“Is that what they mean by ‘mandatory’?”

“They always say ‘mandatory,” ” Chloe said.

“But what it really means is, if you stay behind, you’re on your own.

There might be no services available to help you in an emergency. “

“Does anyone stay?” Zack asked.

“There are always people who think they’re being brave to stay behind,” Chloe said, “but they’re really being foolish. Some of the emergency workers will still be here, but even they—the sheriff’s department and the ambulances-aren’t allowed on the streets once the wind hits sixty miles per hour. It’s too dangerous.”

Daria and Rory hammered the plywood into place, and when they stood back from their work, Rory looked at her.

“Grace is planning to meet us at the motel,” he said.

She wondered if her disappointment showed on her face.

“Why would she come all the way to Greenville?” she asked.

“Well” — Rory stepped back from the window to admire their work “—two reasons, I think. One, she doesn’t want to be with her husband. And two, I think she wants to talk with you. She asked me specifically if you would be there.”

Great, Daria thought. Once on the mainland, she would have to worry not only about the fate of the Sea Shanty and the well-being of her anxious, phobic sister, but she would have to answer Grace’s questions about an accident she could not honestly discuss.

Rory must have picked up her dismay. “Maybe I should have told her not to come,” he said.

“It’ll be all right,” Daria said, and she helped Zack lift the next sheet of plywood into place.

That night they packed their suitcases, carried Daria’s tools into the cottage from the first-story workroom and brought the porch furniture inside. Shelly threw up half the night, and Daria felt nearly as sick.

Early the following morning, she sat up in bed and looked out the window toward the ocean. The waves were distinctly swollen and frothy, the sea oats blew nearly parallel to the sand, and the sky was low and thick with bloated gray clouds. Even in her room, Daria felt that shift in the atmosphere that was so hard to describe but so clearly an indicator that the storm was well on its way. The air seemed to lack oxygen; it was hard to breathe.

She dressed quickly and went downstairs, where Chloe was making a fruit salad for breakfast.

“Where’s Shelly?” Daria asked. Shelly was usually first up in the morning and her absence sent an instant chill up Daria’s spine.

“I haven’t seen her,” Chloe said.

“I told her last night that she should be ready to leave by eight this morning.”

It was already seven-thirty.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Daria said.

Chloe looked up from the peach she was slicing.

“Maybe she’s on the beach,” she suggested.

“One last chance to gather shells before the storm.”

“I’m going upstairs to see if she’s at least packed.” With a mounting sense of dread, Daria climbed the stairs. Her knock on Shelly’s door was not answered, and she went into the room. Shelly’s bed was neatly made, but there was no sign of a suitcase. Maybe she hadn’t packed yet. Then Daria spotted the note taped to the mirror above Shelly’s dresser. She moved closer to read it.

Go on without me, it read. ‘/ be all right.

Daria and Chloe set off in one direction on the beach, while Rory and Zack headed in the other.

“If Shelly’s out here, we’ll find her,” Rory had reassured her. Daria had alerted them to Shelly’s disappearance after combing the Sea Shanty from top to bottom. She’d looked in the work room, the closets and under the beds, but Shelly was no where to be found. Pete had been right, she thought. Shelly’s judgment was atrocious. She needed more super vision than Daria was able to give her.

There were still a few hearty souls on the beach, dressed in windbreakers, their hair whipping around their heads as they stared out to sea to watch the sky darken and the water chum. Daria and Chloe didn’t speak as they walked. It was too difficult; the wind threw their words back in their faces. Even walking itself was a chore, and it distressed Daria to think that Shelly might be out here some where, expecting to weather the storm alone on the beach. But by the time she and Chloe had thoroughly scoured the beach to the south, and Rory and Zack to the north, Daria was convinced her sister was not on the beach, after all. Those few people who had been out to watch the storm’s approach had disappeared as well by then, wisely heeding the warnings to leave the Outer Banks.

She searched the Sea Shanty once again, checking the nooks and crannies, peering inside her car and Chloe’s car and Rory’s Jeep. It was close to noon, and Jill and her family, Linda, Jackie and the dogs had long since left the cul-de-sac.

Only the Wheelers remained, and they were packing up their minivan and station wagon, filling them with suitcases and kids.

Daria stood on the bare porch with Rory, a well of frustration in her chest. Her hair was thick and woolly as it blew around her face, and she tightened her windbreaker across her chest.

“You and Zack need to get out of here,” she said to Rory.

“What are you going to do?” Rory asked.

“I’m not leaving until I find her,” Daria said. She felt the quivering of her chin, betraying her worry, and Rory reached out to squeeze her arm.

“I’m not going, either, then.” He glanced down the cul-de-sac toward the Wheelers’ cottage.

“Let me see if Zack can go with them. It would thrill him, I’m sure. Then I can stay behind.”

“You really should go,” she said, although she desperately wanted him to stay.

“We might not be able to get out of here, and it could get dangerous. And won’t Grace be expecting you to show up at the motel?”

“Yes, but at least she’ll be safe. I can’t leave without knowing that Shelly is, too.” He looked toward the Wheelers’ cottage again.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

She watched him walk down the cul-de-sac to the Wheelers’ cottage, where he spoke with Ruth Wheeler. Tears burned Daria’s eyes; she wanted him to stay so badly. After a minute, he walked back to Poll-Rory, and she guessed he was asking Zack if he would mind going with the Wheelers. She was still standing on the porch when Zack emerged from the cottage, carrying a duffel bag. He waved to Daria as he started walking toward the Wheelers’, and Rory rejoined her on the porch.

“Okay,” he said.

“I’m yours as long as you need me.”

Chloe stepped out of the cottage onto the porch. “I bet she’s holed up in one of the abandoned cottages,” she said.

“She could be right across the street, for all we know. I think we should go door-to-door.”

Chloe could be right. Shelly had done exactly that during a storm a few years earlier. She knew enough to get inside somewhere. Would she know enough to select a cottage as far from the beach as possible? It was anyone’s guess. She could be anywhere.

“If she is in a cottage somewhere, and we knock on the door, she won’t answer it,” she said.

“We won’t knock, then,” Chloe said.

“We’ll just snoop around the cottages and see if we can spot her.”

“I’ll start with Jill’s,” Rory said.

“Then let’s split up to cover the streets on the other side of the beach road.”

“Look for a light on,” Daria said as she walked into the cul-de-sac with them. She pulled up the hood of her windbreaker, holding it closed with a hand beneath her chin. It had grown so dark outside that she could barely see the expressions on the faces of Rory and her sister. Shelly was not crazy about the dark. She would turn on a light if she had sequestered herself in someone’s cottage.

Only, there were no lights on. They searched Jill’s and Linda’s cottages, then separately covered six streets west of the beach road.

Every single cottage was dark. It might as well be the dead of winter, Daria thought. There was no one around. Not even any cars. The wind literally blew her off her feet from time to time and made her eyes tear. A few shingles flew past her as she walked, along with a child’s plastic pail and the lid of a garbage can, projectiles being flung through the darkening air.

The rain had started, and it felt like darts against her face as she fought her way back to the Sea Shanty. Rory and Chloe were already on the porch, and any hope she’d had that one of them had found Shelly vanished when she saw the look of defeat on their faces. She started to cry, and was surprised when Rory put his arms around her.

“I’m sure she’s all right,” he said.

“Chloe and I thought she might be at St. Esther’s.”

Daria suddenly drew away from him. St. Esther’s!

“I was just about to call over there,” Chloe said.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

Chloe went into the cottage to make the call, and Daria pictured Shelly hiding out in the church, where she would no doubt feel secure.

Of course that’s where she was! She even had a key. The thought of her safe inside the church was an enormous comfort.

A car turned into the cul-de-sac, and Daria walked out to meet it, hoping that Shelly might somehow be inside. She had to plant her feet wide apart to avoid being blown away as the car pulled in front of the Sea Shanty. She recognized the sheriffs-office insignia on the side of the car, and Don Tibbie, one of the deputies, struggled to open the car door against the wind. He was alone, and she knew he was most likely driving around to make sure Kill Devil Hills was evacuated.

“Daria?” he asked.

“Is that you?”

The hood of her windbreaker nearly masked her face.

“It’s me,” she said.

“Have you seen Shelly anywhere?”

Don leaned against the car, the wind tearing at his uniform.