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the only times we could be sure we weren’t alone in the world.
    We shuffled on in a slow-moving line as clouds raced by and rain pummeled us.
    â€œWhy don’t the clan folk ever stay?” I asked. “They could tell us about the ocean, and what’s beyond it, right?”
    â€œNo. They’ll not risk bringing Plague aboard their ship,” replied Lora, clearly more at ease with my questions than Alice’s.
    â€œBut there are no rats on Hatteras.”
    â€œThey don’t know that for certain. And we don’t know there aren’t rats on their ship. Have you forgotten what happened after John died?”
    No, I hadn’t forgotten. His parents had been distraught, unable to cope. So had his older sister, Elizabeth; she’d loved her brother, and when he was gone, she’d felt alone and neglected. Everyone had known it, but no one had intervened. We’d simply given the family room to grieve.
    Elizabeth hadn’t grieved. She’d escaped.
    She’d taken a sailboat and headed for the mainland. Her parents had chased after her in a canoe, but didn’t reach her until the next day. By the time they’d brought her home, she was showing early signs of Plague: chills, fever, seizures, and swelling around her groin. So they’d carried her to an abandoned cabin several hundred yards from the rest of the colony.
    I remembered my father imploring them to cover their mouths and bodies, but they hadn’t listened. By the following day, they had the Plague too.
    I never saw them after that. My father said they had asked him to divvy up their belongings. Then they’d taken a package of food and water, and paddled over to Roanoke Island, the three of them together. Ten days later, Father had crossed the bridge. We’d stood on the shore and watched him go, saw smoke from the fire he’d started to burn their decomposing remains. He’d rowed their canoe back, alone, and hadn’t spoken for a week.
    I hadn’t forgotten that at all.
    â€œIf the people on the clan ships won’t come ashore,” pressed Alice, “how do they survive? How do they have anything to trade?”
    â€œThere are other colonies besides ours.”
    â€œWhat other colonies?” I asked. For a moment I shared Alice’s frustration at Lora’s dead-end answers. To me, she seemed entirely full of secrets—important ones. “Where are they? Why haven’t we met people from them?”
    â€œEveryone has a place in the world,” replied Lora, “and this is ours.”
    â€œNow, yes,” agreed Alice as we arrived at the shelter. “But what about before the shipwreck? Why won’t you tell us where you came from?”
    Lora stopped in her tracks, and despite her frailty, it was Alice who almost toppled over. Lora kept hold of her granddaughter, and clasped my arm too. I felt the pressure of her touch, heat that grew from her grip like a dull ache.
    Lora stared at her hand, then at me. The muscles in her cheeks seemed to spasm. “You have so much to be thankful for. Don’t you realize that?”
    My pulse raced, but for once I refused to answer.
    She pushed my arm away, but looked even more flustered now than before. “And you,” she spat, turning her attention to Alice, “you ask too many questions.”
    Alice met her gaze and didn’t blink. “And get too few honest answers.”

CHAPTER 4
    T he hurricane shelter looked the same as it had the previous year—same heavy door, same thick walls. So did the grassy square beside it; and the water tower behind, which leaned precariously, defying gravity.
    We pushed inside, and followed the staircase down. The shelter was a squat building, built mostly underground. Compared to low-lying Hatteras Island, where the waves almost kissed the cabin stilts at high tide, it felt extremely safe. Even the storm raging outside the narrow band of windows near the ceiling