“Here’s a story,” says Hestur, “about pirates.”

In fact, the only people on the whole island who were out that day were two children, a boy and a girl, making their way through the rows of salt-frosted houses toward the shore.

With great care, Viola lifted their newfound treasure free. Wilmur recognized the shape immediately, and his excitement turned to despair.

“No,” he said. “Throw it back!”

They were a funny-looking bunch, their skin scrawled with tattoos and pocked with sunspots, some with fewer limbs than might be expected and a few with too many; there was also a large white bear sitting passively among them like just another crew member. The bear was wearing an ascot.

At the center of the room, behind a table buried beneath mounds of maps and charts, sat Chase, concentrating very hard on trimming her nails with her black-handled folding knife, and for some reason, she was now wearing a fur coat.

Alma leaned in closer. “There’s precious little to know about her—just rumors,” she said in a low voice. “But I do know her name’s not Chase. Morgenstern—Rosselin Morgenstern. That’s the name I heard.”

“Hold on!” shouted Chase as Viola started to slip from her grasp. “Hold—”

It wasn’t just that the Calamary Rose wasn’t anywhere to be seen—though it wasn’t. And it wasn’t just that she and Chase were alone, with no other survivors in sight—though they were. There was nothing, absolutely nothing at all.

“Don’t look down,” said Chase. “Just look at me.”

A shadow was moving across the night sky, a churning cloud of black wings that blotted out the moon.

If she had hoped that Wilder’s Green would be in any way green, she was disappointed. The island was brown from top to bottom, but not a uniform brown—the kind of brown that came from every other color mixed together.

She wound her scarf around her neck and made sure that her silver piece was secure beneath her collar; then, with a steely resolve and a surprising spring in her step, she shook her lantern to wake up the glowing minnows and started out into the night.

“Hestur?” said Viola. It came out very small.
“No,” answered the thing with Hestur’s voice.