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From Evelyn Terry’s Private Journal, Dated June 4, 1825

Aggy and I were the only ones who saw the man and the pirate ship that night! Our friends were standing right there, but they saw nothing and thought we were acting strangely…

“Are you two alright?” Thomas asked, spying Aggy and me still standing at the water’s edge.

“We’re fine,” I said, startled. “We’ll see you tomorrow at school.”

“See you tomorrow,” Gil called to us. “Get home before the storm!”

Gil, Thomas, and Laurel headed in one direction, and Aggy and I went in the other. We were both quiet for a bit, the sound of the trees whipping like a whistle to keep us company.

Aggy finally spoke. “I know you saw the ship. Just as I did.”

I felt myself inhale sharply. If Aggy saw it too, then I wasn’t seeing things. Aggy has the gift of sight, according to her mama. That means she can “see” things that will happen before they do. “Don’t walk the main road today, Sparrow,” she’ll say, and then someone will die when their wagon overturns on that very road. “Don’t let your father plow tomorrow,” she told me last week. Mr. Jones three farms away sliced off two of his fingers in a plow accident the next day. No one else knows about her gift but her mom and her aunt, who lives with them since Aggy’s father died a few years back. That’s why they moved to Greenport. Aggy’s mom and aunt are healers, but neither have the gift of sight, according to Aggy.

My heart was thumping now. “Does that mean…? Do you think…? If the others didn’t see the man or the ship, and I did, does that mean I have the gift of sight too?”

Aggy pulled at the white knotted string tied on her pale wrist. I wore one just like it. We’d made them one afternoon together. “No. I think you saw him because you chose to, just like you chose to find the island.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, confused. “Was he a spirit?”

“No,” Aggy said decidedly. “He was real. He was just…a man out of time.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I told her, my tone impatient. While I love my friend, she sometimes speaks in riddles and acts much older than me, even though we’re roughly the same age. (She’s thirteen, I’m twelve—so we get along like fireflies.) It helps she’s easy to talk to, we both like to swim, and both like to write. But sometimes her gift means she speaks about things I do not understand.

“Your father is coming,” Aggy said quietly, her blue dress whipping around her. “I will tell you more about this another time. Just promise me, Sparrow. You won’t talk to anyone about meeting that man tonight.”

I stopped short, my bare feet sinking into the mud beneath my toes. “Why can’t I tell anyone about him?”

Aggy was quiet for a moment. “Because people won’t understand. Not yet.” She struggled to find the right words, it seemed. “Our friends will in time, but if you try to tell them now, it will only frighten them about what comes next.”

I stepped closer to her. “What comes next?” My friend looked everywhere but at me. “Does this have anything to do with the Blood Orange Moon?”

I saw something sorrowful in her eyes, but just then I heard someone whistling. It wasn’t Papa. I stiffened. Axel Rudd was walking down the path toward us.

With his dark hair and even darker eyes, there was something about Axel that always bothered me. Unlike the rest of us, Axel didn’t wear hand-me-downs from his siblings or have a mother who sewed his clothes. His came from England (as he repeatedly told us), and he and his brothers had several shirts that they wore each week, whereas I had only the two dresses I wore all year. He was the same age as Gilbert, yet he was markedly different, a smug fellow who thought he was so sharp because his father owned most of Greenport and the factory on the wharf.

“Good evening, Axel,” I said politely.

“Evelyn,” he said smoothly.

He is the only one of our friends who doesn’t call me by my nickname. He says it is stupid. Since this is my story to tell, I can say I sometimes think Axel is stupid too.

“I came calling on you, Evelyn, and your father said you were out in the fields, yet I went looking and didn’t find you.” His eyes glinted sharply. “Instead, I find you here with Aggy. Where are you both coming from?”

“We were taking an evening walk,” I told him.

He cocked his head. “In the rain?” We didn’t answer him. He narrowed his eyes. “Were you on the island?” He could never find his way there on his own.

“No,” we said at the same time, which only made us look guilty.

Axel folded his arms across his chest. “What are you two up to?”

For someone who goaded us about how he would someday own this town, he sure hated to be left out of things.

“Nothing,” we said again in unison, which made things worse.

“Evelyn! Evelyn, where are you?”

“Papa,” I whispered. Aggy was right. My father was looking for me. “I should go.”

“So should I,” Aggy said, not wanting to be left alone with Axel. “Sparrow, we’ll talk in the morning? On the way to school?” Her expression was pointed. Say nothing about tonight to your parents.

“I will wait for you at your garden gate,” I told her. “The one by the rosemary.” I looked at Axel again. “Good night.”

“Good night,” he said stiffly, watching us both go.

I ran ahead, mad at myself for my appearance and for having to explain my lack of shoes. “I’m here, Papa!” I said, my empty bucket and the lantern I carried bouncing as I ran.

“Evelyn!” Papa said, hugging me. “Your mother and I were getting so worried when you didn’t come back. And then Axel Rudd came calling on you.”

“I’m sorry, Papa. I didn’t mean to make you worry. And I wouldn’t call it a calling,” I said stiffly. Axel and I are not mutually smitten with one another. I shuddered at the thought. “I went to see Aggy.” That part was the truth.

Papa chuckled. “We won’t tell your mother that part. You know she worries about you catching your death in the cold.”

Mama worries about us getting ill a lot. Three members of the Davies family died a few weeks ago from pertussis, and the Miller girl is said to have it at the farm one road over from us now. Mama is terrified the Cough will strike our home next. Once someone has the Cough, it is hard to keep away. “I feel fine, Papa,” I promised.

“Even so, you’re going to have a hard time explaining your lack of shoes and soiled dress from checking on my grapes.”

My cheeks burned. “I will check on them first thing.”

He hugged me to his side. “That is fine, my darling girl.” Mama says he is too soft with me. “Everything alright with Aggy?”

“Yes, Papa.”

I could feel the temperature dropping, and there was a sudden shift in the wind. We both looked up at the dark clouds overtaking the night sky.

Papa frowned. “This weather troubles me.”

His fears were my chance at asking him something. “Papa, do you think a Blood Orange Moon is causing the change in weather?”

Papa studied me as we started the walk down the road to our farmhouse. “Where did you hear about that? Mama said not to tell you about it. She didn’t want you to get scared.”

“I don’t get scared,” I said, which is true.

When the storm started earlier tonight, it was a wicked one. It blew in out of nowhere after supper; the wind so fierce it took the shutters off our house, snapped trees like twigs. The thunder was loud enough to rattle windows and make lightning fork through the sky like a river splitting into multiple paths. “You can tell me the truth.”

“I believe it is the Blood Orange Moon,” Papa admitted. “The Farmers’ Annual predicted it coming. It’s when a lunar eclipse, a second full moon in one calendar month, and an orange moon—when the sun and moon appear in the sky at the same time—all occur on the same night. We haven’t seen a moon occurrence like it in two hundred years.”

I always like when Papa pulls out his worn copy of the Farmers’ Annual , something he reads even more than the Bible, and explains different passages. “Is a Blood Orange Moon a bad thing?”

“Well, the Annual says it can usher in strange occurrences,” Papa said, watching the wind blow through the trees. “It can destroy crops, change tides, cause rough seas and storms, make animals go mad. Some of the farmers I’ve spoken to have called this type of moon a curse. It certainly is a bad omen.”

I suddenly felt cold. And now this strange man had appeared right around the same time I found the island, and he spoke of the very same celestial occurrence. “Are you worried?”

“Some,” Papa said and wrapped an arm around me. “Best thing we can hope for is that the calamities of the Blood Orange Moon pass Greenport by.” He hugged me tighter. “Now tell me truly: Where did you and Aggy run off to tonight?”

I couldn’t lie to my papa. I never have been able to. “Our island. The one near the beach you can get to at the fork in the road between Aggy’s house and our farmhouse? By the tulip tree? A few paces away from the road that leads into town. It’s hard to find. Covered by brush by the beach, but I found it a few weeks ago, and whenever we arrive, there is a sandbar that lets us walk across to it. We’ve been going there when we can to explore.”

Papa stared at me a moment, then started to chuckle. “Oh, darling girl, what an imagination you have. The only islands off Greenport are Gardiner’s and Shelter Island. And I highly doubt you would have made it to either of them by foot. There is no sandbar off Greenport.”

Papa was wrong. There is an island. I’ve been there. Seen it with my own eyes, but the way my father was looking at me, I was afraid to say more. I was even more nervous to ask him my next question. “Papa, have you ever heard of a man named Captain Jonas Kimble?”

“Ah, Miss Talbert is teaching you local history in school, is she?” Papa asked.

My heart seized. “You know who he is?”

“Of course. One of the most famous pirates to sail these waters in the 1600s.” Papa smiled. “Legend has it, he buried some of his treasure right here in Greenport. It’s never been found though. Would be nice to have all that gold, wouldn’t it?”

My heart was beating faster now, my hands growing clammy. “Did you say he lived in the 1600s? Two hundred years ago?”

“Yes, dear girl, why?” Papa wanted to know.

I felt dizzy at the thought. The wind rushed by us then, practically pushing us down the path, and I felt like I heard voices again. It was the island. I was sure of it, and it was singing my name.

Evelyn. Evelyn Terry. Welcome home.

“No reason,” I whispered. “No reason at all.”