THE ISLAND CORA The first three things I realize: My head is killing me. I have never been this sore. I am soaking wet. But when I peel my eyes open and take in an expanse of golden sand that ends in a thick line of tangly trees, it''s a long, waterlogged moment before I realize a fourth thing. A thing I was hoping was all a really, really bad dream. I''m not on the deck of the Burying Ground. There''s nothing left of either peace delegation. No sign of the treaty that was finally going to end the War of Ariminthian Aggression.

A massive storm really did turn a forty-gun warship to sawdust and toothpicks beneath our feet. Then it capsized what was left like a paper boat in a bathtub. Then it flung those pieces into one another and into us while we fought the surf and lost. I push myself up. Onto my backside. My muscles scream and my sunburned skin crunches and I suck a breath through my teeth. The ocean stretches without measure in front of me. Calm now.

Cheerful and rolling, swishing toward me up the sand in a gentle sheet. Empty of anything and so blue it hurts my head. The sort of thing a little kid would draw. I squinch my eyes shut. When I open them again, I''ll be in my room. Lying on my bed. All my stuff nearby. My books.

My sewing basket. My precious packet from the war work placement center containing everything I''d need to convince my parents that working at a fish hatchery would be very patriotic, and it was merely a coincidence that it happened to have coed dorms and require two hours'' travel to get there. Merely a coincidence that it happened to be somewhere adults had better things to do than hover like mosquitoes looking for a patch of bare skin to stab and stab again. How late will you be? Will their parents be home? That skirt is awfully short. It doesn''t work. My shoulder is still pressing into sand, not the soft faded quilt I''ve had forever. The sun is baking down, and there''s nothing nearby but a scatter of broken shells and a few strings of seaweed in an uneven, haphazard line. A slow, cold feeling seeps through me.

I''m on a beach that curls away and out of sight in both directions, empty of people and animals. There''s chirring and cheeping from the trees behind me, and all at once the shush-shush of the water is unnerving. "Hello?" I croak, and gah, it even hurts to talk. -- screaming my throat raw grappling for a plank but none of them hold me up a wave shoves me under mouth full of-- Slowly, gritting my teeth, I climb to my feet. My bare feet. My bare--oh crackers--my bare everything . The only clothing the storm left me is the cute lacy camisole and underwear that Kess dared me to buy at the dress shop a week before she moved away, that my mother found while cleaning and confiscated and gave me an earful about. I sneaked those skivvies back out of her closet, and I wear them whenever I need to be more like Kess.

Even though it''s been a few years and they don''t fit so well anymore. Maybe no one else can see them, but I know they''re there. Right now my underwear is all anyone can see, and there''s nothing nearby to cover up with. No scrap of sailcloth or even a piece of wood, and I don''t think my father will have seen this much of me since I was in diapers. That''s bad enough, but then there are the Duran cabinet secretaries, their assistants-- And oh. It''s possible that Ariminthians will be here, too. The royal family or their servants, or perhaps sailors from the Burying Ground. If it wasn''t for them-- all of them --there would be no war and therefore no need for a peace treaty and definitely no need to hold the signing on a ship in neutral waters.

I''d better find the Duran delegation. Right now. "Hello?" This time I get some volume. Not quite a shout, but the best I''m going to do till I wash the sand out of my throat. "Anyone? Dad? Mom?" The ocean goes shush-shush. The trees go chirrrrrrr-cheecheechee. I move slowly toward the tree line. Toward the shade.

I move slow because my head is swimming and pounding and swimpounding, and I am not thinking about what I''ll do if there''s no sign of my parents. Or any of the Duran diplomats. Or anyone. There''s a big smooth rock where the sand changes color, and I sink onto it. It''s blissfully cool against my bare legs, and the relief it brings helps me push aside--for just a little longer--some very basic things that I will soon have to reckon with. Like that I''ve been shipwrecked on an island in barely charted waters where pirates are known to prowl. I have no food, no water, no clothing, no shelter, and no idea when someone will come get me. The Burying Ground is currently at the bottom of the ocean, and there''s no way to know who survived its sinking besides me.

If anyone. Which means the entire peace delegation may have drowned. Our cabinet secretaries and the whole Ariminthian royal family. Which means the war that''s been going on my whole life-- --that took both my brothers and too many of my friends, that left my mother bedridden for nearly a year-- --that gives my parents way too many reasons to hover over me-- --that''s shaped and governed every choice I''ve ever made-- --that war just may have gotten a whole lot further from won.