The ship is nowhere to be seen. Was it ever there?

Sariel's still on her feet, still in her blood-streaked nightgown, still barefoot in the sand.

Or is it snow?

There's a shape in one of those clouds, or rather, a shape forming out of one of those clouds.

It's a circle, and little by little, wisps of--that's too gray to be true cloud, it looks like fog, are crossing it slantwise.

Crossing it in the shape of an X.

The surf is still pounding against the shore. Or is that snow hissing against a battered landscape, or the sound atmosphere makes when it streams out a breached compartment into nothing?

One of those local trees is a willow. Its branches are waving.