"This is really amazing." Sannah stroked the page of Judit's book admiringly. "Some of these skills are just... genius. Such a clever way to use the resources at hand both effectively and sustainably." She turned the page.

"Rama wrote it," Judit declared, a fuzzy feeling in her stomach at the thought of him. "He said it was his life's work."

"I can see that." Sannah nodded, twisting the book to get a closer look at a diagram of a spinning-wheel. "It's really something."

Judit smiled, proud for Rama, and turned her head to survey the sea and sky, sparkling huge and blue around them, infused by the light of the sun.

They'd been on the boat for days, but Brock had said that they were on course. If it didn't take so long to get there, it wouldn't be so safe.

"I just can't believe how sophisticated the Natives were," Sannah went on, her nose still buried in the book. "I mean, I really thought, all that stuff we did at school about savage attacks, heads on spikes..."

Judit looked up sharply to see if Gaen was in earshot. Skit, he was. He'd heard her too. Was Sannah about to get a roasting?

"It just goes to show," Sannah carried on, oblivious, "the power of the Generic hegemony, that they could rewrite history to such an extent. Demonise a society so superior to their own in so many ways."

Judit glanced again at Gaen. He was looking at Sannah like she'd just come down in a beam of light, was still brushing off her wings and halo. Judit couldn't suppress the grin that was spreading across her face, licit making her cheeks ache.

"That hegemony, eh?" she said, trying to keep a straight face.

"You must be really proud." Sannah looked up at Gaen, still standing and staring at her. "That this is your heritage."

He blushed, almost purple, and opened his mouth then closed it again. Judit decided to jump to his aid, cos she was nice like that.

"Yours too," she reminded Sannah. "You're part Native, remember? Rama told me."

"Not that it matters." Gaen had finally scraped his wits back up off the deck. "I mean, Lulu and Deera are no different from us. Ancestors don't really mean anything."

The oldest Exotic girl looked up from the other side of the deck, where she was chopping vegetables with Merle, and said something unintelligible.

"She wants to know why you're talking about her," Merle reported, without looking up from her chopping board.

"Trust you to be an immediate expert in their language," Gaen grumbled under his breath, scowling at his sister.

"It's called Tvu, you nyaff." Merle said condescendingly, then turned to say something nonsensical to Lulu, which resulted in both girls collapsing in giggles. Deera leaned in, and Lulu repeated Merle's joke, and she laughed too, shaking her head.

"Where's Pii?" Gaen turned away, clearly sore that the joke was on him. And in front of Sannah, too.

"She's here." Jaddy's voice drifted from the back of the wheelhouse, shortly followed by the emergence of his body. He held up a paper boat. "We're making boats. She likes how fast they move in the slipstream."

The tiny girl's voice summoned him back and he shrugged, smiling, before disappearing again to the stern.

Gaen came and sat next to Judit, recomposed after his burning from Merle.

"Here. They are seeds," he said, passing  Judit a cluster of tiny, brown ridged orbs. "You were right. I've taken them out of the pod and you can plant them like that, but I'm not sure how well they'll do in the climate on Hirta. We'll just have to see."

"Thanks." Judit smiled at him gratefully, took the seeds and held them delicately, like the greatest treasure known to mankind. Because that's what they are.

***

Judit was dozing, eyes heavy, about to fall asleep, when it happened. Hegri was reading aloud from the mythology book Rama had given her, the others crowded around him on the deck, sitting on blankets, lolling on each other.

The sun was low in the sky, but it was far from dark. Everything was warm and glowing and golden. The sea rocking the boat like a mother's hand on a cradle, easing Judit into a soft, cloudy sleep.

"Look!" The sound woke Judit up. Lintie was shouting. She was clinging to Brock—like she has been ever since we got on this dagging boat, seriously, get a room—and jumping up and down, her eyes and the tip of her pointed finger fixed on the horizon. "Look, guys! Look!"

The group stood to attention, all rushing to the front of the boat.

There it was. Dark and green and clear, clear as day on the horizon, the only disruption to the sky, sitting solidly out there on the flat, blue sea.

It was Hirta.

They all stood on ceremony, breath caught in their throats, wind in their hair, as the island moved ever closer. Silver cliffs came into view, green forests, white sands.

Judit noticed them first. "Look, everyone!"

She pointed to the rocks by the side of the boat. They were lousy with hundreds of fat, content selkies, sunning themselves by the glistening sea. Judit imagined one was Rama, and blew it a kiss.

They drew into a bay and Brock steered the boat smoothly alongside a flat rock, stepping skilfully onto the wooden side, reaching out to grab the rock to steady their stop.

"Check this out," he called to Gaen. "There's still a place to tie up. It's a perfect harbour."

Gaen went to join him, the boys admiring the woodwork in the old stone.

They all clambered out, Lulu, Deera and Pii first, the girls eager to get off the boat, rushing onto dry land. The group swarmed into the bay, laughing and shouting, all in high spirits. It was more beautiful than they had expected, more real than they had feared.

"Look," Merle pointed up the bay, to where the grass met the sand. "There are sheep."

"They must have left them when they evacuated the island," Gaen marvelled, "and they've been living free ever since. That means there's a freshwater source nearby."

"And look at this!" Lintie was running through the grass. She began climbing on her hands and knees, scrambling up piles of stones. "It's the remains of blackhouses! There must have been a village here."

"It'll be pretty easy to rebuild them, I bet, on those foundations." Gaen said. He turned and smiled shyly at Sannah, who smiled back.

The rest of the group gravitated toward the village, Pii on Jaddy's shoulders, their excited whoops and cries drifting on the breeze across the beach to Judit.

She smiled and turned away, digging into the pocket of her jeans. She pulled out her seeds carefully, and inspected them in her cupped hand. Then she put her hand in her pocket again, pulled out her squashed rhododendron flowers, once pink and fragrant, now brown and dried. She hadn't even noticed the seed-pod, at first, but it had been there, nestled under the crispy blooms. And that? It felt like fate.

Judit walked towards the border of the beach and the grass, up the hill to where the others were running around the ruined village. She picked a quiet spot, against a wall warm with sunshine, and bent down. Digging a small hole in the dark soil with her fingers, she rested the seeds in it, before covering them carefully and patting the ground neatly flat with her hand.

Satisfied, she turned around and sat in the sunshine, surveying the sea, the sky, the irrepressible lavy darting and diving above. A dark shape looped around the blue, and Judit recognised an osprey.

"Judit?" Sannah approached her from behind, came and sat beside her. She took her hand, and Judit leaned in to her sister's strong shoulder.

"I love you," Judit said.

"I love you too," Sannah softly replied.

Judit was content. Here on the island, watching the sea.

The two girls sat like that for a while. Heads together, curls mingling, faces lit up by the sun.