No Leona.
No logs.
No pieces on the beach, when we scour. And we do, for hours, until at last, I go back to the house and stand by the hollow in the sand where Leona should be but she’s not. Not coming back. I have to accept it.
Leona is gone.
* * *
This time around, I don’t even have the heart to despair. I tell Hero I need a moment alone, then head straight for the sunken pier and stare hard at the horizon, mind churning.
Honestly? Leona was just a raft. Losing her doesn’t hurt nearly as much as losing Hubert. But I could explain Hubert; I saw his remains with my own two eyes.
I can’t explain this. Rafts don’t walk.
Unless they do here, where sleep-swimming is also a thing. I’ll blame the island. I have to. Because if I don’t …
Again, rafts don’t walk.
But people can.
Me or him. Me. It had to be me; I’ve done some strange shit while unconscious. But when I look down at my hands, I find no marks. No sign that I dragged a raft to the sea before I nearly died in it. I press my palms over my eyes, press harder when I see his face. It fades, but then I remember the heat of his mouth on mine, the sand damp beneath my shoulders, the stars light-years above us, the moment everything went wrong because I was happy. Happy without Kay. Hell, give me a few more nights like that one, I might not even be upset over losing Leona.
Which means I’m done. Done thinking about boys, done with delays. I need to find Kay now. I need to build a boat now.
I can build a boat now.
The solution’s been staring at me this whole time. I just hadn’t been desperate enough to see it.
I dash into the house, tripping around U-me and knocking my bad shoulder into the bedroom door on my way in. Barely wincing, I beeline for the bed, flinging off the comforter and sheets, chucking pillows to the ground until I’ve stripped the mattress down to its hunter-green polyurethane casing.
I step away and dust off my hands.
Meet Genevie the mattress boat, my ticket off this island.
Genevie thwacks onto the floor after I heave her off the bed frame, then thumps sideways as I push her upright to fit her through the narrow doorway.
“Strongly disagree,” says U-me as I’m dragging the mattress through the living room.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” I grunt, aiming a kick at the couch. The pathway widens, and Genevie unsticks herself as I tug.
Getting Genevie out onto the porch is the hardest part. The rest is a breeze. Using the kitchen blowtorch, I melt the bottoms of several storage bins and attach them to the head and foot of the mattress, constructing what looks like a backless armchair. I then wrap rope over the tops of the storage bins, forming a makeshift rail that runs lengthwise down either side of the mattress. It’ll be something to grab on to in case it storms, which I dearly hope it won’t.
I fill the bins with my supplies—an extra sweater, mason jars of water, as many taro biscuits as I can afford to take without letting Hero starve—and then drag Genevie out on a test float. The sun is setting by the time I’m done. Hero still hasn’t returned. I sit on the porch in wait while keeping watch over Genevie. When he finally appears, I jump to my feet. “Where have you…”
I catch sight of what’s in his hands.
He offers me the oar. I inspect it. The handle’s cut smooth. The paddle is flat and thin. “You made this?”
“No, I rented it from the shop on the beach.”
It’s an echo of what I said to him before, when he asked if I’d built Hubert and I tried testing my sarcasm on him, with no idea if it landed. It did, apparently, and he remembered, and suddenly the oar weighs a ton in my hands.
“You…” didn’t have to. But I leave it at you. Hero. The boy who is trying so hard to be someone, someone I don’t want to suspect for Leona’s disappearance, especially when I notice the dirt on his sweater and the scratch running up his forearm and disappearing under his rolled-up sleeve. He must have crossed the ridge for wood.
Slowly, I tie the oar to Genevie. So much for my contrived dilemma. Just nights ago, I was debating the ethics of leaving Hero to set sail first. Now I see my true, self-centered colors. Hero, meanwhile, has seen them all along. Joules, he’s made me an oar to send me off.
“Look,” I start. “If I make it—”
“You will.”
He speaks with a quiet, steadfast conviction I would have craved before. Now it makes me feel like a bad person. My gaze drops to the sand between our feet. “You weren’t nearly as confident two weeks ago,” I mutter. “What happened to doubting my mojo?”