Han­nah grips the boat’s rail­ing tight­ly, her knuck­les white as she fights the ris­ing nau­sea brought on by the relent­less rock­ing of the waves. The jour­ney to Inis an Amplóra is prov­ing more treach­er­ous than she had antic­i­pat­ed, the rough seas serv­ing as an unset­tling pre­lude to The Plus-One wed­ding they are about to attend. Char­lie, seat­ed beside her with a look of mild amuse­ment, reas­sures her with emp­ty plat­i­tudes, though his own unease is betrayed by the occa­sion­al tight­en­ing of his jaw. Their cap­tain, Mat­tie, an old­er man well-versed in the island’s treach­er­ous waters, steers with prac­ticed ease, regal­ing them with sto­ries of the land they are fast approach­ing. His tales, rich with his­to­ry, paint a dark­er pic­ture than the pic­turesque wed­ding venue they had imag­ined. Once a sanc­tu­ary for a per­se­cut­ed reli­gious sect, the island had been the site of an unspeak­able massacre—an event buried beneath the weight of time and for­got­ten by all but those who made the jour­ney across these waters.

Mat­tie’s voice car­ries over the howl­ing wind as he details the dis­cov­ery of the remains, a grim reminder of the island’s vio­lent past. Han­nah lis­tens intent­ly, feel­ing an inex­plic­a­ble chill creep up her spine, as if the very air on the boat has grown heav­ier. Jules had cho­sen this loca­tion for its exclu­siv­i­ty, its inac­ces­si­bil­i­ty lend­ing an air of grandeur to her already extrav­a­gant wed­ding plans. Yet, as Han­nah watch­es the jagged cliffs loom in the dis­tance, she can­not shake the feel­ing that beneath the island’s breath­tak­ing beau­ty lies some­thing deeply unset­tling. Char­lie, on the oth­er hand, remains unboth­ered, dis­miss­ing Mattie’s sto­ries as super­sti­tious ram­blings meant to enter­tain ner­vous trav­el­ers. He is more pre­oc­cu­pied with his thoughts on Jules’s fiancé, Will, whose sud­den and whirl­wind engage­ment he finds ques­tion­able at best.

As they approach the dock, the con­trast between Han­nah and Jules becomes ever more appar­ent. Where Jules thrives in a world of care­ful cura­tion and refine­ment, Han­nah exists in a state of orga­nized chaos, her life dic­tat­ed by instinct rather than metic­u­lous plan­ning. The island, with its dual­i­ty of iso­la­tion and grandeur, mir­rors the com­plex­i­ties of their friendship—an uneasy bal­ance between admi­ra­tion and unspo­ken ten­sion. Han­nah can sense Charlie’s skep­ti­cism about the wed­ding, a doubt she too shares but dares not voice. There is some­thing about the rapid nature of Jules’s engage­ment that feels off, and while Charlie’s dis­trust stems from Will’s care­ful­ly con­trolled per­sona, Hannah’s dis­com­fort is more vis­cer­al, a feel­ing she can­not yet artic­u­late.

As the boat nears the island, the water calms slight­ly, momen­tar­i­ly eas­ing Hannah’s dis­com­fort. A cor­morant emerges from the mist, its dark wings slic­ing through the sky before dis­ap­pear­ing into the cliffs, an image that inex­plic­a­bly cap­tures her atten­tion. There is some­thing poet­ic about the sight—a crea­ture that thrives on the edge of land and sea, mov­ing effort­less­ly between two worlds. It serves as a brief dis­trac­tion from her unease, though the omi­nous weight of Mattie’s sto­ries lingers at the back of her mind. She glances at Char­lie, won­der­ing if he feels it too—that creep­ing sen­sa­tion that they are step­ping into some­thing far more com­pli­cat­ed than a wed­ding cel­e­bra­tion. But Char­lie, ever prag­mat­ic, sim­ply gath­ers their belong­ings, eager to dis­em­bark.

The chap­ter ends with their arrival, the boat dock­ing against the weath­ered wood of the pier, the grandeur of the Fol­ly ris­ing in the dis­tance. Han­nah steps onto sol­id ground with a mix­ture of relief and appre­hen­sion, feel­ing as though she has crossed an invis­i­ble thresh­old into some­thing unknown. The island, with its breath­tak­ing beau­ty and unset­tling past, awaits them, a stage set for cel­e­bra­tion yet laced with an unshak­able sense of fore­bod­ing.