I leaned over the rail and studied the black horizon. Moonlight reflected on the waves like scales of some dark dragon. I couldn’t tell where the night ended and the sea began. Between them, somewhere, was my father.
Montgomery caught sight of me and rushed over, a spark of energy to his movements. I’d forgotten that this place was his home. He pointed to the horizon. “It’s volcanic. Do you see the plume?”
My mind scanned the horizon for dark shapes, but my eyes found nothing to settle on. Then I discerned a faint line, like a column of smoke, rising to the stars.
“I see it. It looks so far away.”
“A league and a half maybe. There’s a sandbar around the harbor, so we’re here for the night. We’ll dock in the morning.”
“What about Edward?”
The boyish excitement on Montgomery’s face faded. He studied the cold sea. “What about him?”
The edge in his voice made me hesitate. “We can’t just leave him here. You said yourself—”
“He can’t come with us.” He cursed under his breath and leaned on the rail. “I shouldn’t have said anything before. It’s impossible.”
“But why? It isn’t safe here. There’s no doctor, and the only reason the captain hasn’t thrown him overboard is because he thinks he can ransom him once they reach Brisbane, which is a lie.”
“You don’t understand. It isn’t safe on the island either.”
I looked back at the island. The plume of volcanic smoke snaked toward the dark sky like tendrils escaping a gentleman’s pipe. My eyes found a single light, halfway up the hill, the only sign of civilization.
“Not safe?” Surely he wouldn’t have let me come if it wasn’t safe.
Montgomery took my shoulder and turned me away from the island. His face softened. “There’s no room, I mean. We’ve one extra bedroom, which you’ll have. He’ll have no place to stay, and there are wild animals in the jungle. Besides, your father is a very private man. He’d be furious if I brought a stranger.”
I traced the wood grain on the rail. Would Father consider me a stranger? No, of course not. I was his only family, the little girl who used to crawl onto his lap with a dusty volume and beg him to read theories of how birds were once great, lumbering lizards. But then why had he never once sent a letter? Why did I have to learn he was alive from a bloodstained diagram at a late-night vivisection?
“He’s my father,” I said. “He’ll listen to me. He’ll understand it’s safer for Edward to stay on the island. It’s just until the next ship comes.”
“It crosses his wishes, Juliet.”
I leaned against the rail, studying his worn clothes, his scuffed boots. “You keep saying you’re no longer his servant, but you don’t act like it. You can think for yourself, you know.”
Montgomery’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t argue. I knew I’d hurt him, but I didn’t know how to take it back, because it was true. He strode away, bristling. The sudden solitude made the thoughts in my head louder. I wanted to go back to that moment when Montgomery and I stood on the deck, hands interlaced, as he told me he’d thought about me often. But a shift had occurred, slight but significant enough that things weren’t exactly the same between us. I leaned on the rail and measured the moonlit distance between me and the island.
THE NEXT MORNING, I was packed before dawn, though maddeningly, because of the tides, we couldn’t dock for hours. While I waited, I dressed in new white summer clothes that I’d bought with Lucy’s money before we left. The startling clean whiteness hurt my eyes. The rest of my things—my medication, the worn books, even an old hard-bristled brush of Mrs. Bell’s—I tucked away in the carpetbag. I left out Father’s copy of Longman’s Anatomical Reference, flipping anxiously through the black-and-white drawings. The book of a scientist. A madman, too, perhaps.
Either way, I was about to find out.
When I climbed above deck, I was distracted by a flurry of activity. The mizzen boom was rigged to load the cargo and cages. A handful of sailors dragged the panther’s cage toward a hook bigger than my head. But what stole my attention was the mountainous green island looming off the port side, big as a kingdom, with a column of wispy gray smoke coming from its highest point. After weeks of water as vast as the known world, the island seemed unreal. A soft line of sand touched the sea, edged by a cluster of palms waving in the breeze. The palms gave way to a wild tangle of jungle, packed as tight as stitching with vines and the canopies of trees I couldn’t identify. I wondered what lay under that green curtain, waiting for me.
Edward watched the island as well from the forecastle deck, until he caught sight of me. He touched his forehead, an old-fashioned gesture one used when greeting a lady. I’d have to dissuade him of that notion someday.
He came down the steps, wincing slightly from his bruises. “Montgomery said I may come to the island until the next supply ship passes,” he said. “I suppose I have you to thank for that.”
Surprised, I stood a little straighter. Montgomery had changed his mind—my jab about acting like a servant must have struck a sensitive nerve. As guilty as I felt, I couldn’t help but smile that he’d finally made his own decision. “Are you going to come, then?”
“If my choices are between spending more time with Captain Claggan or with you, it’s an easy decision.” He brushed a dark strand of hair back from his face, not taking his eyes off the ocean. My stomach tightened at the compliment, unexpectedly. I wasn’t used to getting compliments from gentlemen. I picked lightly at my dry lips, realizing this meant I’d be spending a lot more time with Edward Prince. Scarred, clever, sea-mad Edward Prince. Who was surprisingly bad at backgammon.