The Orchard Without Soil

The next island wore its trees sideways. Roots gripped a limestone cliff, and branches reached over a lagoon as though the whole orchard had tipped toward its reflection. Yellow fruit floated among the fallen leaves.

Ivo caught one with a bucket. Bess made him wait while she inspected its skin and cut it open. “Saltplums,” she said. “My grandmother preserved them.”

Mira found a landing beneath the branches. The spiral on her map matched a carving above a freshwater seep. Around it, smaller marks resembled numbers, but their intervals made no sense. She copied them while Rowan checked the beach.

He returned carrying a child's sandal. “We're not the first visitors.”

A voice above them said, “Nor the politest.”

An elderly woman stood among the roots, aiming a fishing spear generally rather than precisely. Behind her waited a girl of about twelve with a basket of saltplums.

Mira set down her pencil. “We came for water. We'll pay.”

“With what?”

Bess offered needles, lamp oil, and news of the mainland. The spear lowered at needles. By noon they were sitting beneath the orchard with Sella and her granddaughter, Fen, eating flatbread brushed with fruit syrup.

Sella recognized Ansel's name. He had visited two years before and repaired her roof badly enough that she had made him draw a new one instead. She laughed when Mira asked whether Haven was real.

“Real places don't become less real because mainland people tell foolish stories about them.”

“Can you show us the way?” Rowan asked.

“No.” Her answer was mild and final. “People there decide who comes. That's the purpose of a harbor, Captain. Not merely keeping water out.”

Mira showed her the numbers from the seep. Sella traced the copied lines. “Those aren't distances. They're heights. Your uncle understood that by the time he left.”

A cannon sounded far offshore. Not a shot at them: a signal from Resolute, whose topsails had appeared beyond the headland. Sella's face closed.

“He bought directions from a trader,” she said. “Your blue commander. Paid before asking whether they were the trader's to sell.”

Fen pressed three saltplums into Mira's hand as they left. At the landing, Mira looked back. Sella had already taken down the ladder leading into the orchard. The island seemed empty again, unless a person knew how to look.