Monday, January 25, 2010

Challenge 6: Secrets of the Desert

We ran away.

There is something important out here in the desert, we can feel it. Tynan pulls his cloth a little tighter around his face, Tasya checks the water bottle. There is not much left. If we can’t find more soon, we will be in trouble. We push on, since we can’t go back. Everyone is fighting over us back there. They want Tynan dead because he can do magic, and boys shouldn’t be able to touch the spirit world. They want Tasya queen and she hates crowds. She likes to dance and fight and do tough girl things. She will get us through this.

We stop when the night takes over. Tynan says he can feel the water in the air. It is so close. He sits up all night trying to find a way to borrow the water from the clouds, high above us, and maybe from the wind. Tasya sleeps, lips cracking, hoping she will have more energy in the morning.

The feeling drags us on, further into the barren wastelands. It is calling us. Tasya has a little more spring in her step today, Tynan managed to condense a few extra drops of water for them. There are bags under his eyes though, it cost him a lot to do.

We push on, and on, missing papa and aunty Willow. They will be worried, but we didn’t have a choice really. Too many people are still so angry. We think that the answer is out here somewhere, perhaps beyond the black spine of mountains spewing smoke and ash. Tynan thinks, if we make it through hell, we will find what we are looking for.

Who knew the desert was so cold at night? We huddle together, warmed by the fire Tynan keeps in a bottle. We think about mother, each hearing the other’s thoughts, seeing the other’s memories.

Mother was beautiful, tall, at least to a child, with dark eyes that seemed to go on forever. She could see inside us, she knew what we were feeling and how much we loved her. She loved papa very much too. She went away two years ago. Papa told us she had died, but we can still feel her. She is here, in the desert, and up there in the sky. We are going to find her.

Tasya brushes her dirty blonde hair out of her face, staring at the flickering light, trapped inside the bottle. Tynan watches her, thinking, we don’t belong here.

In the desert?

No. In Tyria. Here on this planet…

There is that word again. Tynan said it once, a long time ago, and papa didn’t understand. Planet. We close our eyes sometimes and think of the sky. It is almost like we can step off the earth and look back at ourselves, and then we see this big round ball with all the people and the animals and the oceans. Papa asks us why, if we live on a ball, the land looks flat. We aren’t too sure just yet. Maybe the answer to that is out here in the desert too.

Tasya watches the sunrise. She is looking back. We don’t normally look back. Tynan give her a moment and then starts packing things back into our bags. He stands up just in time to see the morning light glitter off something in the black land. We are nearly there.

Wordcount: 569

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