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animals, the tree lines illuminated with a last fiery blast of gold. The sea was pigeon pink and grey. For a single, soppy moment, I wished I could be sharing it with someone I loved. I was going to have to toughen up – there would be many, many solitary sunsets on the Ulysses . And much as I loved my boat she couldn’t exactly hug me back.
    That was the thing I was most anxious about when I imagined myself out on the ocean alone. I’m fine during the day – don’t need anyone, perfectly happy to potter by myself, working on Ulysses or roaming the infinite aisles of the hardware store or practising my knots or making lists of supplies, poring over sea charts, and fiddling with wind and water generator designs.
    But come dusk and this sooky-chook part of me wants to return to the nest and be with the rest of the flock. Pathetic, I know. And especially pathetic when there will be months at a time when I will be a solitary chicken contending with nothing but endless sea.
    A black shape loomed above the shifting silver currents, growing larger as we approached: Thirteen Pearls. The island was tiny! I reckoned I could have walked around it in ten minutes. A long, thin wooden jetty protruded from the mangroves where shadowed ibises clacked and rustled in the canopy. Uncle Red cut the engine to let the tinny drift in. The sounds of roosting birds and lapping water and encroaching night rushed to fill my senses.
    â€˜Why’s it called Thirteen Pearls?’
    â€˜Lowanna’s choice,’ he grunted. ‘Stupid bloody name, but there was some Thirteen Pearls fairy story her hill-tribe grandfather used to tell her before they moved down to the city.’
    I wanted to ask more, but his cracked lips tightened in a way that made it clear there ’d be nothing further from him on the subject.
    As we bumped against the jetty, he threw up a rope around a jetty pole and neatly pulled it taut, but made no move to climb out.
    â€˜Now,’ he said. ‘Before we go up you need to know a few things. Just because you’re my niece, I won’t cut you any extra slack. It’s bad enough that I had to come looking for you on T.I. It was a waste of time and it’s dangerous taking the tinny out after dark.’ His scowl deepened. ‘You’re working for me, just like the boys. You’ll call me Red and you’ll do what I say. Satellite phone costs a bomb so you won’t be making any calls except for emergencies. I’ll be sending you over to T.I. with one of the boys to do a shop once a week and the rest of the time you’ll be looking after Aran, cooking and cleaning up.’
    My jaw dropped. Childcare yes. But no one had said anything about cooking and cleaning!
    â€˜Get that?’
    I nodded, hearing the bumpy gurgle of an eighteenth-birthday pearl necklace going down the drain. It wasn’t as if I could change my mind at this point. It was too late. Character-building, Dad would call it. Either that or my character was going to be hammered out of shape, messy entrails strewn everywhere, by the time Uncle Red was through with me.
    â€˜Ngggaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhnrrrrrrrrr.’ A small figure, with arms stretched out like the wings of an aeroplane, bowled down the narrow wooden jetty.
    â€˜Hi! You must be Aran. I’m Ed—’
    The figure slammed into my stomach and the ballast of my pack pulled me off balance. I flailed for a few seconds, and landed in squelchy brown mud. Sharp prongs of mangrove roots and jagged oyster shells dug into my jeans. The mud smelled like rotten eggs. I tried to push myself up and my hand sank further.
    â€˜You all right?’
    A hand reached down, then two. I was sucked back out of the mud with a squelching noise, lifted into the air, pack and all, and set down on the jetty with an unceremonious plonk.
    Out of the evening shadows two faces looked down at me. Both young men. Both good-looking. One Eurasian face with olive skin