her steadily. “Your people have no place there.”

A relative, perhaps, of one of the dislocated natives? The world around them seems to retreat; for the first time she notices black lines of a tribal-looking tattoo peeking out from the edge of his shirtsleeve.

“My people. You mean haoles,” says Julia. She’d seen the word in Irene’s letters and looked up the meaning. A word for the strange Europeans who wouldn’t lean in to mingle breath as a greeting, who instead gave salutations with handshakes, and smallpox, and musket balls. Not a slur, exactly, but close. Is that how he sees her?

But why wouldn’t he? It’s the money from the ecotourists that are supporting the church, and their legal fight to keep the land. Is that why she’s been misdirected ever since she arrived?

“I don’t mean to offend,” he adds a little more kindly. “Kapu is not . . . It’s just, there’s a reason why its very name means ‘forbidden.’ When the sacred isn’t respected, it can become dangerous.”

Her head feels light all of a sudden, and she watches a group of teen girls trying on leis at the gift shop opposite them. They tease and pull and jostle each other. Aunt Liddy told her to trust no one, but with the pilot, she feels, only the truth will do. Or part of it.

“I know it’s dangerous,” Julia quietly says. She turns to face him. “My great-grandmother died there. I’m going to bring her body home, so we can bury her with our family.”

He can’t hide his surprise. A few seconds pass, a few more. “You know, the Hawaiian word for ‘burying the dead’ is the same as the word for ‘planting.’ ”

He stares at her, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment, but she doesn’t know exactly what he means, or what he’s asking of her. It’s a test she apparently fails, because he finally sighs, and looks away. She senses his mind floating to other priorities, his next flight maybe.

“You’d better hurry then,” he says, still not looking at her. “There’s a VIP lounge at the end of the terminal. They’ll know what to do. Tell them to page Leanne if they give you any trouble.”

“Thanks. Really . . . thanks.”

He nods again—his fingers grip the handle of his suitcase tighter. Another internal struggle, like he’s wondering if anything else he might say would be worth the effort. Finally he says, “Don’t cross the wall.” He looks up, his gaze piercing. “Stay on the makai, the ocean side of it.”

Julia swallows. “Why?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

With that he turns and walks away, the sound of his rolling suitcase wheels echoing off the concrete until it’s lost among all the other sounds, until he disappears in the crowd, leaving her with the feeling that if she had any sense whatsoever, she’d never step foot on that island at all.

There’s a heated discussion in the VIP lounge—a highly irritated service agent stands across from Julia, a phone receiver pressed into her ear, They’re already boarding and there’s no Julia Greer on the list—but at least the lounge has air-conditioning. Julia’s warm sweat has chilled, making her even cooler. She tries to shake off what the pilot said. Superstition, she tells herself. It’s just superstition. Don’t let your imagination get the best of you.

She wishes she could take advantage of the light refreshments arranged on a long table—lemonade, iced tea, pineapple slices, and butter cookies shaped like pineapples. A little food in her stomach wouldn’t be a bad thing. There’d been nothing about meeting in the VIP lounge on the itinerary; apparently that had been covered in a preflight package she never received because she was a late addition, and according to the brochure in front of her, she’d missed out on other perks too. Indulge in a massage or spa treatment; enjoy lightning-speed free Wi-Fi; sample exotic island pupus in air-conditioned comfort. Goddamn. She could have gotten a massage. But then, it had all been last-minute—Aunt Liddy had apparently paid off one of the tourists in order to get her the spot since the wait list was a year long. She could only imagine what it cost to bump the passenger.

“Fine,” says the service agent in a clipped tone. She’s savagely thin, with penciled-in eyebrows, sun-damaged skin, and a fake plumeria behind her ear, obviously a token gesture to aloha. CYNTHIA, says her name tag.

Cynthia hangs up the phone. “I apologize for the confusion.” Her tone isn’t apologetic in the least. “They’re holding the flight for you. Leanne will come by shortly to take you to the gate. Please enjoy our complementary snacks and beverages.” With that, the woman picks up a Hawaiian Airlines in-flight magazine, effectively dismissing her.

Oh, thank God. Julia’s about to make a run for the lemonade when her own phone rings—an unknown number, but with a Pasadena area code. Should she accept, decline? She clicks accept, and steps out of earshot.

“Are they holding the flight?” asks a crisp voice. Bailey.

“Yes, apparently. Where the hell have you been?”

“Putting out fires. We just got all your messages. Someone hacked my SIM card, and the landline to the house was mysteriously cut from inside the house. We had to do some serious negotiating to keep that plane on the tarmac. The county will be getting a whole new youth recreational center, all thanks to you.”

Sabotage from inside the house . . . ? Just what have I gotten myself into here?

Julia’s heart begins to race. “And the escort?”

“We haven’t been able to get a hold of him. Our guess is whoever cut the lines also paid him to not show.”

“Goddammit.” Julia runs a hand through her hair.

“We’re instituting extra precautions. You should be fine with the satellite phone, but I’m texting you right now a new number to call in. Don’t accept any calls if it’s not from that number. Write it down, then ditch your burner phone. I recommend a good dunk in the toilet, then tossing it in the bathroom trash. But whatever you do, don’t take it on the plane. They confiscate the cell phones before takeoff—it could get into anyone’s hands.”

Damn, damn, damn. Julia thinks about all the other things she could have packed in the false bottom of the case that would have been useful. Mace, perhaps. A gun, definitely.

An automated voice is broadcast over the speakers, each word a staccato note. Now boarding flight 572 for Oahu at Gate 17. Two men wearing aloha shirts and black slacks quickly stand and start packing their computer bags; some kind of joke is exchanged. There’s nothing that says she can’t abort right now. She has the cash, she could book a flight back to the mainland, pull all the money out of the account and stuff it under a mattress.

But Evie. The feel of her small hand in hers. Just the thought almost drops her to her knees. Every cell tells her she’s headed in the wrong direction—it all now feels unnatural, dangerous, to add more miles and an ocean between them.

“Are you still there?” Bailey asks.

The men leave—there’s a whoosh of warm air that swirls in when they open the frosted-glass doors.

But feelings aren’t always right. She felt Ethan loved her, and look what happened there. No, it’s not really a choice. She needs the money. She needs equal footing, at the very least. So she needs to keep on, no matter how insane this situation is getting by the moment. She turns her back to the door.

“I’m still here. Look, Bailey, if something happens . . .”

She can’t finish the sentence. The words to me don’t need to be spoken.

“I just want Evie . . . I just want her to know I tried. That I didn’t abandon her.”

This time it’s Bailey with the long pause. “Julia, I . . .”

Julia feels warm air again on the back of her neck again, and suddenly there’s a very loud male voice behind her.

“I was told I might be too late, but is this where they pick you up for the flight to Kapu?”

Julia turns to find a man in his late thirties, maybe early forties, with patches of gray in his hair and beard, his nose raw and pink from a sunburn. He wears a Red Sox cap, a rumpled brown shirt, equally rumpled cargo shorts, Birkenstocks with socks. A purple lei hangs limply around his neck, and his right hand grips the handle of a battered gray rolling suitcase.

Working a little too hard to look like a tourist.

“. . . just don’t trust anyone. And I mean anyone,” continues Bailey on the phone. A significant pause, as if there’s a hidden meaning Julia will need to work out on her own. “And ditch the phone. ASAP.”

The stranger passes her, approaches Cynthia, who is still sitting behind the counter, pointedly flipping a page of her magazine. The scent of coconut sunscreen and possibly pot trails behind him.

“I will,” says Julia. She senses he’s listening. “I have to go now.” She hits end. The phone buzzes in her hand—Bailey’s text with the new phone number she’s supposed to use.

“So am I too late?” the man asks, again a notch too loud.

Cynthia looks up briefly and offers a perfunctory smile. “The flight hasn’t departed yet. Your name?”

“Dr. Noah Cooper.”

With great reluctance, she puts her magazine down, types something on a keyboard, watching the computer screen.

Well, nothing for it. It’s Julia’s turn to act the tourist. She steps behind the man, approaches the counter, reaches for one of the pens, and catches his eye in the process. “Did you say you were going to Kapu, too?”

“Looks like I still am.” His eyes are dark blue, impersonal. She feels like she’s being scanned. “Thought I was shit out of luck.”

“They’re holding the flight because of me.” Julia grabs a brochure to write on. “Now I don’t feel so bad.”

The man grins. “Glad my ADD has served some purpose today. I thought the flight was an hour later, but the cabdriver wasn’t much help either. When he found out where I was headed, he started taking wrong turns to drive up the tab. Guess word is out that the Kapu tourists are easy marks.”

Possibly, possibly not. Julia remembers what the pilot told her. Maybe there’s another reason.

The man lets go of the suitcase and extends his hand. “I’m Noah.”

“So I’ve heard.” She offers hers. “I’m Julia. Julia Greer.”

There’s a flash of something like recognition at her name, which he covers quickly. “Nice to meet you, Julia.”

They’d considered using her father’s name as a cover with the other ecotourists, but Julia wanted to go with Greer for just this reason: to see who’d react.

She drops his hand, smiles, and is about to make an excuse that she needs to use the restroom so she can write down the number and ditch the phone, but just then a woman in an expensive tailored navy suit enters the lounge through the frosted-glass doors. Her makeup is impeccable, black hair pulled back into a tight bun, and she has the studied grace of someone trained to be comfortable with the elitest of the elite. Ethan would have hired her on the spot.

“Julia, I assume? And are you Noah?” she asks crisply.

Noah grins. “Guilty as charged.”

“A pleasure to meet you both. I’m Leanne.” She sizes both of them up, then says: “Well then, we should hurry. Others have been very patiently waiting.”

“Do you mind if I just use the ladies’ room?”

“I’m sorry, Julia, but we are very much behind schedule,” Leanne replies. “We’ll be up in the air in no time, and you’ll be able to use the lavatory on the plane.”

She holds the door open for them—a firm prompt. Warm air rushes in.

Goddammit, Julia thinks. No choice but to go along like it’s not a big deal.

The well-dressed woman smiles like a game show hostess, Right this way. Her teeth as white as a shark’s.

They’re led at a brisk pace through the airport, to a gate at the very end of the concourse and a set of rickety aluminum stairs, then down onto the blindingly hot tarmac, where a small jet waits. Julia can’t shake the feeling that she’s a cow being led through a chute to a slaughterhouse. Palm trees in the distance, the fronds still, pensive. No chance to throw away the phone, not when she hasn’t even been able to write down the number.

Leanne’s heels go clip clip clip on the pavement, a metronome marking time, the last seconds until Julia’s on the plane, until it takes off, until her phone is collected. And damn if Noah isn’t walking right beside her, matching her step for step. A peculiar attention.

“And you know,” he says, “they say it’s bad luck to even pass within eyesight of the volcanic cone on Kapu.”

The very last thing she needed or wanted to hear. Christ, he’s been talking almost nonstop since they left the VIP lounge. Even the sound of his suitcase is annoying—one wheel is crooked so it drags on the cement, making a rough, scraping noise.

“Pirates and the early European explorers avoided the island entirely.”

Julia gives a polite huh, but in her mind she’s ticking through all the things that could possibly go wrong. Her phone could be confiscated before she can write down the number. Her luggage could be on its way to another state. And she hears the pilot again, The Hawaiian word for “burying the dead” is the same as the word for “planting.” What a creepy, odd thing to say. Why did he make such a point of it?

Noah continues, relentless. “But really, it’s just not the most habitable place. Periodically it suffers from droughts, which makes it untenable for farming or raising livestock.”

Is he trying to reassure me or psych me out? A coin toss. She turns her focus instead to the bun at the back of Leanne’s head. Not a single, solitary hair out of place. Julia’s never trusted people with perfect hair.

“It’s funny how that works,” Noah says. “A superstition created to address a real danger. I guess superstitions are easier to remember. They have a tendency to stick.”

And if he’d only shut up for half a second, I’d have a chance to think.

“It’s too bad we’ll be confined to such a small part of Kapu. It offers a range of ecosystems. The side we’ll be on is lush rain forest, but on the other side it’s a desert. Higher up is a bamboo forest. And close to the peak it’s supposed to look like a moonscape. Chiclet?”

He offers her one from a crushed yellow pack. For all she knows it could be poisoned. She shakes her head.

“Not exactly on the approved ‘all-organic snack’ list, are they?” He slips the pack into his back pocket. “What do you think, will they tase me for smuggling in Chiclets?”

With any luck. “You seem to know a lot about the island.”

“I should. I did my thesis on it. Now I teach environmental science.”

“So you’re a professor?”

“Adjunct. Working poor, essentially. But Kapu has always been on my bucket list. I looked into chartering a boat once. Didn’t find any takers.” There’s a sheen of sweat on his brow, circles of sweat under his armpits.

Leanne reaches the stairs for the plane, gives them a more peremptory wave this time, her studied cool revealing a hint of irritation. Chop, chop.

“Expensive trip for an adjunct professor,” says Julia.

“Well, I did have that friend in college who went on to work at Google before anyone knew what it was. Got in just as it launched publicly. When I found that Kapu was opening its doors for tourism, I sold some shares.”

An unlikely story. But then they’re at the bottom of the stairs, and Leanne’s aplomb is obviously starting to wear thin. Even she’s worked up a sweat. It gives Julia a slight bit of gratification.

Noah pauses. “Ladies first,” he says in a jokey tone.

“It’s the twenty-first century—you go first,” says Julia.

Again his expression wavers and something else comes through—a kind of wariness. Just as suddenly, it vanishes. “All right, your funeral if I accidentally drop this puppy.” He takes the first step up, his suitcase hitting the tread of the staircase hard. Bang. It must be heavy. What the hell’s inside? Bang, bang, bang it goes up the steps.

If she can’t ditch the phone, how would they know she’s smuggling it in? Unless they plan on patting her down or they’re going to wave security wands over them, which she doubts.

She reaches out for the handrail, takes the first step up.

Run.

She doesn’t know where this thought comes from, but it’s a strong one, nearly overwhelming. Her heart pounds.

Run while you can.

But the sun glints in her eyes, and Leanne’s smile is hardening, and there’s nothing but a life of emptiness behind Julia, and she remembers the last thing, the very last thing Ethan said to her as she was packing up her things (no, make that the few things he let her keep).

In time, she’ll forget you. You’ll just be a picture in an album that she opens up every once in a while, when she’s feeling nostalgic.

Julia thinks: I’ll be damned if I ever let Ethan erase me that way.

She climbs the steps.

The plane is posh, but not inordinately so—massive seats covered in soft leather with plenty of legroom, large TV screens embedded in the back cushions. Cool air softly pushed through the overhead vents. Music playing—classical. Chopin, she thinks.

“Phones please,” says Leanne brightly.

Noah digs his out of his back pocket, turns it over—a burner, like hers.

Interesting.

Leanne drops Noah’s phone into a bright red bin, with about eight others. Turns to Julia.

“I didn’t bring a phone,” Julia says.

Noah’s head turns—goddammit, she forgot he’d seen her using it—but he doesn’t rat her out. Leanne doesn’t seem to believe her either, but she is, after all, a paying guest. Leanne puts the bin in an overhead compartment, locking it tightly. Why? Does she expect there’d be a mad dash for the phones? A cellular coup d’état?

Then there’s a quick walk down the aisle, which feels more like a walk down the plank—all ten other passengers glaring, not bothering to hid their irritation at the long wait—and then she and Noah reach the last two available seats, right next to each other, of course. Just my luck.

At least she has the good sense to nab the window. When they’re airborne, she can hit the bathroom, write down the number, pop the SIM card, and flush it down the toilet. Not an ideal plan, but a functional one. Noah stows his rolling suitcase in the overhead—so heavy he strains to lift it over his head—what the hell is in there?—and she tucks her purse under the seat in front of her, wraps a complimentary blanket around her—cashmere, nice touch—lays her head on the small lavender-scented pillow, also complimentary, and closes her eyes. As good a way as any to avoid another earful of Noah.

She hears and ignores the standard safety instructions—as if anyone would have the presence of mind to pull out the cushion to use as a float if the plane crashed into the ocean—then there’s a ding as the FASTEN SEAT BELT lights pop on, the rumble of the engine starting, and a shudder as the jet starts to roll down the tarmac. She can feel the excitement of everyone around her, that pre-vacation vibe. Not an emotion she shares.

Noah settles into the seat next to her. His thigh brushes against hers; she can hear him fiddling with the seatbelt, but thank God he strikes up a conversation with someone across the aisle.

She hears him say, “Do you snorkel?”

Perfect. Let him make a new buddy. Her eyes feel genuinely heavy—the insomnia, the anxiety of all the preparations, the task ahead. It’s hard to keep them closed and not feel the tug of sleep. But she can’t afford to fall asleep. She can’t afford to drop her guard.

And then a thought strikes her. All those years ago when her mother first dragged her to Aunt Liddy’s house, that first meeting. Aunt Liddy wasn’t in a wheelchair. She distinctly remembers Aunt Liddy standing in the entry, leading her mother to the library, walking. Impossible if, as Aunt Liddy said, she’d been paralyzed long ago.

How strange. Unsettling that her memory could have gotten it so wrong.

Julia yawns. The drone of the engine a comforting white noise, a gentle rocking as they make their ascent. And then, despite her best intentions, she actually falls asleep.

An island. An island surrounded by clouds where the ocean should be. A white sand beach and a narrow path leading into a dark bamboo forest. Julia feels sand between her toes, a breeze that tickles. The sky an impossible blue. She hears the soft click of bamboo hitting bamboo. Click, click, click. Crick, crick, crick. Trick, trick, trick.

A solemn, ghostly shadow appears at the edge of the bamboo forest—the pilot—no, not the pilot, just his clothes, standing like they’re supported by an invisible body.

Her secrets are her own.

What secrets? she wants to ask, but the world tilts beneath her, and suddenly the clouds are gone, and she faces a rocky precipice with a roaring waterfall and roiling green waters. The sky above now a bruised purple, white streaks of clouds like claw marks.

Shadows lengthen, deepen. Julia shivers. I’m not supposed to be here. She missed her flight, the one that would have taken her to the East Coast, to Evie. She’s not where she’s supposed to be.

Terminally naive, Ethan whispers.

Suddenly there’s a rumble like thunder and suitcases fall from the sky, crashing through the trees, cracking open when they hit the pockmarked lava rocks. Underwear, ribbons, blouses, nylons, stuffed animals, children’s clothing, ties, suit shirts. The clamor draws a flock of vultures; they swoop in to pluck out the shiny bits—a pearl necklace, a gold chain, a ring with a glimmering red stone.

But it’s not a pearl necklace. It’s an eyeball still tethered to an optic nerve. The gold chain is actually a clump of blond hair. The ring a small vertebrae.

A silk nightgown lands at Julia’s bare feet. It’s torn, bloodstained. This doesn’t surprise her, but she’s not sure why.

Suddenly all the vultures take off in startled unison, dropping their prizes in a hurry to escape, hissing and trilling. Julia’s gaze is drawn across the river. From within the shadow of jungle brush, a pair of glowing eyes meet hers. Something feral about them. Predatory.

I spy with my little eye.

It’s not her voice—it’s another inside her head, and although her throat thickens with fear, she takes a step forward. Not a choice, not a decision, more of a reflex, like her legs acted on impulse. The ground is soft, spongy, like a marsh or a bog, and her foot sinks—squish. A slithery thing wraps itself around her ankles, and she feels thin needles pricking her skin. This doesn’t surprise her either. It’s all predestined. Inevitable. She takes another step forward, her foot sinking ankle-deep into the muck.

There are others now, surrounding her. The clothes all standing upright, no people within. But she feels them, their invisible spirits. She’s not alone; they’re bearing witness. She’ll never be alone again.

There’s a poof sound, like a balloon deflating, and she’s suddenly surrounded by clouds of fine white particles, the stench of something sickly sweet, rotting. She looks down at her arm, and black, necrotic flesh hangs from it, exposing a gleam of white bone underneath. It all makes her drowsy for some strange reason—she’s so relaxed, even as she continues to sink. The mud is a tomb, the mud is a womb. She’s dying. She’s being born.

And the eyes, the eyes across the river emerge from the cover of brush—they belong to a white tiger, thin as a starving greyhound. It leaps into the churning water, jumping from the crest of one wave to another. Not water then. What? Julia doesn’t know whether she’ll be eaten or will drown in the muck, but somehow it doesn’t seem to matter. No, it’s the nightgown that’s important, because someone’s wearing it now, a ghostly body lying just out of reach, skin as pale as milk. Head turned away, a swatch of brown hair crudely shorn from her head. Little green tendrils, like roots, reaching out of her skin into the ground.

And the tiger is almost on her. On them.

She feels something slither around her shoulder, her neck, small needling pricks in her back. . . . I’m sorry, Evie. I tried, I tried my best. Her eyes lock onto one of the stuffed animals that had fallen out of a suitcase—a vintage Steiff teddy bear, just like the one she’d given Evie on her fifth birthday. Mr. Bones, Evie had named him, because unlike her other stuffed animals, he could stand up. She swore that he could even walk at night when she was asleep.

Maybe, thinks Julia. A thick vine just out of reach. Maybe if I can grab . . .

But there are little green roots growing out of her own arm now, weaving through the dead flesh, binding her to the earth. And the tiger is on her side of the river. It’s coming . . . coming . . . coming. The beast lifts its head, tastes her scent in the air. Licks its lips with a thick red tongue. It’s all as it should be, as it ever was.

Suddenly there’s a massive crack of thunder, a vibration that causes the muck she’s sinking into to quiver. She hears a soft ding from far away, another planet maybe. No . . . she’s trying to wake up. . . . The airplane. She’s dreaming. But the fantasy pulls at her, tries to keep her here, on the island with the tiger that pads closer. It sniffs her hair, the back of her neck. She can smell rotting meat on its breath.

I spy with my little eye . . . something that begins with the letter f.

It’s almost there, what the word is, it’s on the tip of her tongue but it won’t come out, like the remnants of a dream before it dissipates, vanishes. Forbidden, she thinks. Forlorn. Forsaken.

A hand shakes her shoulder—the tiger nuzzles her shoulder. She has a foot in both worlds, and then another word comes to her: forget. Forget, forgot, forgotten. No, that’s not it. She hears the drone of the airplane, the rustling of other passengers, and before she can ask the tiger, before she can figure out why this word feels so important, the dream dissolves, light as ether, and she feels the cashmere against her cheek, the cool press of glass on her forehead.

Her neck aches. She can’t feel her left arm. She opens her eyes and finds Noah grinning at her, his hand on her shoulder.

“Damn, you were out,” he says.

She looks around, and all the other passengers are peering through their porthole-size windows, an electric undercurrent of excitement.

She blinks, sits up straighter. Realizes her vulnerability. She casts an eye at her purse, which she’d tucked under the seat in front of her.

“What . . .” Her mind is still thick with the dream. Groggy. “Where are we?”

“We’re here,” Noah says. “We’re just about to land.”

And at first she doesn’t remember, but then she does, and looks out the window to find a small island coming into view, densely green in parts, golden grassland in others, a sharp peak jutting out from the center, wreathed in mist. The pointy remains of the crumbling, extinct volcano. None of the photos managed to capture its immense scale, or its raw, savage beauty.

Kapu.

She doesn’t understand why—maybe it’s just the aftermath of the dream—but it feels like a homecoming of sorts.