Captain Beatty supplies us with more than just paper and ink. There is indeed something aside from vegetable growin' goin' on on this island we're headin' to; thanks to Beatty, we got an idea of who to cozy up to fer information about that. These are people who carry secrets just like we do. Only theirs is a might more unbelievable, if you ain't acquainted with the particulars. Accordin' to whoever blabbed to Beatty, somewhere on this dusty world of ours lies the most fertile seed of hope you cain imagine; thousand year-old formulas and computations that cain open a channel back to other realities.
I ain't givin' up on this reality, though, and neither is Ro. We're gonna fight fer it like you wouldn't believe, but that fight has gotta include learnin' what these island scientists figured out regardin' a means of escape. And who knows? There's gotta be some smart people in one of them other parallel planes. If we cain't fix our problems, maybe some genius from another universe cain. I know Tegan had her doubts regardin' whether these scientists are really just aimin' to git us some outside help. She's earned her cynicism the way all of us desert dwellers have, through hard livin' and experience. But the idea that there's someone who cain help our world just waitin' fer us to ask fer it does have its appeal. Maybe we don't gotta do this alone. Maybe our salvation lies beyond this world in one we cain't neither see nor quite conceive of.
Beatty believes in this, says some of the original pioneers knew how to journey to other realms, as he calls 'em. The story goes that they hid that knowledge somewhere fer safe-keepin' cuz they firmly believed that no one should try to leave, that we was destined fer this reality and this reality only. Why these scientists think that hidin' place is on our island is anyone's guess.
Have them scientists found what they're lookin' fer yet? Are they already studyin' them old pioneer texts? We gotta find out. We gotta understand what's goin' on so we cain represent the world: lucky and unlucky folks, the desert, the Regions. Everyone. Everywhere. We gotta see that there ain't one spirit fergotten about if they find a way to high-tale it out of here.
'Fore we dock at our new home, Beatty gives us a note just as Tegan had done. It's to be used if we feel one of those scientists cain be trusted. If none of 'em cain, we gotta be like spies, infiltrate their operation just like we did to git on this ship. I am hopin' so hard that we cain find at least one trustworthy person among the lot. It would be nice to have us an ally.
I run my fingers over the captain's note, trustin' that I won't have to keep it hidden ferever. He's written almost the exact same thing Tegan had on hers:
Their truth is your own. Make it the world's.
#
We arrive in our island paradise and we git to work. We are New Pioneers in a manner that the council in their stuffy capital towers thousands of miles away ain't never thought of before. We are pioneering a new way of thinkin', a new way of seein'.
We are pioneers of hope.
Sometimes I think back to them early days—meetin' Ro, leavin' home, survivin' all sorts of perils, all to bring us to this tropical land that couldn't even imagine a desert if it tried. It all seems like a fantastical dream. At night, when I lay with my head on Ro's chest, I wonder if I'm not really back at the farm—that a dust storm didn't just appear one day instead of a handsome stranger and bury me under a hundred years of dried-up hope.
I am here, though, alive and whole. Ro's heartbeat poundin' steady under my ear confirms that fer me. His eyes tell me everything when they search fer mine... when he looks to me to write the next chapter of our story. This is how I know hope ain't dried-up. It's alive as long as we are, as long as we continue on. And so is this world.
All my life, I saw the desert as a demon, trappin' every unlucky person who came within its reach. But those weeks on the run with Ro taught me something more—that every person cain change her luck, no matter how unlikely it may seem. The desert cain be made an ally, cain even be an angel of mercy if you wake it real gentle and tell it yer deepest desires.
The world cain change its course, and even if it refuses, the people cain change theirs.
Ro and me, we got us a lifetime to change the luck of the world the same way we transformed our own. Shortly after arrivin' here, I mentioned to Ro how crazy his 'round-about trip through the land had been. He could've caught a boat south from the capital, been to the port town in a couple of weeks and hid until the ship to the island set sail. Instead, he nearly died several times over again, crossin' every which way, walkin' over a thousand miles till he finally found himself back on the coast.
"I'd do it all over again." He pulls me close, kisses me long and deep. "Every single mile. It's all a small price to pay in order to have found you, May."
It's the journey that matters. It's what you find along the way. It's how you keep goin' even when the most rational part of you knows you should quit. You don't lay down in the street and let yerself be carried away. You keep goin'. You always, always endure.
This is what we do now. This is how we endure. When we ain't farmin' this rich earth, we're makin' friends with the captain's suspected scientists, carefully sussin' out what they know, what they've discovered, if there truly is anything to discover here. And when we ain't doin' that, we're writin'—writin' out Ro's booklet again and again, hopin' to add to it a new truth: there is a way to survive this world, even if the world itself is to die. There are countless realities out there and there's a way to open the door to them realities. Somehow. Somewhere.
We write with the knowledge that we are privileged to be able to do so. Each word is a mile in the wilderness, a remembrance of what it took and the lives lost to git us here. This is our promise to those lives, and to the desert that spared us ours. The lucky and the unlucky, the rich and the poor, the desert and the fertile lands and the ocean, the whole world—it's just on the verge of an awakenin'.
All we need to do is shake it gently, and fill its mind with the truth.
A/N: And with that, DESERT WAKE comes to an end.
I'd encourage you to check out my Watty award-winning story UNSEEN, book 1 of The Fold Series (if you haven't already). DESERT WAKE springs from the the Fold Multiverse, of which UNSEEN is also a part (different parallel reality/story/characters but all loosely tied together).
Votes for this chapter will go towards encouraging the author to write her next tale. My gratitude to all of you who have stuck with me through this crazy adventure. THANK YOU!
Today's dedication is for morrieD, who reads with a careful eye and has saved me from several grammatical catastrophes.
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Desert Wake ✔
Adventure***The Corner Booth Contest Runner-Up*** WARNING: contains one blue-eyed stranger, one fast-talking heroine, and a couple of scenes steamier than a mirage at noon. Throw in gigantic dust storms, lawmen out for blood, plus a wasteland to be traversed...
