Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
Some say the sight of a killer whale, with its black shroud and ghost-white eye patches can stop an animal’s heart mid-beat. That the sea wolves are agents of the demon Orkus, zealously guarding the mysterious Parish Isle off the southern tip of our Orcas Island.

People whisper these things as if they were fact.

I tell myself they are only stories.

I am scrawling Wednesday, August 14, 1918, on my sketch pad when not forty feet away a queen of the sea pokes her head out of the East Sound and ogles me. My dugout slides back a few yards, sending my pencils clattering.

Terror floods me. My throat cinches shut, my hands slip against the paddle.

It is Shadow, with her gray saddle patch. She bridged the half mile between us frighteningly fast. From weeks spent trying to draw her, I know her to be a behemoth, twice as long as my canoe, with the heft of a six-ton armored tank. Her hide gleams like a piece of the sea itself, sunlight breaking across her back as if on stone.

I jam my sketch pad into my leather satchel, and something else splashes behind me. Another dark shape surfaces, dorsal fin flopped to one side like a cowlick. Shadow’s daughter, Scull.

I grip the sides of the canoe, my feet skidding across my pencils.

Shadow shoots me a baleful look, then slips below the surface.

“Huh…” My breath stumbles out of me. I fumble my paddle, feeling trapped in this mile-wide watery corridor, which sits between the two main legs of Orcas Island.

Koa always said I had a death wish. Everyone knows to keep your canoes out of the sound when the killer whales are roaming, especially in summer when the salmon swarm. But the salmon haven’t come. And out here, away from the grand yet suffocating estate of Nowhere, the island teems with color and life. Life that may wish to devour me.

Paddling furiously, I scramble toward the shore at least a thousand feet away, holding my breath. Scull rolls beside me, porpoising as if to play.

Go back, little one, before your mother tears me apart.

No one comes between a mother and her young.

Still no sign of Shadow. She could surge from the depths at any moment, overturn me, drag me into waters cold enough to freeze my blood. Then it would be over for Lucy Nowhere, before she’d ever stepped a toe into the world.

The ocean begins to tremble, and I look wildly around.

Shadow erupts like a volcano from my other side, a raspy haah thundering from her blowhole. Spray blinds me. My canoe rocks violently, a cork in a tidal wave. Languid and menacing, she glides alongside me, so close my paddle could touch the white scars etched into her flank.

My breath wings in and out, and the sickening memory of the seal head found on the beach two weeks ago churns my stomach. Rumors flew that someone had ventured too close to Parish Isle. That the Orkus had sent its sea-wolf minions to leave the severed head as a warning—stay away, or end up like the cannery worker slain the year I was born.

And here I am alone, dangling myself like a worm on a hook.

“I—I’ve been told I have a head made of cast iron,” I babble. “Might give you indigestion.”

Another loud breath erupts from Shadow’s blowhole, baptizing me with a mist that throws a rainbow in the sky.

“Well, you are magnificent,” I murmur.

My neck has begun to warm. I rub at the spot above my collarbone where the purplish whale-shaped blotch lies hidden beneath my kerchief. The mark of the devil, some call it. It has never flared like this before.

Time stretches thin. Shadow’s flipper rises, ribbons of water cascading down.

I close my eyes, bracing for the blow.

But the touch is gentle—a shove, almost a caress. My canoe glides toward the shore. Scull darts to her mother, bumping her playfully.

A giddy laugh nearly splits me in two. The underworld has measured me—and declined its claim. At least for today.

As my vessel quietly retreats, the stories of my arrival here float to mind. I drifted in on a green canoe, a mysterious baby still with her umbilical cord attached, no clue to my origins.

On a warm summer day a dozen years ago, my six-year-old self tried to board a ferry, hoping to find my parents. A man whom I had come to know as Mr. Dakon Sanders sat me down in a garden that faced the sea. “Lucy, your parents are gone, and they will not be coming back.”

Not quite understanding, I glanced up at his profile with its sharp cheekbones and generous outcropping of a nose. He smelled of cigars and pine needles.

His tongue clucked at my confusion. “They are gone, and that is that. But you are a strong girl. See that tree?” He nodded at a slender evergreen with red bark, a few feet taller than me. “Pacific madrone, one of the most beautiful trees here in the Pacific Northwest. That one’s six years old, just like you. Madrones are resilient. They always find the light, even if it means growing a little crooked. That’s why you’re named Lucy, for ‘light.’?”

No, I don’t have a death wish.

Maybe I just crave a family. Nowhere is the only home I remember, but it is not my home.

Reading Group Guide

Heiress of Nowhere

by Stacey Lee

Discussion Questions

1. The setting of Nowhere within the San Juan Islands and the Pacific Northwest is critical to the story. Describe the setting using examples from the text. Why is the setting so important? How is the natural world used to motivate and move the action along for various characters?

2. The housekeeper, Mrs. Bonefat, tells Lucy, “‘Inventions are supposed to serve, not enslave.’” (Chapter 6) What did she mean by that? Discuss other innovations that you think have blurred the line between improving and deteriorating people’s quality of life.

3. Upon his death, Mr. Sanders leaves the entirety of his business, Sanders Ships International, and his property, Nowhere, to Lucy. How does her inheritance change her life and her plans? What challenges lie ahead for Lucy?

4. Consider how various characters, including Lucy, Miss Jack, and the Can Man, experience racism and discrimination. Describe some of their experiences and provide evidence from the text.

5. Mr. Sanders believes that “easy money leads to nothing but hardship.” (Chapter 16) How does this viewpoint affect Mr. Sanders’s relationship with Daniel and Nash? Do you agree or disagree, and why?

6. While thinking about how grief over Daniel’s death has affected her and Nash, Lucy muses, “When robbed of a crucial source of light, how much of the plant dies or fades?” (Chapter 23) How has Daniel’s death affected the people of the house, including Lucy, Nash, and Mr. Sanders?

7. In chapter 21, Lucy realizes she can communicate with sea wolves. How is Lucy’s gift both a blessing and a curse? Why is this special ability dangerous?

8. At the Chinese labor camp, Lucy wonders, “Soon I will be meeting people with whom I share a common ancestry. But will I have anything in common with them? Will they recognize in me a kindred spirit? Or will I just be a strange, noisy intruder . . . a girl who does not belong here, or anywhere?” (Chapter 23) Can you describe a time when you felt similarly to Lucy while meeting others with a common ancestry or interest?

9. What is the Orkus? In chapter 25, Nash says the Orkus is a terrifying but easy way to explain the mysterious deaths of both humans and seals. What does he mean? Why is the notion of the Orkus easier to believe than an alternative?

10. Cookie, the head cook, is upset and grieved throughout much of the story. What does Cookie think about Nowhere and its development? Why is her perspective an important one to reflect on?

11. In chapter 34, Lucy learns that Eva attended a government-mandated boarding school for Native children and was separated from her family and forced to erase signs of her cultural identity, including her language. How do you see the impact of these experiences in her personality and actions?

12. Throughout the story, Lucy is pulled in two directions because of her romantic interest in both Koa and Nash. Why does Lucy have conflicted feelings toward Koa? What draws her to Nash?

13. Though Lucy is stunned to become the heiress of Nowhere, she steadily grows into her new role. What makes her a good leader? What actions does she take to keep her business and estate afloat, and what is the reasoning behind her decisions?

14. Lucy’s quest for the truth about her past is motivated by her desire to figure out how she fits into the world she was brought up in and a yearning for a place to belong. Where do you feel a sense of belonging? What family and sense of belonging does Lucy find at the end of the story?

Extension Activities

- Character Dossier. Lucy is in a race to find a killer and figure out the mystery of her birth and identity before it’s too late. Follow along with her as she uncovers clues, motives, and timelines by creating a “detective file” for each suspect. In a notebook, jot down notes that include brief descriptions, actions, and questions for both major and minor characters as they are introduced. Include important quotes, page numbers, and observations to help you uncover the mystery of Nowhere along with Lucy.

- Documenting the Natural World. Remembering Mr. Sanders’s claim that “‘where there is art, there is enlightenment,’” Lucy documents animals, plants, and fungi in her sketchbook. (Chapter 3) She also captures scenes such as a marble caterpillar on its way to becoming a butterfly, a murrelet’s nest, and a mother orca and her offspring playing. Identify a specimen or phenomenon native to your area, and draw a picture of it, adding as much detail as possible. Keep in mind that the goal in scientific illustration is to combine accuracy and precision with visual and creative expression to foster a deeper understanding of the natural world.

- Research Report: Asian Americans and Canneries in the Pacific Northwest. As Lucy discovers more about her father, she is led to a Chinese labor camp where she is exposed to an unfamiliar but critically important means of economic development for Nowhere. Learn more about the important history of salmon canneries in the Pacific Northwest and their intersection with Asian American history. Conduct research on the economic impact of canneries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and the racialized labor systems that upheld this trade and development. Consider how canneries were sites of racial exploitation as well as of community building and resistance for many Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants. Write up your report and share it with your classmates.

- Mushroom Network Simulation. Trees and plants communicate with one another and pass along nutrients to survive through white threads of fungal mycelium. Lucy forms her own “mushroom network” by strengthening relationships with those she trusts to pass and receive critical information, including Eva, Flossie, Koa, and Nash. Engage in a team-building activity to identify your own mushroom network and its role in sustaining you and others.

Stand in a circle with a group of peers, friends, or family. Holding tight to one end of a ball of yarn, throw the ball to someone in the circle and make a statement that tells what the person does to help or support you and what you do for that person, for example, “You call me when I’m upset. I pack an extra snack for you.” Keep throwing the ball of yarn to others in the circle and continue stating the relationships and actions that connect you. Consider how others’ decisions and actions might influence you even if you don’t interact often, and say them aloud. Talk together about how the yarn provides a tangible way of seeing the threads of connection and sharing of resources that build us up.

This guide was written by Dr. Joanne H. Yi, an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at Indiana University.

This guide has been provided by Simon & Schuster for classroom, library, and reading group use. It may be reproduced in its entirety or excerpted for these purposes. For more Simon & Schuster guides and classroom materials, please visit simonandschuster.net/m/prek12-teachers-librarians/teaching-resources.