“You kids aren’t supposed to be here,” the woman scolded. “This island is protected. No trespassing allowed.”
But Claire could only cry.
We’re saved, she thought.We survived.
Both Reyva and Mariana started talking at once, saying how they’d been abandoned here with no way off. They’d been told there was a camp, but there was no camp. And the woman’sdemeanor changed as she looked them over. She saw Claire’s tears and Reyva’s arm and took in the state of their clothes and hair and makeshift camp, then her concern switched to alarm as they told her about the man with the gun and the dead body in the woods that they’d thought was the program director but couldn’t have been.
“Dead body? Where?”
They pointed to where they remembered finding her.
“And the man with the gun? Where is he now?” The park ranger was scanning the woods, as if she expected him to pop out and start shooting, which Claire found somewhat comforting. At least the park ranger believed them.
“We heard a shot out on the lake,” Reyva said, “and later found his boat washed up onshore.” She pointed down the beach. “We think he must have killed himself. At least, we haven’t seen him since. And the boat is all torn up.”
“Please,” Mariana said, “we just want to go home. Can you help us?”
Clucking over them sympathetically, the park ranger helped them load their packs into the boat. She examined Reyva’s arm in the flannel-shirt sling and promised to get all of them to a hospital to get checked out.
“Who told you there was a camp here?” the park ranger asked. “Who brought you here?”
Claire opened her mouth to answer.
Closed it.
Frowned.
She couldn’t remember. Glancing over at Reyva and Mariana,she saw that they looked just as confused. “It... must have been the man with the gun?” Mariana said.
Reyva nodded. “It must have been.”
How strange, Claire thought. It should have been a detail she’d remember. “Our parents sent us to camp. They’d been here when they were kids, and they thought it was still here.”
The park ranger snorted. “They definitely should have checked, because this place has been closed for decades. Come on, let’s get you out of here. The police can take it from here.”
They climbed onto the boat and put on life jackets. As the boat pulled away from the dock, Claire looked back at the island and then up at the sky.
No storm stopped them.
The sky stayed blue, with birds circling overhead.
Twenty-Eight
Only Reyva was hurt.
On a doctor’s order, a nurse at the tiny local hospital whisked her off for X-rays and a cast, while another doctor checked out Claire and Reyva. They were, the doctor concluded, in remarkably good shape for having been lost on their own for so long. They should be proud of themselves, they were told—three teenagers with no wilderness training surviving on their own was remarkable. (“See, always underestimated,” Mariana said.)
The police talked to them.
A local reporter wanted to talk to them but was shooed away.
They were allowed to shower and change into clean clothes, and they were given trays of hospital food. Mariana requested extra applesauce. Claire ate the pudding first. Focused on the food, neither of them talked beyond a few words about how it all tasted. When Reyva rejoined them, she had a white plaster cast from her hand to her elbow.
“I asked for black,” she told the others. “But my choices were white or pink.”
“Ooh, I should have been the one to break my arm,” Mariana said.
“And... I told them about the chronic pain,” Reyva said. “I promised to tell my regular doctor when I’m back in Boston. I don’t know if there’s anything they can do, but... I am not going to hide it. Well, totally going to keep hiding it whenever I feel like it from whoever I want. But not everyone and not always.”
