Half a Cowrie

Four days of open water, and now the cove Captain Merren Vale drew for you on the back of a chart the winter before she died. Somewhere up this island is Saba Orne — her navigator once, her friend longer — who stayed behind thirty years ago to keep the crew's cache, and who has never been told why the ship stopped coming. In the bow of your dinghy sits an oilskin bundle of the captain's effects. Merren's last words to you were an errand: take them to Saba. She'll say no. Go anyway.