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“You make the trip back and forth from Ahousaht every day?”
    â€œTwice a day. The boat’s also used as an ambulance, if anybody needs to get to the hospital and it’s not urgent enough for the medevac.”
    â€œHow long does the trip take?”
    â€œForty-five minutes in good seas.”
    Billy heaved her suitcases to the deck and then stowed them and the groceries at the back of the cabin, and soon people began trickling aboard, most of them First Nations. A young, pretty girl with a toddler and a huge backpack, an older woman, four young men. A middle-aged couple, obviously tourists, outfitted head to toe in Tilley gear, took the seat across from Jordan. The man whipped out a digital camera and began filming the boat and its occupants, concentrating on the mother and toddler and the older woman. Jordan figured he was being rude as hell, but the three ignored him.
    At ten-thirty, the captain started the engines and the boat slipped away from the dock, heading at ever-increasing speed out over the gray-green expanse of water.
    As the mainland disappeared, Jordan thought back to her first and only visit to Ahousaht three weeks earlier. She’d taken her car that time, driving from Vancouver to Horseshoe Bay and catching the Nanaimo ferry across the Inlet. It had taken three hours to navigate the twisting and terrifying Island Highway to reach the village of Tofino. There, feeling more and more as if she’d reached the end of the world, she’d chartered a floatplane to Ahousaht.
    The isolated island village had both appalled and appealed to her. Sunshine shimmered on the water, blue-gray mountains rose in the distance and thick forest surrounded the sprawling frame buildings. The only road was a rutted dirt track that snaked its way up island. If she’d wanted isolation, it didn’t get any more remote than this.
    The chief, council members and the nursing supervisor, Christina Crow, had greeted her warmly. They’d asked a lot of questions, including why she wanted to come to Ahousaht.
    Without going into details, she’d told them her marriage had ended and that she wanted a complete change of scene. Her résumé spoke for itself, graduation at the top of her class and several years at St. Joseph’s E.R.
    They’d been touchingly honest about their community: the isolation, the lack of amenities, the unique customs of the First Nations people.
    She’d admitted little knowledge of their culture, andgiving her two books, they’d left her alone with coffee and a plate of brownies. By the time they decided to hire her, the plate was almost empty, she knew a little about the history of the Nuu-chah-nulth people—and she was on a sugar high.
    Jordan had accepted their offer on the spot.
    Now, however, she wasn’t so sure. She tried to suppress her apprehension as the distance from Tofino increased, but finally gave in and let her emotions run. Aware that the Tilley couple were watching her bawl, she turned her face to the window, pretending to be intent on the small islands rushing by.
    â€œBe aware of what you’re feeling. Don’t censor it, don’t struggle to subdue it,” Helen had advised. “Allow the emotions to come and just watch them. Darkness can’t survive when you let light in.”
    Back in Vancouver, Jordan had been certain that this drastic life change was right and good for her. But as the minutes ticked by, she began to wonder.
    She’d sold her car and many of her belongings, making the trip from Vancouver to Tofino by plane this time. There really was no point in having a car on an island where the majority of the community was within walking distance. And they did have a rusted-out ambulance for emergencies.
    The boat chugged along, rising up high and then slapping heavily down on the waves. The noise of its props and powerful twin-engine motor finally soothed her. Whatever lay ahead was out of her