THE LANGUAGE OF REVELATION

Two miles from the mainland, the island sat low against the water — more suggestion than destination. No towers, no harbor lanterns, nothing announcing that it mattered. Just a narrow crescent of pale shore, a scatter of wind-bent trees, and at its center a modest shelter of canvas and timber that looked built not to last, but to belong exactly where it stood.

Sals beached the boat without ceremony. Even the water moved differently here — unhurried in a way neither calm nor rough quite explained, as if the currents had quietly agreed to go around this place instead of through it.