Epilogue
Tia Cameron
Call sign: Thimble
One Month After the Storm
space it was given, baking her watery world in gold.
The trusty old motorboat made an ugly chugging noise as she skipped over the water. Tia had been listening to that sound for
days, and she still wasn’t used to it, but at least that was a constant. At least with the drone of the motor, she couldn’t
quite hear the way the waves folded over one another. Even when she managed to catch handfuls of sleep, the engine’s sound
chased away any nightmares of the storm.
Tia gazed up at the sky, but it was the sea below her that consumed her thoughts. She wondered for the thousandth time if
she was riding over shipwrecks and treasures, living monsters and dead. Had she crossed the latitude that held her father’s
body? What about Alejandro’s? MJ’s? Nico’s?
Was Rylan out here, dead, and she just motored on by without seeing? For all she knew, the only survivors were herself and
the white ghost ship she’d left far behind.
Tia had almost stolen The Old Eileen on one of the first nights in the harbor. After she’d introduced herself to Jerry, she’d slipped aboard the ship that night and hidden in the bilges until she thought she was alone. She hadn’t been. Jerry had almost seen her, and then all would have been lost.
But it was better this way, stealing Sheila 2.0, which was steady and easy to control.
She would find Rylan faster.
Then again, if Rylan were dead, she didn’t know what she would do next. That world was an impossible one to occupy, so she
dismissed it. In her world, her twin was alive, and she would either find him or be content to search forever.
Above her, the clouds were lined in gold, and the goose bumps that had prickled across her skull dissipated. Her hair was
growing back now, dark and thick and stubbly. She itched at it nonstop but was secretly thankful for its return. When the
wind blew sharp at night, she had that at least to warm her.
The boat alarm jolted her from her senses. It had the same obnoxious tinniness as Sheila 2.0’s engine. Tia got up, groaning, and went to the cockpit where the monitor blinked out its warning. She squinted to see what
lay in her path.
Land.
The monitor showed a mile more of ocean and then, there in the middle of it tucked away like a secret, an island shaped rather
like a triangle or a teardrop. She was headed right for it. Tia had taped the paper with the coordinates to the dashboard
of the cockpit, and it flapped gently in the wind.
Tia sat behind the helm. She sank deep into Jerry’s cushioned seat, which smelled faintly of grouper, and took the little
wheel in her hands. Was there another world where she ended up with her family alive on this island, where The Old Eileen never turned up empty or never turned up at all?
Sheila 2.0 churned doggedly forward until the island became a real thing on the horizon. It grew from a speck to a dot to a blob to a promise. As the boat moved into shallower, greener waters, Tia eased the throttle to a stop.
A brief walk from the shoreline stood a house made almost entirely of glass. It had the sleek style of the most cutting-edge
modern architecture with three stories, a slanted roof, and an infinity pool on the second level. Beads of water from the
humidity gathered on the massive glass windows, and they caught the sunlight like fine jewels.
Tia dropped anchor and leaped over the side, landing thigh-deep in the water. She couldn’t take her eyes off the glass house.
How long ago had her father had this built? How had he kept it so secret? And most importantly, could there be anyone inside?
Tia almost admired her father, in that moment. He had accounted for everything.
Everything but her.
Tia walked, trancelike, through the combing waves to the shore and hesitated at the edge of the water. The island seemed suspended
and silent. Her heart sank. She had come to an empty home.
Then she saw it. A glimpse of orange in the sea of soft, white sand. Farther down the island, closer to the glass house, a
life raft had been dragged up on the shore and abandoned.
The missing life raft from The Old Eileen.
Inside the house, a light turned on, and a boy’s silhouette was made visible through the wide sheet of silver glass.
Tia broke into a sprint, Rylan’s name upon her lips. She tripped in the pillows of sand, laughing and crying as she ran for
her brother and left the ocean far behind.
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