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ADELE

Adele knew that Falc?o Island was in the middle of the Atlantic and that its tourist season came to an abrupt stop at the end of September, but she’d still somehow expected to step out of the airport into balmy salt air. She’d envisioned blue skies and swaying palm trees.

Instead, as she moved through the automatic doors, hauling her pack, back stiff from the long flight, the sky was a moody dove gray, the air cool and damp. The airport, low, flat, and tiny, was quiet, a stark contrast to the bustling behemoth that was Newark Liberty International. Violet had dropped her off at the terminal in a honking river of other travelers, navigating the flow like the cold-blooded pro she was at pretty much everything. After hugging her daughter tight, then watching the Kia pull away, Adele spent the next couple of hours at the gate thinking she should just go home, that this was by far the most reckless thing she’d ever done.

But here she was.

The churning gray sea was only visible in the distance; she couldn’t hear it or smell it. It seemed flat and far away like an image in a postcard from a place you’d never visit. Her flight had been less than half full. Falc?o Island, falc?o Portuguese for hawk , population 150,000, was an emerging destination for adventure tourism, but only in the summer months. About half the local residents lived in Ponte Rico, the largest city in the island chain. Its history was storied, at least according to the internet—earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, European invasion, war. Apparently, it was home to one of Blake’s gamer buddies—that’s how her son had learned about the challenge. What was his name? Hugo? A spelunker, apparently, Hugo’s application for the challenge had been declined. Blake had entered Hugo’s contact information in her phone, saying she could call if she needed anything. Which was sweet, but what she needed was for the game to start, for her to win, and to get home to her kids.

Adele glanced around for the car that was supposed to pick her up, but there was no one there for her. A slender young woman with long skinny braids and stylishly torn jeans who’d been on Adele’s flight stepped into the embrace of an older man, then dipped into his waiting car. A middle-aged couple wearing matching navy blue windbreakers, hauling big backpacks, hopped into the single waiting taxi. A group of four fit, young, outdoorsy types piled into a van, their voices bright, laughter loud, making Adele feel inexplicably lonely.

It had taken her a while to get her own oversize pack, stuffed with all manner of gear, from the baggage claim. Now she was the only passenger waiting for ground transportation. She didn’t see another taxi or even any airport workers. Over the loudspeaker, a voice echoed. Even though she’d been studying Portuguese on Duolingo, she didn’t understand a word. She zipped up her light puffer jacket against the chill.

Adele checked her phone, decided to wait a minute before she texted her contact. She didn’t want to seem anxious. Finally, she lugged her heavy pack to lean it against a bench and sat, taking the opportunity to FaceTime Violet and Blake, although she knew it would only weaken her resolve for this whole enterprise.

She tapped on the app, then pressed their last call on the screen. She stared at her own image, fluffed up her wavy dark hair, pulled a smile so that she didn’t look quite so tired; her dark eyes were shadowed by fatigue, skin dull. It was only a few moments before she saw her daughter’s face.

“You made it,” said Violet with her big, heart-melting smile. “What’s it like?”

Adele looked around. Desolate. Deserted. That was the vibe. On the map, it was just a tiny green dot in a sea of blue. Twenty-five hundred kilometers from the US, fifteen hundred from Europe. The quite literal middle of nowhere and nothing. After October there were no more big commercial flights to and from the island.

“A little chilly,” she said, then tried to brighten it. “Quiet. Pretty.”

“Hi, Mom.” Blake pushed his face next to his sister’s. “Mav went live on Photogram and announced the game.”

Blake was the official steward of this enterprise, keeping Adele abreast of everything he read and watched about it online.

She still couldn’t believe she was here. It wasn’t even two weeks since she’d tapped that link, been accepted, requested time off work, jumped through all the Extreme hoops, including a psych evaluation. Which she’d passed apparently. She’d dusted off her camping gear, bought a bunch of new equipment that she couldn’t afford. Reconnected to her inner adventure-seeker, who she told herself was still in there, just dormant since she’d graduated college, married too young, and had two babies by the time she was twenty-five.

From where Adele sat on the bench, she could see a long, winding road heading off toward the horizon. As she watched, a black SUV crested the slight rise and glided toward the air port. That must be her ride. The sight of it moving toward her set her heart to racing. This was it. No turning back now.

“How are you guys?” she asked. “Miss me yet?”

She’d never left her kids before. Certainly, she’d never left them on their own. But together they’d convinced her that they could make meals, get to school, and not burn the house down. It was just a few days at the most. If she won. If she lost, she’d probably be home sooner. With nothing to show for this venture except more bills.

“We’re good,” said Violet. “We’re fine. I just made breakfast. Blake’s been studying diligently for his math test tomorrow. It’s okay, Mom. You can do this. We can do this.”

Another clench on her heart. The SUV drew closer.

Above her, the big sky swirled, black, gray, and white, with fierce patches of blue, a slight drizzle that was more like mist. Off in the distance the swell of low mountains, a rich deep green-black forest.

“Mom,” said Blake, pushing his sister off the screen. “That place, the old hotel. It looks scary. Like even scarier than the other places they’ve done these challenges.”

She and Blake were on some kind of a mom-kid loop—his anxiety could amp up her anxiety and vice versa. Violet was her own entity and always had been from the moment she was born. Violet’s self-possessed newborn gaze told Adele that her daughter would be her own person, separate, distinct. When she looked into Blake’s eyes, it was like she was looking into her own soul.

“ Of course they’re going to make it look as scary as possible,” said Violet off-screen, ever the pragmatist. “No one would care if it looked easy.”

“Mom,” said Blake, leaning closer to the camera. “The other contestants—remember Wild Cody?”

How could she not remember Wild Cody? She and Blake had watched every episode of his nature show when Blake was small. But for Blake a few years was a lifetime. For Adele it was about five minutes ago that she and her kids used to curl up on the couch and watch documentaries about every place, animal, and planet in the solar system.

“He’s an extreme survivalist now,” Blake went on. “He’s lived off the grid for like five years.”

Wild Cody. Hadn’t he been canceled for some messed-up thing he did on WeWatch? Didn’t they call him Killer Cody now? Adele dug through the recesses of her pop-culture memory, but she couldn’t access it. There was too much other life debris over the last few years for anything trivial to be stored there.

“Then there’s Malinka Nicqui,” Blake continued.

“O.M.G. love her,” Violet chimed in. “Her Yes I Can clothing line is epic. A little overpriced, though.”

If Adele won, she was going to get that Yes I Can hoodie ( Two hundred and fifty dollars? Seriously? ) for Violet, the one Adele knew Violet wanted but hadn’t even asked for. Ads for it kept popping up on Adele’s computer when she was working, just like the Ghost longboard that Blake coveted. Her kids were so good, so mature, that they didn’t even hint at their material desires, knowing that they were barely making ends meet. But the internet wasn’t so kind. Every time she saw one of those algorithmically generated ads, it broke her heart a little.

“She’s twenty-five, and she’s already climbed the Seven Summits,” Blake put in. “She was the youngest woman to do that at eighteen.”

“Well,” said Adele, “good for her.”

“Anyway, so what, Blake ?” Violet again. “It’s hide and seek . Not mountain-climbing.”

He was trying to conceal it, but doubt had etched itself all over her son’s sweet face. “They’re all adventure influencers.”

“Blake!” snapped Violet. “Wasn’t this your stupid idea?”

“I’m an influencer, too,” Adele said. “Remember?”

Just barely.

“Yeah,” answered Blake. “Of course. But they’ve—done lots of stuff.”

And you’re—just a mom, he didn’t say but was obviously thinking.

“Ha,” said Adele, summoning a bravado she did not feel. “They’ve got nothing on a single, working mother of two. A mountain summit would be like a vacation. Extreme survival? That’s just Tuesday.”

Blake cracked a rare grin.

“You got this,” said Violet, shoving Blake aside. “You’re going to slay, Mom. There’s no one tougher than you are.”

“You know it,” said Adele, and part of her even meant it.

“Anyway,” Violet said, “I heard that Malinka’s dad practically dragged her up some of those mountains. She didn’t do it alone. And Wild Cody? He’s like for-real old .”

She was about to say that she thought she and Wild Cody were probably about the same age, when the SUV pulled to a stop in front of her. A lean but muscular man with long, inky curls and a stylishly stubbled jaw climbed out, offered a big wave.

“Adele?” he called. “I’m Gustavo. Sorry I’m late.”

He had an easy kind of affability. And wow—he was superhot in his tight black T-shirt, distressed hiking pants, tattered boots, like he just fell out of an REI ad. Rugged, capable, ripped .

“My ride’s here.” She turned the phone around so the kids could see.

Gustavo waved again, smiling. “Hey, that must be Violet and Blake.”

“Oh, my god,” she heard Blake say. “That’s Gustavo .”

She knew from Blake constantly talking about Extreme that Gustavo was the sidekick, one of the main pals in an entourage of guys who performed their crazy stunts and challenges all over the world—BASE jumping from buildings, parkour courses in abandoned prisons, mountaineering, survival challenges. Gustavo was Blake’s favorite. He’d be Mav if Mav wasn’t Mav.

“Hi, Gustavo,” called Violet. Her voice was high and flirty in a way that Adele rarely heard, then she started to giggle—the same bubbling sound she’d made since she was a baby.

“Don’t worry, kids,” said Gustavo, cracking a heartthrob grin. “We’ll take good care of your mom.”

How old was he? she wondered. At least ten years younger than Adele, right? Not that she was interested in distractions like Gustavo. She was here for one reason only.

She turned the phone around and Violet had her eyebrows raised. “O.M.G.,” she mouthed, cheeks flushed. Adele felt herself blush, too, gave Violet a wink.

“What are you guys talking about?” said Blake, annoyed at being left out.

“Nothing, shut up,” said Violet, nudging him with her shoulder.

“ You shut up. Mom, Violet’s being Violet again,” he said without heat.

“I’ll text you when I get settled,” she said, another big wave of anxiety pulsing through her.

“I’ll be keeping my eye on everything,” said Blake, eyes still faintly purple, pushing his new glasses up his nose. “The weather, the other contestants. I’m sending you a WholeEarthNow shot of the hotel site.”

She had no idea what that was.

“You’re a dork,” said Violet. “He acts like he’s running a command center. Like—what’s he going to do from his bedroom?”

“Be good to each other,” she said. “Love you.”

Blake dropped an arm around his sister. Violet scowled at him.

“Love you,” her kids said in unison.

They waved as the screen went blank. That feeling—when they walked into school for the first day, or slept over at a friend’s house, or rode their bikes away down the street, finally one day taking off in your car—it was some mingling of pride and sadness.

She steeled herself. She was doing this for the right reasons. Her kids could handle themselves because she’d taught them how. She could handle this because she’d built herself back up from a woman deceived and abandoned by her husband into a competitor. She was no so-called adventure influencer. But there were plenty of people who had been inspired by her journey.

And that was something.

Gustavo moved over to grab her huge pack and effortlessly shouldered what took all her strength to carry. She should tell him that she could carry her own bag; after all, this was not a vacation. But he was already moving with the agility of the very athletic toward the car, and she trailed behind.

Was she going to be the only mom type on a roster of outdoorsy young hotties and off-the-grid survivalists? It didn’t matter, she told herself as she climbed into the big SUV. She was a survivor. She knew that much about herself, at least.

Gustavo opened the passenger door of the Range Rover, and she climbed in, catching immediately the faint odor of cigarette smoke clinging to the upholstery. It turned her stomach a little, reminded her of Miller. It was the smallest of his lies, that he smoked. But somehow now that stale, acrid scent awoke an irrational anger. She quashed it.

“Why do you think that bothers you so much?” her therapist had asked. “Of everything he did, why do we keep returning to that?”

“Because… I had no idea. I never smelled it, never caught him out on the back deck late at night. How did he hide it so well?”

Adele’s phone vibrated in her pocket, jolting her back into the moment. Before she even looked at it, a tingle of dread. When she glanced at the screen, she saw a number she didn’t recognize and a message.

It’s not too late. Go home. The game is dangerous, and you’re not safe. Go back to your kids.

Who is this? she typed back quickly, feeling her blood pressure go up.

This was not the first time she’d received a text like this. Since she’d been accepted by Extreme, she’d received three. All from different numbers. No answer to her questioning replies. No one picking up when she tried to call back.

Adele stared at the screen another moment. Gustavo tossed her pack in the trunk and slammed it closed with a final thud.

She glanced back at the low concrete airport, the churning waters beyond. It’s not too late.

Was someone messing with her? Maybe even a tactic by Extreme to throw her off-kilter—something for which they were supposedly famous?

Or was it a real warning? If so, from who? Since Miller’s disappearance, she’d received so many nasty and threatening texts that she was actually a bit inured to it. Her number was out there. It had been on the company website. She never changed it. Because—not that she would admit it to anyone—she wanted Miller to have a way to reach her. If he had an attack of conscious, or one of those weak moments Agent Coben talked about, she wanted to talk him in. For herself, for the kids. Even, on some level, for the man she used to love.

Block. Delete. Fuck off.

She stowed the phone, took a breath. She wasn’t going to let anyone get inside her head.

Climbing in beside her, Gustavo grabbed his own phone and stared at it a moment, shook his head just slightly, then pocketed it. He sat a moment, frowning ahead.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

He seemed to snap from his thoughts, then gave her a warm smile. “Just life, right? It’s a puzzle sometimes, isn’t it?”

She blew out a breath, gave one last look at the airport. Wait , she almost said. I’m going home. “That’s for sure.”

Gustavo started the car, and the big vehicle roared away from the airport, winding up that long road.

“Mind if I do a quick live?” she asked.

“Be my guest. That’s what it’s all about, right? Views, views, views.”

Was there an edge to his tone? She decided to ignore it if there was.

She took out her phone and held it up so that she could see her face in the camera. Not bad, some lines debuting around her eyes, a little fatigued, hair a bit frizzy, but she never fussed over herself much, wore too much makeup, or filtered her image. What you see is what you get. It was one of her big messages. Beauty is not about perfection, it’s about being unapologetically yourself.

She was new to this, but she was getting the hang of it. She pressed the button.

“Hey, friends, I’m finally here—on stunning Falc?o Island.”

She turned the camera to Gustavo who dutifully smiled and waved.

“This is Gustavo from Extreme. He’s picked me up from the airport, and we’re headed to the site. I’m tired and a little nervous but super excited.”

Hearts and thumbs-up flooded the screen. The comments started rolling in a stream of You got this! and You go, girl! and Slay, queen!

“Look at this place,” she said, turning the camera.

The screen filled with the fecund green of the trees, the riot of color from the wild hydrangeas, the swirling white, gray, black of the sky. It looked like an oil painting.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?”

It was gorgeous, in a kind of moody, feral way. She felt something shift inside her, the way she always did when she was in nature. It was like her body remembered that this was where she belonged. That everything else was just the theater the world had created.

She changed the camera back to capture her face.

“Wish me luck, guys. I’m as prepared as I can be. And I’m going to do my best. I hear that the competition is fierce. But you know what we do when the trail ahead is rough and unpredictable? Take one step at a time.”

Phoenix**: You can do this.

PowerBarb: There’s no one tougher than you.

JenJenxoxo: I’m cheering for you, my friend.

VioletsInBloom: Love you, Mom!

She smiled at the camera and clicked off.

Silence again.

Ahead was a swath of deep green, the rise of the low mountains, that strange sky, which seemed equally about to open into rain or wash into a sunny blue. A light, misty rain fell and the windshield wipers pumped as the road wound out of town and twisted dramatically up a rise, the airport disappearing in the rearview mirror. Another riot of hydrangeas bloomed along the roadside. Falc?o Island was always temperate, she’d read. Never hot, never cold. The famous hydrangeas bloomed most audaciously in spring and summer, a fragrant watercolor, but could be seen all year.

The light suddenly faded from the sky; she looked out the window to see big thunderheads up ahead.

“Weather looks like it’s about to turn.”

He laughed a little.

“Here we say if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes. It’s dramatic, changeable. Even if the skies open, in an hour you’ll have sun again. If it’s sunny, you might find yourself surprised by sudden rain.”

“Like life,” she said.

He cast her a look she couldn’t read, finally nodded.

“Are you from here?” she asked.

“I had family here, spent summers on Falc?o Island as a kid. It feels like home in some ways.”

Gustavo had a serious aura, but it was lightened by an air of benevolent mischief, like the boys she found most frequently in her office at school. Not the troubled ones, the ones she worried about, but the wild ones. The boys for whom the structure and schedule of school was a kind of torture. They weren’t bad as much as they were out of place, needed to be ranging through the woods somewhere instead of being chained to a desk. Gustavo seemed like someone who might get into trouble but talk his way out of it. Then get in trouble for something else.

“My son has a friend here, someone he met on Red World .”

Gustavo nodded. “There’s a trend of people from other countries settling here. There are good jobs for hiking, climbing, and canyoneering guides, surfing teachers, hospitality, too. It’s cheap to live, beautiful. But isolated. The island can close in on you sometimes.”

In the distance, she saw the town on the coast, Ponte Rico. It was bigger than she’d imagined, looked bustling and clean. But then it disappeared behind a swath of deep green.

As they kept driving, she glanced at her phone a couple times to see if there was another text. But no. She breathed, forced herself out of her head and into her body.

“Tell me about a time you were under pressure and how you handled it,” the very young, bespectacled Dr. Garvey had prompted during the Zoom psych evaluation she’d done to qualify for the competition.

“How often would you say you lose your temper? Do you ever feel like you’re out of control?

“Have you experienced clinical depression, or any other kind of mental illness?

“Would you say you are an introvert or extrovert?”

She’d answered all his questions as truthfully as she could. She remembered how her heart thumped during that session, though Dr. Garvey had been kind and nonjudgmental.

As a result of those sessions, an extensive questionnaire, no doubt an exhaustive internet search, a background check, and the essay Violet and Blake had helped her write, Maverick and his Extreme team probably knew more about her than anyone else did, including her children.

They had all the tools necessary to mess with her—if that was part of the game. Texting from burner phones, telling her to go back to her kids. That would be easy.

“There it is,” said Gustavo, pointing ahead.

She leaned forward and saw it. A giant concrete structure thrust itself out of the fecundity around it. A man-made thing, all hard angles and gray surfaces, unwelcome to the eye in the natural beauty of its surroundings. Even from this distance she could see that the windows were hollow of glass, that parts of it were crumbling.

“Enchantments,” she said.

It was not in the least enchanting. It looked like a prison, or something from one of the ruined civilizations in the dystopian novels that Violet favored.

“That’s what Mav has been calling it,” said Gustavo with a tight smile. “But the original name in Portuguese was Esperanca, really.”

She knew enough Portuguese to get the irony.

“Hope,” she said. “It means hope .”

Gustavo nodded, and he looked up as well to the looming structure. It seemed to stare back at them. Then as they grew closer, it vanished from view.

He took a sharp turn off the road, and they were plunged into the blackness of the thick tree cover overhead. The road grew rougher. Adele jostled in her seat, grabbed for the handle above the window.

Gustavo flipped on the headlights, the beams carving through the darkness. Around the next bend, there was something in the road. Something big.

He brought the Rover to an abrupt stop. “What is that?” he said.

It was a huge pulsating mass in the dim light. Adele couldn’t make it out right away. Gustavo climbed out of the vehicle, grabbing his phone. But he didn’t approach the thing, staying behind the open car door, pointing the phone camera lens at the road.

Adele leaned closer to the windshield, and the form took shape.

It was an enormous bird of prey, its ferruginous wings extended, flapping, its end feathers wide and tilting up like the spread fingers of a hand. In its yellow beak it held some kind of small mammal, hanging limp, dead.

The bird dropped the carcass to the road and proceeded to tear it apart. Adele found that she couldn’t look away as the bird used its razor-sharp beak to rip away pieces of flesh. There was no frenzy to the eating, the predator’s cool yellow eyes glowing, glancing at them occasionally.

Her stomach turned as the bird tore into the bloody flesh.

That’s the way of it , she used to tell the kids during nature shows, even though she too cringed as the lion took the gazelle or the shark ate the seal. If the predator doesn’t catch his prey, he dies .

Another bird, lighter in color but greater in size, swooped in, and a terrible, shrieking dance occurred as both animals spread their flapping wings, screeching until finally the first bird flew away, the echo of its cries carrying angrily on the night air. The other bird snatched up the prey in its talons, then it, too, flew away.

Adele leaned forward to watch it disappear into the trees.

Gustavo climbed back into the driver’s seat. “Buzzards. A male and a female. Looks like she won that fight.”

“She probably has some babies to feed,” said Adele, watching it disappear into the sky.

“The female is usually the strongest,” said Gustavo. “In any species. Buzzards are the islands’ only natural predator.” She didn’t interrupt him, though she already knew something about the birds. “They’re not vultures, which are commonly called buzzards in the US, but hawklike birds in the kite family often confused with goshawks. In fact, Falc?o Island is a bit of a misnomer. The early settlers probably mistook the birds for hawks. The symbol of the goshawk figures prominently in the island heraldry in spite of the mistake.”

She’d read that buzzards were seen in some cultures as a symbol of transformation and change, the ability to release the old and embrace the new.

In others, a harbinger of destruction.

She felt a chill move through her as the light grew dimmer, and Gustavo started driving again.

They came to a stop at the grand entrance, the rusting gate swung wide.

A towering, graffiti-covered sign greeted them.

PERIGO! it read in bold, black type, though someone had turned the O into a comical frowning face. Na Entre , it went on. And then for good measure, a translation: DANGER! Do Not Enter! An enormous black hand was encircled by a red prohibited symbol, a circle with a slash through it.

“They don’t mean us, right?” said Gustavo with a mischievous grin.

Adele snapped a picture and watched the sign disappear behind them on the twisting road to Enchantments.