Raff goes out early to find Fen and discovers her, as usual, on the beach marking how much higher the tide has come in. He brings her leftover food and urges her to come back to the house, but Fen refuses. Raff reflects on how frightened she has been, how badly he feels he failed to protect her, and how much he misses the closeness they have always shared.

While they sit together, Raff watches Dominic and Orly approaching in the distance and thinks about the future beyond Shearwater. Fen admits that the idea of leaving makes it hard for her to breathe, but she also knows that staying on the island is destroying them. Raff fears that once they leave, the family will break apart, especially if Fen starts a new life of her own.

Raff then raises a deeper fear: Dominic may refuse to leave at all, and even if he does, the family’s real problem may follow him. Fen insists that Shearwater itself is the bridge for whatever haunts them, and Raff reflects on how firmly Fen and Orly believe in ghosts and on how his father sometimes speaks into empty air. The conversation shows how grief, isolation, and belief in their dead mother still shape the family’s choices.

When Dominic and Orly reach them, Orly briefly turns the moment playful by wrestling with Raff and Fen. The mood changes immediately when Dominic, grave and controlled, announces that he has learned Rowan is Hank’s wife and that she came to the island looking for Hank. Fen is shaken, but Dominic insists that it changes nothing and orders the children to keep quiet. Raff recognizes in Dominic’s calm voice the same dangerous restraint that can tip into violence, ending the chapter on a note of fear and secrecy.