In July 1969, Kya received her book, “The East­ern Sea­coast Birds” by Cather­ine Danielle Clark, fea­tur­ing her paint­ing of a her­ring gull on the cov­er. Feel­ing elat­ed, she car­ried it to a famil­iar oak clear­ing, seek­ing mush­rooms. There, she dis­cov­ered an old milk car­ton with a brass-cased, army-issue com­pass inside— a gift from Tate, accom­pa­nied by a note express­ing his affec­tion and acknowl­edg­ing their past. The com­pass, once belong­ing to Tate’s grand­fa­ther from the First World War, rep­re­sent­ed more than just a nav­i­ga­tion tool; it sym­bol­ized the direc­tion in Kya’s life, espe­cial­ly on cloudy days when uncer­tain­ties cloud­ed her path.

As Kya read Tate’s note, she rem­i­nisced about their shared past— from the inno­cent days of being guid­ed home through storms and learn­ing to read to awak­en­ing her first sex­u­al desires and con­tri­bu­tions to her aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments. Despite these fond mem­o­ries, Kya remained guard­ed, haunt­ed by the pain of Tate’s pre­vi­ous aban­don­ment which over­shad­owed the affec­tion she once felt. This emo­tion­al tur­moil mir­rored the unpre­dictable behav­ior of marsh fire­flies, lead­ing her to main­tain dis­tance despite her broth­er Jodie’s advice to recon­sid­er Tate’s place in her life.

Strug­gling with her con­flict­ing feel­ings, Kya ven­tured into the fog­gy estu­ar­ies with the com­pass, intend­ing to explore a sandy area for rare flow­ers whilst sub­con­scious­ly hop­ing to encounter Tate. The envelop­ing fog, silence, and tran­quil set­ting con­trast­ed sharply with her inter­nal con­flict— long­ing for Tate’s pres­ence yet wrestling with past hurts. As she nav­i­gat­ed through the mist, the gen­tle sound of water and the sus­pense of pos­si­bly cross­ing paths with Tate added lay­ers to her jour­ney, both phys­i­cal­ly in the marsh and emo­tion­al­ly in her heart.