"Into the Pale Morning"

They went up.

Mama Yves led with the wool blanket folded across her arms and the paring knife tucked into her waistcoat. Sary came after her with the loaf and the stoppered earthen jar pressed to her ribs like a child to a teat. Tom took Marrow on his back — the captain's arms looped loose over his shoulders, the captain's head fallen against his neck — and felt the wet warmth of the new stitching pulse against his shoulderblade with every step. Beñat came last, the cord rebraided round his wrists now, the curved blade tucked in Tom's belt, his breath still wet from the brother on the stairs.

The cistern stair turned twice and then opened.

Tom came up into wet grey dawn. The ruined cistern crowned a finger of ridge that fell away on three sides into jungle and on the fourth into open air. He saw it now — what Sary had not let him see, what Mama Yves had kept under the stone for thirty years. To the east, the trees broke. Below them, a narrow bay. And on the bay, a small two-masted sloop riding at anchor with her sails furled and one lantern still burning at her stern.

The hunters' boat. Waiting for men who would not come.

Marrow stirred on Tom's back. His mouth found Tom's ear.

"That's a Saint-Pierre rig," the captain breathed. "She'll have a watch of two, no more. Boy. You can do this."

Mama Yves had already seen it. Her face when she turned to Tom was old and calm and decided in a way that frightened him a little.

"The bay or the trapdoor, Mr. Pell. Choose now. The smoke below will not be the only smoke this island sends today."