She took another scoop of water in her hand and stepped into the yard, the water carelessly dripping from her fingers. She was wasting it, by Quill’s standards.

In the dark of the night and the light of the moon, she held her hand to the sky and watched the shimmering droplets cling and quiver on the back of her hand, then fall to the parched earth. And she remembered.

Finally. She remembered.

She brought her hand down, and then flung the water that remained into the sky with all her might. As the drops flew through the air, she envisioned the scene and the words she’d abandoned for more than fifty years.

She cried out to the water, “Make it rain!”

A moment passed, and the cloudless sky above the little house rumbled and sparked with light and life. The woman stood in the dirt yard in the center of the desert island of Quill, hands raised to the sky, eyes closed.

The sky opened up above her tiny house, like that day on the rocks when she was happy and young and with friends. A triumphant cackle built and grew in her throat, filling the air. For now, pouring down on her and her small plot of land and her bucket of water on the front step of her little house in Quill, was all the rain of half a hundred years.

In a Dark Cave

Weak and blind, Samheed sat in total deafening silence. He pounded his hands on the dirt floor of the cave, scratched his fingernails on his pants, kicked his feet against the wall. There was no sound at all. He felt like he didn’t exist, except for the constant waves of pain around his neck.

Now and then he’d open his mouth to yell for Lani and Meghan, but no noise left him, no matter how hard he tried. He felt utterly helpless. He couldn’t see, couldn’t make a sound, and his friends were gone.

Every now and then he could feel a small breeze, as if someone walked past him, but he could never catch that person in time. There was no way to tell when the breeze was coming, no way to tell how many minutes or hours or days were passing. After the second breeze Samheed crawled around and touched a tray of food quite by accident. Next to it was a cup of water. He ate and drank, and then stayed exactly there so that when the breeze came, he’d be able to reach out and grab it.

But the breeze brought the next food and water to a different spot.

By the fourth time, Samheed had determined that the breeze could see him, and would only go where he wasn’t.

His entire existence was pointless.

All he could think of now was that Lani and Meghan had gotten away. And deep down, beneath the pain of abandonment, he hoped for it, he really did. Not just for their sakes, but for his’if they’d escaped, maybe they’d get Mr. Today to come and rescue him . . . and he could take this pain away. It was so hard to bear when there were no distractions anywhere.

“Please, please, please,” he said from silent lips, over and over again. “Is anybody there? Can anybody help me?”

Time passed, and nothing changed.

When he drifted off into a hard sleep, he dreamed he was lying in the sun on the beach in Artimé, listening to the creatures singing softly on the lawn and the murmurs from conversations nearby while he dozed. He was free from the dark and silent cave, free from the painful thorny collar around his neck. In his dream a cool hand touched his cheek, and he smiled, realizing he wasn’t alone. He reached for the hand, traced his fingers up the arm, and touched the face of the girl who was touching his. It was the most comfort he’d had since the piercing sleep arrow embedded in his back.

But then something bumped his foot, jarring him from the dream. Someone was shaking him awake, grasping and pulling his shirt, almost ripping it. He sat up, alarmed, plunged once again into the darkness and silence and pain of the cave. He pulled his hand back to throw a punch, but the person pushed him down to the floor on his back once more, pinning him. He struggled to get free.

Even when he felt her fingers touch his cheek, his lips, he fought her, though he was weak. She pushed mightily to keep him on his back, then sat down hard on his chest, knocking the wind from him, and pinned one of his arms to the floor with her foot. With both hands she grabbed his other arm and pulled it close to her body. She brought his hand up to her head and squeezed his fingers around her hair. She forced his hand to travel down the length of it, and held it there. Then she touched his lips and felt his chest heave a sigh of relief.

“Lani.” His lips moved against her finger, and he was overcome.

She scrambled off of him. He rose up to his elbow and grabbed blindly for her hand, trying to let her know that he understood now. He held her fingers to his cheek and nodded, then put his hand on her face as well. She did the same. He could feel her relax next to him, both of them exhausted and aching. Breathing hard, not making a sound.

And then she started to shake. Samheed reached out and wrapped his arms gently around her shoulders, and she slid closer to him, gripping his shirt and burying her face in it. They held on to each other, trying to survive a minute at a time, until somebody . . . anybody . . . came to rescue them.

One Last Message

On the roof of the gray shack Alex gripped the colorful cloth like it was a lifeline. “This is his robe,” he whispered to the girl.

She nodded, pushed her fingers through her hair, and lifted them, making her hair stand up.

“Yes,” Alex said, laughing a little. “Yes, the man with the hair. Mr. Today.” He paused and grew somber again. “He’s dead now.”

The girl put a finger to her eye and traced an invisible tear down it.

“Yeah,” Alex said. He was a little embarrassed now that he’d cried so hard in front of a stranger. Not because he was male, since men and women in Artimé cried freely whenever they felt like crying, but because unexpected sobbing might make a stranger feel awkward. But she didn’t seem to mind.