The Signature of All Things

they to dash themselves against the rocks? Was that to be the morbid aim of this journey? But then Alma saw it—an arched opening in the cliff face, a dark aperture, an entrance to a sea-level cave. Tomorrow Morning synchronized the canoe to the rolling of a strong wave and then—thrillingly, fearlessly—shot them straight through that opening. Alma thought for certain they would be sucked back into the daylight by the receding water, but he paddled fiercely, almost standing up in the canoe, such that they were pitched up on the wet gravel of a rocky beach, deep inside the cave. It was nigh a feat of magic. Not even the Hiro contingent, she thought, would have risked such a maneuver.
    “Jump out, please,” he commanded, and although he did not quite bark at her, she gathered that she had to move quickly, before the next wave camein. She leapt out and scurried to the highest level—which, to be honest, did not feel quite high enough. One big wave, she thought, and they would be washed away forever. Tomorrow Morning did not seem concerned. He pulled the canoe up behind him onto the beach.
    “May I ask you to help me?” he said politely. He pointed to a ledge above their heads, and she saw that he meant to put the canoe up there, for safekeeping. She helped him lift the canoe, and together they pushed it up onto the ledge, far above the reach of the breaking waves.
    She sat down, and he sat beside her, breathing heavily with exertion.
    “Are you comfortable?” he asked her at last.
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Now we must wait. When the tide goes out fully, you will see that there is a kind of narrow route that we can walk on along the cliff, and then we can climb upward, to a plateau. From there, I can take you to the place I wish to show you. If you feel that you can manage it, that is?”
    “I can manage it,” she said.
    “Good. For now, we will rest for a spell.” He lay back against the cushion of his jacket, stretched out his legs, and relaxed. When the waves rolled in, they nearly reached his feet—but not quite. He must know exactly how the tides operated within this cave, she could see. It was quite extraordinary. Looking at Tomorrow Morning stretched out beside her, she had a sudden poignant memory of the way Ambrose used to sprawl so comfortably across any surface—across grass, across a couch, across the floor of the drawing room at White Acre.
    She gave Tomorrow Morning about ten minutes to rest, but then could contain herself no longer.
    “How did you meet him?” she asked.
    The cave was not the quietest place to speak, what with the water rushing back and forth up over the stones, and all the variations of damp echoes. But there was something about the thrumming rush of sound, too, that made this place feel like the safest spot in the world for Alma to demand things, and to have secrets revealed. Who could hear them? Who would ever see them? Nobody but the spirits. Their words would be dragged from this cave by the tide and pulled out to sea, broken up in the churning waves, eaten by fish.
    Tomorrow Morning replied without sitting up. “I returned to Tahiti tovisit the Reverend Welles in August of 1850, and Ambrose was here—just as you are now here.”
    “What did you think of him?”
    “I thought he was an angel,” he said without hesitation, without even opening his eyes.
    He was answering her questions almost too quickly, she thought. She did not want glib answers; she wanted the complete story. She did not want only the conclusions; she wanted the in-between. She wanted to see Tomorrow Morning and Ambrose as they met. She wanted to observe their exchanges. She wanted to know what they had been thinking, what they had been feeling. Most certainly, she wanted to know what they had done. She waited, but he was not more forthcoming. After they had been in silence for a long while, Alma touched Tomorrow Morning’s arm. He opened his eyes.
    “Please,” she said. “Continue.”
    He sat up, and turned to face her. “Did the Reverend Welles ever tell you how I came to the mission?” he asked.
    “No,” she said.
    “I was only seven years old,” he said. “Perhaps eight. My father died first, then my mother died, then my two brothers died. One of my father’s surviving wives took responsibility for me, but then she died. There was another mother, too—another of my father’s wives—but subsequently she died. All the children of my father’s other wives died, in short order.