Notes

A 16 year old girl is one of the only survivors of a horrific plane crash that strands her on a strange island. She and the other survivors are discovered by the locals, who take them in and teach them. Only she is able to fully adapt, abandoning her old culture and ideals, and soon she is the only one left, the other survivors having been killed or died of other causes. She becomes one of them, her skin darkening under the sun, her muscles developing, her intellect increasing. Years pass. She becomes the leader of these people, learns their language and their customs. Falls in love many times, and builds her harem to support her. She gives birth to a child, loses it to the savagery of the island, gives birth to another.

And then, and then. She is caught in the undertow while swimming, and when she surfaces, she is back in her old world, the miraculous lone survivor of a plane that crashed and was never found. But only a year has passed here, and she is not the same person she was when she left. Time passes differently. She visits her home in her dreams (and when did the island start to become home?) and becomes desperate to return. Days, weeks, months pass, with no progress on how to find her way back home.

And then, and then---death. She swallows the pills and lets the sweet caress of sleep take her. She returns to her home, only a year and a half later. She fights the man who took her mantle up in her absence, feels her body die in that other world, finds the strength to kill him. She reunites with her child, her lovers, all of whom found comfort with each other and welcome her back into their fold. She taks up her mantle, and rules for the rest of her life.