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  So: the family went on holidays, up and down the rocky peaks and dipping valleys of the island. They spent a long weekend in a former hydro factory in the highlands. For five days they wandered up and down the frosty crags of Cradle Mountain, sleeping in a roomy stone cabin owned by Oshikawa. They ate abalone, hammered tender before their eyes, on a wharf at Stanley. Louise took them to the glistening greenness of Notley Fern Gorge, west to the dark moonland of the Queenstown hills, and to the wren-blue tide of Boat Harbour, where Karl dragged his toes through the surf but didn’t wade past the depth of his knees. They went south, almost as far south as they could, down to the wide wilds of Melaleuca. Their younger daughter grew bored and sullen, but the older one—Nicola, recently turned eighteen, soon to begin studying at veterinary school—became so wide-eyed and enamoured with the place that she didn’t want to leave. Karl tried to match her enthusiasm, but he couldn’t feel what his daughter’s soul was touching. He hiked white quartzite mountains and watched wombats stumble and stared out at the green buttongrass plains at this southern end of the world, and though he smiled at Louise and the girls (and even occasionally laughed) all he saw through the grass was a seal hitting the sea, and all he heard in this high empty sky was a pulsing rhythm of underwater clicks.

  Back at home the girls showed no interest in hunting Onebloods. Instead, he taught them to push hooks through frozen squid and hurl them out into the water, which they loved as much as he found it boring. And through sharing this banal activity with his daughters he somehow developed an affection for the activity itself, and found himself angling off the rocks even when the girls were away in Devonport, casting and catching and occasionally crying, but only when the mist was clear and he could see past the heads towards the tall spires where the seals still hauled out, or so he assumed.

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  This was how angling put Karl on the beach on that windy evening, feeling the whipped sand feast on his shins. Soon he would figure out what to do next. Soon the clicks would stop, and he would stop hearing his seal hit the sea, and an idea or direction or purpose would swim up at him. The wind hammered. He kept trudging into the sand.

  As he neared his cottage he saw a young man riffling through a clump of driftwood. He was not quite six feet tall, with milky skin and sharply dark hair. Underfed angles jutted out from his chin, cheeks, collarbone. He held a long white-grey branch in his hands, lifting it with difficulty to his eyes, which bored deep into the pattern of the barkless wood. His arms looked even more malnourished than his face.

  Evening, Karl mumbled as he passed. The young man said nothing but turned around, transferring the intensity of his stare from the branch to Karl’s face. Karl stopped. Nice branch.

  I thought so, the young man said, but no. It’s not right. Karl looked up at the light he could see blinking from his deck and thought about walking straight there, getting out of the wind and away from this odd stranger, but small-town courtesy compelled him to pause. Not right for what?

  The young man swivelled the branch in his hand and ran his free fingers up and down its knobbly length. For a coffin.

  Karl felt surprise creep into his brow, but kept it out of his voice. Not gonna make much of a coffin with driftwood, mate.

  No. The man sighed. I suppose not. He underarmed the branch onto the sand and bent over to resume picking through its siblings.

  Again Karl glanced up at his cottage, its light, its promise of warmth and food and Louise. Mate, do you need any help?

  Pardon? He didn’t look up.

  I mean. I dunno. Karl exhaled. Is everything okay? The young man straightened up with a quizzical expression on his face, as if Karl was the one behaving strangely. Karl extended a hand. I’m Karl.

  He accepted Karl’s palm in his own. Levi. And then, as if his surname was an afterthought: McAllister. He let go and ran his hand through his hair. Everything’s fine.

  Righto. The name bumped around between Karl’s ears where the clicks usually lived. I’m sorry.

  The quizzical expression reappeared on the young man’s face. What about?

  This coffin. Your loss.

  Now a smile spread across the sunken, youthful cheeks. Oh. No. Nobody has died. Well, not recently. He waved at the pile of wood as if that explained something. I’m just getting things ready for my sister.

  Is she sick?

  No.

  Karl’s bouncing thoughts snagged—the name: McAllister. His eyebrows came together; he knew how things went. He’d seen one of them climb from the water, beshelled and undead, back when he was young and his seal was half-grown. He knew about the flames, and he knew what happened next, and he heard himself ask: How old is she?

  The wind died, as if blown out like a candle, and the stinging sand fell to the beach as Levi McAllister peered into Karl’s bucket to stare at the still gills of the dry, head-stabbed fish. She’s twenty-three.

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