Wild Dark Shore

Orly talks about how the mangrove seed changes its buoyancy to propagate. It floats horizontally when it is traveling down the river and vertically when it senses that it is somewhere nutrient-rich so that it can lodge in the soil and set down roots.

Dom reflects on how bonded his wife was with his first two children, Raff and Fen. Claire died soon after the birth of Orly. It was then that Dom realized that Claire had needed to learn how to care for a newborn; it wasn’t an innate maternal knowledge with which she was born.

Dom is in bed with Orly and asks him what the wind tells him. Orly tells Dom that the creatures are “saying [they] tried to fix something that can’t be fixed. Not without loss” (148), referring to the penguin statue.

The next morning, at breakfast, Dom notices that Rowan seems suspicious of him. While they eat, Orly announces that he wants to move to Tasmania after they leave the island. Afterward, Rowan and Orly go for a walk. Raff asks Dom if they are “really not gonna tell” Rowan (150).

Rowan and Orly go to the laboratory. Rowan looks for and finds luminol, a chemical used to identify blood and other human secretions. As they are walking back to the house, Orly spots whales offshore. Raff is going to record the whale sounds, and Rowan goes with him. After he finishes his recording, Rowan asks Raff to take her to the seed vault to assess the concrete damage. Rowan notes that the damage is worse than she originally realized.

Because it is late, Raff and Rowan spend the night in the huts at the scientific base. Rowan and Raff talk about his anger and his need to learn a better way to control it. That night, Rowan sprays the luminol on the floor of the blue hut and sees it light up. She tells Raff that it is blood.

Fen is on the beach keeping watch for Raff and Rowan’s return. While she waits, she tries on her mother’s rings and scarf, which she took from her father’s closet.

Dom goes to the beach when Raff and Rowan do not return. He keeps watch with Fen all night. While they keep watch, Fen encourages Dom to “let [Claire] go” (165). After sunrise, Orly joins them and tells Dom that Rowan was looking for a chemical to “detect copper and iron” (166).

Eventually, the group sees Raff and Rowan in the distance offshore, but they stop before they get to the beach.

Rowan wonders if the Salts killed Hank. While she ponders, Raff stops to look at a humpback whale and her calf. He wants to record her whale song. After a minute, the humpback dives and then leaps out of the water next to the small boat. It is going to land on top of them.

Before the whale falls on him, Raff thinks about his mother and decides this is a decent way to die.

Onshore, Dom notices that the whale seems to notice the small boat before she lands, twisting her body out of the way.

Rowan is thrown into the water and spots Raff, whose arm is hurt. She swims to him and then drags him back to shore. Onshore, the family takes them both to the hospital in the scientific base. As Rowan sleeps, she dreams of her brother, River.

Raff’s wrist is hurt and swollen. The whole group sleeps on camp beds in the hospital while Raff and Rowan recover.

Sometime later, Rowan wakes. She is alone with Dom. She tells him that she was dreaming about her younger brother, River. When he was a young child, she was meant to be looking after him on the houseboat when he drowned. Following Rowan’s admission, she and Dom kiss. Rowan is shocked and walks outside.

Dom is moved by learning that Rowan’s brother died and how she endured the loss.

The group goes back to the lighthouse. Raff thinks his injury is just a sprain, not a break. Rowan and Raff talk about how Dom does not want to leave the island. Raff feels guilty for thinking of his mother and not his father in the moments before he thought he was about to die.

Rowan and Raff make a fire in the fireplace. Rowan cleans her injuries and thinks the deepest wound may not “ever fully heal” (181). In bed, Rowan feels Claire’s presence and tells Claire she “can’t protect” the Salts from their actions.

Orly notes that most plants are food but that some, like the pitcher plant, are carnivores. There are pitcher plant seeds in the vault.

Rowan hikes out to a spot on the island where she heard Orly telling the voices in the wind that the Salts would not go.

As she walks, she thinks about sifting through the ashes of her burned home with Hank. Hank was devastated by the loss of all his possessions. Suddenly, he told her he was planning on taking the job on Shearwater because there was no need for him to stay if she didn’t want to have children. She was shocked. Rowan cried for all the life lost in the fire.

Rowan arrives at her destination, which she believes is Hank’s grave.

Dom notices that Rowan is gone. When she returns for supplies, including a shovel, Dom follows her. He sees her digging where the grave is. He stops her and continues digging himself. When they reach the body, Dom pulls the sheet away from its face, and Rowan asks who it is.

Alex came to Shearwater Island to be with his older brother, Tom, whom he adored. Tom was a climate change scientist who studied extreme weather. Alex studied seals with the knowledge that it would allow him to spend time with his brother. However, Alex was much less experienced than the other scientists on Shearwater, which made him feel like an outsider until he met Raff.

Raff told Alex that someone once hanged themselves from the fuel tanks. Alex told Raff that a group of humpback whales once defended a gray whale calf’s body from a group of attacking orcas, arguing that this showed whales have empathy.

Alex wanted to do something special for Raff’s 18th birthday. He planned for the two of them to spend the night together in a green hut that was officially off-limits because of the rising sea water. Tom told Alex not to go because there was a large storm coming in, but Alex ignored the warning.

That night, the storm was raging. Tom and his girlfriend, Naija, took a Zodiac out to the hut to warn Alex and Raff. Alex and Raff headed back to shore in their Zodiac, but Tom and Naija’s Zodiac was swamped by a wave, and they drowned. Later, Dom and Raff recovered and buried their bodies. Alex was devastated by the guilt and contemplated dying by suicide.

Dom recounts the story of Tom and Naija’s death to Rowan. He explains that Alex ultimately died by suicide out of guilt. Dom then says that he has Hank’s phone and passport because Hank left them behind when he left the island with the other evacuating scientists; Hank was experiencing psychosis at the time. Rowan believes him and assumes the blood on the floor of the hut was Alex’s.

Dom and Rowan return to one of the huts on the scientific base. Dom tells her he is going for a swim to clean off the dirt from the digging. Rowan joins him. They return to the hut to warm up and dry off. Dom kisses her again, and they have sex. Afterward, Dom admits that he does not want to leave the island. They spend the night together. Dom asks why Rowan and Hank did not have any children. Rowan admits that the real reason is that she felt it was “too dangerous.” Dom tells her that toward the end of his stay, Hank “wanted to destroy things” (203). Rowan is not sure if her marriage to Hank is over and points out that Dom’s marriage to Claire isn’t really over either.

Dom decides there is no future for himself and Rowan because she doesn’t want children, and he has three. He remembers waking one morning to Raff and Fen standing over a baby Orly, marveling at his first smile.

Rowan points out the concrete damage in the seed vault to Dom. They decide to make a serious effort to repair the wall. As they walk back to the lighthouse, Dom wonders if he could be with Rowan if he truly let Claire go.

Fen sees Rowan and Dom kissing on their way back to the lighthouse. She resolves to do something to help Dom let go of Claire, so she takes all of Claire’s belongings out of her father’s closet, builds a large bonfire, and burns all of Claire’s things.

Dom notices that Claire’s things are missing. Raff tells him that Fen has been taking them. Dom says that they are all going down to the beach to eat dinner with Fen.

Dom is shocked when he sees Fen burning all of Claire’s things. Fen tells him she did it to “free” him, and he begins to weep. Rowan sends the children to the boathouse while she comforts Dom. Raff instead goes to the communications building and smashes his beloved hydrophone. Later, he reflects that Rowan is right; he needs to get better at managing his anger.

Rowan is able to save Claire’s annotated copy of Jane Eyre from the fire, and she gives it to Dom.

The next morning, Rowan and the Salt family work together to repair the concrete in the vault. Rowan is still skeptical that the wall will hold, so she has the children work to sort and pack the seed containers for shipping. They only have the freezer in the lighthouse to preserve the seeds in, so Hank’s list of seeds to save will have to be reduced even further. Orly is in charge of identifying which seeds to keep. Rowan feels bad for having to put so much responsibility on Orly, the most knowledgeable botanist of the group, to make these decisions.

Orly talks about a “dinosaur tree” called a Wollemi pine that was believed to have gone extinct 2 million years ago. However, a ranger in New South Wales, Australia, found a stand of these trees. Their location was kept a secret to preserve them. During a “megafire,” a group of firefighters was sent to this secret location to protect these trees. There are Wollemi pine seeds in the vault, but they are not marked to be saved.

The Salts have two weeks left before the ship arrives. Rowan decides to organize a dinner party to improve morale. While dinner is cooking, Rowan trims her shaved hair using her clippers. Fen asks Rowan to shave her head as well, and Rowan agrees. Then, they have a feast. The family relaxes around each other. The children tell Rowan they want to return to her land and help her rebuild her home. Rowan is touched. After dinner, everyone goes outside. Raff plays violin for the family, and they all dance. Rowan feels as if “the hungry ghosts” of the island are dancing with them (222).

Dom reflects that they need to leave this island so that he can stop holding his children “hostage” and let them become their own people. He is deeply touched by all Rowan has done for him and the children.

Later, Dom and the children are warming themselves by the fireplace. Fen gives him Claire’s three wedding rings, which she saved from the bonfire. Dom says each of the children should get one of the rings.