Aoi does not need convincing either. She has been keeping her own count on the back of the clipboard for years.

AoiNine months. That's what everyone says. It's nine months every time I look at it, and I've been looking at it for a while.

She says her brother went to the island to ask the woman in the house for something, and that he came back for one night and then did not.

AoiHe said she plays fair. He said it like that was the awful part.

She pulls a key out of her pocket and puts it on the table between you. Her cousin's boat.