“The pemmican,” said Bobbi Sue. She spoke lightly like a girl picking daisies in a field. “Those long strips of jerky, the ones I softened up in water.”

  It started to rain in the chamber, fat drops dripping from the ceiling. “Pemmican was originally invented by First Nations as a high-protein food that traveled easy,” said Anders. “They made it from shredded meat mixed with wild berries and fat.” Facts seemed to comfort the teen. The kid rattled off a list about how Native Americans learned to seal the mixture into pouches of uncured bison skin. As the skin dried, it shrank, essentially vacuum-sealing the stuff, making the pemmican last forever. Striker wondered if Anders had perfect recall. The kid reciting verbatim one of the lectures an expert had delivered on the Yegorov. “In Canada, there was even a war called the Pemmican War. Pemmican was almost as valuable as fur.” Anders lay still. “You ate it too,” they murmured.

  Striker thought of the strange broth from which she’d pulled a tiny wad of meat, the way the water absorbed all light. She could still feel the quarter-sized lump of flesh lying in her palm, then the sensation of biting down on it, the vision she’d seen, the day filled with blood.

  “The explorers who were stranded here before us? They were bad bad men,” said Anders. “There was even a baby here,” they whispered. “A newborn.”

  “How do you know?” said Striker.

  The teen looked her in the eye but there was a deadness in their stare. “I read it in the journal you got for Christmas,” they said. “A woman stowed away on the HMS Bonaventure to be with her beloved.”

  Striker thought of the hoarse-voiced specter who had first spoken to her in the cabin. “What happened to her?”

  “Maybe she was a little crazy?” said the teen. “She starts off loving her husband but by the end she seemed to be in cahoots with the ship’s doctor. The guy took over after the captain vanished.”

  The Dame licked her lips. It was a new tic. She probably didn’t even realize she was doing it. “Well I for one don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” she said. Pink fluid was beading on the tip of her nose. “You wanna play vegan? Go ahead and die.”

  The walls of the chamber began to vibrate. “We gotta get out of here,” said Striker. The grotto was starting to flood.

  “This place is filled with the bad they did,” said Anders. The teen curled up tighter on their crate. “We’ve been sheltering in their evil.”

  Striker stepped on something hard, the whole floor studded with lumps. Now that the ice was melting, she reached down and pulled. The thing came up easier than she’d expected. She turned it this way and that, trying to see it better.

  It was a long white bone. Her eyes landed on a series of tiny, crescent-shaped indents patterning its surface.

  Startled, she dropped it back in the water.

  They were teeth marks.

  The four of them heard it at the same time. The sound of engines.

  Striker positioned herself under the fisherman’s hole. She kicked the grotto’s walls and scraped out a series of hollows, creating a chain of hand- and footholds. Quickly she clamored up the wall. She had the sensation something was trying to hold her back, a weight tied to each of her legs. But she made it out.

  Back aboveground, the fog had thickened. She couldn’t be sure she was returning to the same world. She turned and pulled the others up after her. They were so insubstantial—there was hardly anything to them!—like harvesting food from the earth. It was so easy, maybe too easy. She wondered if she’d pulled anything else up with them.

  The roar was coming from every direction. She might have mistaken it for a scrum of helicopters except she had ridden in choppers countless times, always with a long lens hanging from her neck. No, the song of a helicopter was more uniform in nature, a constant thwacking. This was a high-pitched whine that dipped and rolled, a boat engine navigating over waves. It was likely the fog was distorting sound again. She couldn’t tell how many boats were racing toward them. It could be one, it could be fifty.

  “Whoever’s coming could still be a long ways off,” she said.

  “We’re over here,” yelled Anders.

  Striker rotated in their direction. She looked up at the sky. Even through the haze the white hole of the sun hadn’t budged. She didn’t need to look at her watch to know it would always be 12:14 p.m.

  “We should link arms and hike down to the beach,” said Bobbi Sue. “My babies will want us to be there when they land.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said the Dame through the mist. “You wanna end up like Taylor with your skull smashed open on the rocks?”

  “Who?” said Bobbi Sue.

  “They’ll find us, Mom,” said Anders. “The kayaks are right there on the beach.”

  “Can you see the kayaks?” countered the Dame. She seemed to be undermining her own argument.

  “Let’s just sit tight,” said Striker. She took a step toward their voices and slipped. The terrain was rapidly changing. “See?” she said. She lifted her foot. The sucking sound like an exaggerated kiss. It took real effort to pull her leg out. No way in hell did Bobbi Sue or Anders have the strength to free themselves from muck like this. Besides the ground, what else was thawing out?

  A loud pop rang through the haze. The hairs on both of Striker’s arms stood up.

  “Success!” cried the Dame.

  Striker stood listening to the Dame’s long, uninterrupted swallows, wondering what a hundred-year-old Antarctic wine tasted like. It was probably thick and vinegary, the old woman’s eyes tearing as she pounded it down.

  Suddenly the engine roar cut out. In the silence, the Dame lowered the bottle. Striker felt her ears pop, pressure building behind her eyes. There was no way a flotilla of rescue craft could synchronously cut their engines like that. It meant there was just one boat. If it was Hector returning in the zodiac, the thought of what he might have dredged up out there in the white-hot fog made her stomach clench. Hector like a cat dragging its broken trophy home. And if whoever had just landed wasn’t Hector—

  “Aren’t you holding a radio?” said the tired voice of Bobbi Sue.

  In the fog it took Striker a minute to realize the doctor was talking to her. “I am but god knows how to use it.”

  “Give it to Anna,” said Bobbi Sue. “She’s good at finding channels.”

  “Let’s hope the battery works,” said the teen.

  Striker inched through the mist to where the kid was standing, stopping when she hit two open hands. The teen took the radio out of the case and brought it up to their face.

  “It’s a Cobra,” they said. “I’ll do a scan and see what’s what.” Expertly the teen powered it on and began surfing the channels.

  “Think you can find the Yegorov?” asked Striker.

  “A radio like this, you can only talk to other boats if they’re close by,” explained the teen. “Depending on the atmospherics, we could get lucky. Maybe we’ll hit one of the stations out of the research bases, or one up in Argentina. But if we do, all you can do is listen.”

  Striker held her breath. A time or two the radio landed on the steady hum of a test pattern. Suddenly what sounded like some South American country’s national anthem came through crystal clear. The four of them stood waiting for an announcer to come back on with the news. But once it finished, the song started over again straight from the top.

  The teen didn’t give up. Striker was beginning to think it was pointless when a faint voice pierced the mist. The station was weak. The group edged in closer.

  “I think it’s coming out of Mawson, the Australian base,” said Anders. They sounded like their old pedantic self. “I know the call number. I saw a chart listing all the Antarctic radio stations in the bridge on the Yegorov.”

  Shizer. The kid really was some kind of memorizing genius.

  Despite the low volume, the voice was strident. Striker had to agree the accent was probably Australian.

  . . . has said there are many rooms in His father’s house. But you can trust there’s no room for the fornicator. No room for the coveter. No room for the abortionist. No room—

  “Turn it off,” she said.

  “But we only just—”

  “Atone! Only by the blood of the lamb are we saved,” said the voice.

  Anders powered it down.

  The four fell back into silence. The day hung white and thick. Through the mist the only sound was of heated air geysering up from the bowels of the earth.

  Time either passed or it didn’t. Overhead the white-hot smudge remained stuck past noon. Though she was standing upright in the swirling mist, Striker couldn’t be sure she was awake. Her mind felt slushy. She remembered the name for this kind of disorientation.

  White torture.

  Of course!

  She had read about it in the holiday newsletter Amnesty International mailed out begging for year-end gifts. All the global baddies used it. Iran. Venezuela. In a somewhat mitigated form, George W. Bush’s United States. Basically you stuck someone in a white room and deprived them of everything. You dressed them in white, fed them a daily diet of white rice served on a white plate, the guards padding the bottom of their white shoes to muffle the sound of their walking on the white floor. White lights were installed on the white ceiling in such a way as to render the white room shadowless, every white surface rounded and smooth, barren of texture. In Caracas they called it La Tumba. Throw someone in the Tomb and all you had to do was sit back and wait. Months. Years. Decades. Their brains softening into a white paste, the prisoner’s whole world a void. Striker could still remember the words of one man who had been white tortured.

  They get what they want without having to hit you.

  Thankfully the teen broke the monotony.

  “After all that stuff happened, I said I didn’t care,” said Anders. “But I do.”

  Striker knew the teen was addressing their mom. She would’ve happily wandered off and given the two some privacy but there was nowhere to safely wander to.

  “I just wish you’d see me for who I am.” Somewhere inside the teen a plug had been pulled, all the dirty dishwater draining out.

  “We asked you again and again,” said Sarah. Her voice was shaking but for the first time since the accident, she sounded stable. “‘Tell us who you want to be,’ we said, and you said it was all good. Anna or Anders. Take your pick.” Striker listened for the sound of Sarah reaching out for her child, but the two voices remained at a distance. “You told the therapist you weren’t sure. You said you identified as both.” Her voice was growing soft. “We wanted you to still have Anna in case you decided Anna was who you wanted to be. We didn’t want to take that life away from you.”

  “I didn’t lie,” said Anders. “My name, my pronouns—I truly don’t care. What matters is I can tell, I can feel it. You don’t like this.” Striker knew the thumping sound echoing in the fog was the teen beating their chest. “Admit it. You don’t like me.”

  “Of course I like you,” said Sarah. “I love you. You’re my child.”

  “So why don’t you act like it? Why do you hate me so much?”

  “I don’t hate you,” whispered Sarah. “I hate me.”

  From out of the quiet, something began to rumble. It wasn’t thunder. It was the island itself.

  “You are the bravest person I know,” said Sarah. “You never settle, even when settling would make things easier. Me? Every time I had a choice, I compromised. I never put me first.”

  “Boo hoo,” slurred the Dame. “I squeezed out a baby at fifteen. Left the silly thing at the hospital and never looked back. We’re women. We do what we have to do.”

  “Stay out of this,” warned Sarah.

  “My sister had a baby Christmas Day in the basement of our church,” Striker said. She could feel the words issuing out of her mouth, the action of speaking utterly out of her control. “Nobody knew she was pregnant. I was there, I saw it breathing on the floor. She zipped it up in her backpack. Then we stuffed my sister’s underwear with towels and she snuck off to a party and buried it.”

  “See?” said the Dame. She paused. Apparently the bottle wasn’t empty yet. The fog filled with the sound of the wine sluicing down her throat. “Twenty years after I gave birth to a son, I hired a detective to track him down.” A pungent smell wafted through the mist. “Surprise surprise. Little fucker didn’t want a damn thing to do with me.”

  What had the Baron said? Nothing builds a wall like a secret. Their whole marriage the Dame had never told him she’d had a baby, and on the eve of their wedding, he had kept her from knowing her only child, gifting her instead with an emerald fit for a dowager.

  “Anders?” said Sarah. Her words were tinged with dread. “I have something I need to tell you.”

  “I already know,” said the teen. “I knew this whole year. Mrs. Winters, the guidance counselor, told me. You and Dad never filed a report.”

  “I didn’t want that for you. Your whole senior year spent fighting.”

  “Let me guess,” the teen said wearily. “You did it for my own good.” They gave a sharp laugh. “But it was my decision to make. You guys love me but you fucked—”

  They all heard it at the same time. A voice suddenly cutting through the fog.

  “Mommy?”

  “Mikey?” Sarah whispered. She pivoted toward the sound of footsteps. “Mikey!” Off she went, rushing blindly into the mist.

  “Mom!” shouted Anders. The teen raced after her.

  There was a terrible noise louder than thunder. Striker slapped her hands over her ears. A chunk of earth ripped away. It plummeted into the caldera. None of them realized they’d been standing so close to the rim. Another thunderous crack sounded. The air shook.

  Then the mist receded long enough for Striker to see every detail. She had never noticed how much Anders looked like their mom. Both their smiles favoring the left sides of their faces, a small cleft adorning each of their chins. Neither of them screamed as the earth disappeared under their feet. Instead, they both locked eyes on Striker. The moment almost gentle. A kind of ballet. The ground split open. The two went tumbling through the whiteness. Sarah locking fingers with Anders. Her other hand reaching uselessly for Striker. The fog sealed back up. Even after the earth stopped rumbling, Striker kept her palms clamped over her ears.

  “You can stop cowering now,” said the Dame. “They’re gone.” The old woman jiggled the wine bottle, trying to gauge how much was left. Striker could see something was wrong with the old girl’s face. It kept shuddering, various expressions flitting across her skin like some sort of glitch.

  The haze glowed, the day fiery though for all Striker knew, it was deepest night. Tendrils of mist climbed the air, rising as if from a witch’s brew. It was coming. She could feel it in her gut. Any minute now the fog would coalesce and form something unspeakable, the horror of the last twenty-five years finally taking corporeal shape. Wasn’t that what she’d been expecting all this time? Her past walking the earth.

  And God said let there be light. And the light revealed the horror.

  Then something did step out of the mist.

  The little girl looked healthy. There were no signs of dehydration, exposure, hunger, extreme fright. Something fat and gray sat balled on her shoulder.

  “Where are your dads?” barked the Dame.

  “She doesn’t really talk,” said Striker, relieved she wasn’t the only one who could see her. Still, it was a good question. Where had she been? And where the hell was Hector?

  Wherever he was, Striker knew in that instant he was staring at her and nodding, his eyes burning her skin. She thought of their long-ago conversation back on the Yegorov. The way he’d sized her up. Now at the end of everything, he was calling on her as an ally, a fellow traveler in the white mist. Look after her, he was saying. Keep her safe. “What makes you think I can?” Striker whispered.

  She couldn’t tell if the fog was growing worse or if her eyesight was failing. One minute she would see Lucy standing clear as day in her yellow dry suit. Then something would shift and the child would disappear in clouds of white. Striker had been too long without sunglasses, her retinas burned from too much seeing. She couldn’t be sure if it was snow blindness or the elements or something more sinister.

  “The truth shall set you free,” mused the Dame. The old girl had plopped herself down on a new outcrop that hadn’t been there only minutes ago, the rock still steaming from the heat of its birth.

  “What was that?” said Striker.

  Blood was beginning to stain the front of the Dame’s dry suit. Two red bullseyes forming on the front of her chest. “I said, and then there were three. Jesus Christ. Pull yourself together.” The wine had loosened the old girl’s tongue. “Two’s company, three’s a crowd,” she roared. “A three-ring circus. Three wise men. Three in the pink, one in the stink.”

  “There’s a child here, for god’s sake,” but when the Dame didn’t hit back, Striker wasn’t sure either of them had spoken.

  The old girl lifted a hand to her mouth. There was a sound like cloth being torn. The smell of stale blood wafted through the mist. Striker felt her stomach heave. She could hear the tiny clicks as the Dame’s jaw worked overtime. Even through the fog the old woman’s titanium stumps flashed, two silver bullets.

  “You’re still eating it?” whispered Striker.

  The Dame got up off the steaming rock and faded into the mist. Her voice floated through the fog. “I wouldn’t have to if you’d brought us back something decent to gnaw on.”

  The word us sent a shiver through Striker’s veins. She went to put a hand on Lucy, hoping to keep the little girl close, but the child had disappeared again in the haze.

  “You know damn well what happened here,” called the Dame. “Don’t act like you don’t.” Before she vanished, Striker had seen a series of faces ripple over the Dame’s, heard the polyphony of voices in her words. Through the mist the old woman and several dozen others spoke in unison. “We’re all the same, just waiting to be rescued.”