The boy got used to life on the ship as easily as he got used to everything else. He learned to tie knots and mend sails, and when his wounds healed, he worked on the ropes with the crew. He abandoned his shoes and climbed barefoot and fearlessly up the masts. The sailors admired the way he spotted dolphins, schools of stingrays, tigerfish with colorful stripes, and the way he sensed the spot where a whale would surface just before its broad, rough back appeared through the waves. They claimed they would be rich if they had some of his luck. The girl worried them. Three days after they had started their journey, the captain asked her to stay below deck as much as possible. He blamed the crew's superstition, claiming they believed that a woman on the ship would bring bad winds. This was true, but perhaps the sailors would have been more receptive to a smiling, cheerful girl, a girl who told jokes or tried to play the flute.

This girl stood silent and still beside the railing, clutching the scarf she wore around her neck, frozen like a figure carved from white wood. This girl screamed in her sleep and woke the men who were about to fall asleep on the mast platform. Thus, the girl spent her days haunting the dark innards of the ship. She counted barrels of molasses, studied the captain’s charts. At night she slipped into the boy’s embrace, as they stood together on the deck, distinguishing constellations among the countless stars: Orion, the Scholar, the Three Foolish Sons, the bright rays of the Spinning Wheel, the Southern Palace with its six crooked turrets. She held him there as long as she could, telling stories, asking questions. Because she knew that when she slept, she would dream.