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The island was called Lamma Island, they said.

A menacing soldier came to interrogate her—always asking about the egg—and then a gaggle of doctors carrying briefcases came to examine her.

Naked, she lay on a narrow bed, exposed in bright beams, helpless.

She wondered what she had done and whether she’d die on the surgery table for an egg.

Then she was confined in a small cell with a bed, a bench, a chamber pot, and a table with jeweler’s tools and pencils and gold and silver and gemstones.

Fascinated, she picked up the tools one by one, feeling the weight in her hand and listening to the soft clinks.

A familiar wave of thrill shot through her stomach.

It was perhaps a trick of the light, but something seemed to shine through, and voices, hard to catch, like music, echoed in her brain.

As if guided by an unseen force, she began to make a hook, a link, a bezel setting for a ring, a chain.

She could hear the footsteps of the Japanese guard with a rifle outside her cell, the whispers of the food delivery women who came and went, and the other voices of the island, of the prisoners’ misery, of the waves and the wind; she didn’t raise her head.

Days passed, then months and years. She made rings, necklaces with pineapple pendants, jade belt buckles, silver cigarette cases, and emerald incense burners.

Each object flickered, emitting an intense phosphorescence like a diamond in the dark, evoking something like a piece of lost memory.

She remembered the sky of snow, the bone-piercing chill, a dingy apartment near the railway, and a woman with a soft voice, and then, as if in a mirror, she saw a solitary child by the railway, drawing with her freezing hands.

And then her hands, holding a precious egg, surreal like a glacial kingdom. She, a piece of jade, an orphan.

She remembered her years in Shanghai, the city of gold and gangsters, the bewitching French jeweler with a charming face, and the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, wearing a yellow dress bright like the sun.

She remembered she had loved, deeply, two men, one by the name of Isaac, the other Confucius; one was old, the other was young; one bent the metal, the other broke the morals; one had given her a diamond, the other had made her feel like a diamond.

Her love for them was like a tide, ebbing and flowing, full of mystery, full of regret.

They had protected her, given their lives to her, and loved her back.

Yes, she had loved them, and they had loved her back.

And then, one day, peering at a pea-sized sapphire through a loupe, she remembered the princess obsessed with the eggs, and she remembered Matthew, the golden boy she had loved since he was born, the boy with the Diamond of Life.

She remembered her name.

The door opened.

The Japanese guard shouted for her to leave.

Anyu stood and wobbled toward the door, holding the blowtorch she was working with.

Her legs felt weak, having been sitting for long hours, and she had to reach for the wall to support herself.

The soldier from the pier had come again, collected all the jewelry she had made, and asked more questions about the egg. Anyu remained silent.

Outside her cell, the warm wind caressed her face.

She closed her eyes. She had long lost track of the seasons, forgotten how the island looked or exactly how long she had been there.

This moment of freedom, of returning to the real world, was unexpected.

It was near sunset; the palm trees, the shoreline, and the sky appeared faint, like shadows.

Many women were gathered near a tent, where they had slept; some trudged through the grassland to her left, their heads drooping like parched sunflowers.

“Go.” The guard prodded her to join them.

Where were they going?

A shot startled her, distant but close; for a moment the women froze in their trancelike walk, and then a wave of shrieks washed over the quiet island. The women scattered like startled animals.

Someone fell beside her.

“Help me,” a woman said.

The voice sounded familiar—the food delivery woman. Anyu took her hand, but as she pulled, she lost her footing and crashed over the woman. Together, they rolled and fell over a slope. The drop was steep, taking her breath away. Finally, she hit a log and stopped moving.

“Where are we?” the delivery woman asked, lying a few feet away.

Anyu shook her head. She couldn’t see very well but could still hear the volley of gunshots and screams in the distance.

“I know you. You are the Jeweler.”

Anyu sat up. Her body ached; she might have broken her rib.

“Are you mute?”

She cleared her throat, but then she began to cough, and the urge, as always, stormed inside her lungs like a tyrant.

“It’s all right, you don’t have to talk. I think we’re safe here.”

Anyu nodded.

“They are planning on killing us, do you know? Rumors said the American submarines torpedoed the Japanese, and the Japanese are losing the war. They’re leaving the island. So they organized a massacre on this island to get rid of us. Don’t move!”

Anyu looked around and saw what she meant—they were not alone.

Around them, hanging on the branches and leaves, reflected by the fading daylight, were strange creatures: bright-colored Romer’s tree frogs, fuzzy caterpillars, moths the size of a saucer, and spiders parading with their pencil-like legs.

Anyu sat still.

“Watch out for those caterpillars; they’re poisonous,” her companion said, groaning.

Then she introduced herself—Rain. She looked to be in her twenties, much younger than Anyu.

Originally from a village in Guangzhou, she had been in Hong Kong since she was ten, and she had been imprisoned here for three years. “I think I broke my leg. It hurts.”

Anyu wished there was something she could do.

“We’ll hide here. Just in case the soldiers are looking for us. Once we survive this, we can go home.”

Home. To see Matthew again. Anyu no longer felt the stab in her rib or intimidated by the colossal insects lurking beside her. She found a cave nearby and crawled inside with Rain. For the entire evening, they listened to gunshots and heartrending cries coming from uphill.

At dawn, the screams died down; the forest sank into a mournful silence. They crawled out.

“Look.” Rain nudged her.

Outside the cave, above them, where her cell had been, red flames flared, plumes of black smoke spiraling above the forest. The raging inferno went on for three days, the air hissing with heat and rent by the agonizing cries of trapped animals, the ground ablaze with kindled grass and branches.

The odor of scorched flesh and burning tree bark hung on the island, and the smoldering smoke and heat drove Anyu to tears.

When the fire finally eased, the once-verdant forest had turned into a bleak cemetery of charred groves shrouded with ashes.

Dizzy with hunger, Anyu went to hunt for food since Rain was immobile with her broken leg.

But she was unable to go too far, deterred by the choking smoke and flickering embers on the path.

After much foraging, she returned with three roasted frogs and a big-headed turtle—the best she could do.

They ate them all.

With food in her stomach, Anyu trekked across the warm forest ground and went to the prisoners’ camp.

There was not a single female prisoner left; the tents had been burned to the ground, her cell buried in a pile of rubble, and all the gold, gemstones, and tools had vanished.

The Japanese guards were gone, and so were the boats.

Each day, Anyu climbed out of the cave and trekked down the hill to the shore, looking for the boats that would take them to Hong Kong, a distant island. Matthew should be fourteen years old by now, a big boy. She couldn’t wait to see him.

They were hungry, always hungry. With animal carcasses and insects rapidly spoiling in the sun, Anyu hunted bats and pangolins and shared her food with Rain, who was recovering slowly, but still unable to walk.

One day, Anyu heard a thunderous boom coming from the lighthouse on Hong Kong Island. Days later, a fleet with British flags sailed across the ocean toward Mt. Davis. Fishermen’s blue junk boats, trawlers, and sailboats also appeared on the horizon.

She waved. “Here! Here!”

I’m coming, Matthew, I’m coming!