Everyone started passing dishes around, filling their plates with wide smiles on their faces. The atmosphere was electric. We were all happy to be back together again.
“Thank you,” I said to Bernadette as she passed me the basket of homemade rolls. The only thing that was different were the sunflowers, they were bigger, taller, and brighter than when we’d left. A feeling of belonging settled in my heart and I properly relaxed for the first time since we moved.
Laughter filled the air. Animated conversations were being had all the way along the stretched table.
“So, Noah, what’s she like?” Willow asked. Her and Skye were identical twins, and if it weren’t for Willow’s love of short hair and Skye’s of long, you’d never be able to tell them apart. They sat side by side, directly opposite me.
“She is everything we’ve been told,” I replied. We’d grown up loving Scarlett, only now I loved her in a completely different way.
Skye rolled her dark green eyes. “Oh, come on, Noah!”
“Fine. She’s beautiful, funny, compassionate, little bit crazy, stubborn and smart. She never has a bad thing to say about anyone.” And she deserves a chance to go to university and live off cheap noodles like she wants. But that couldn’t happen. The next life she has will be perfect, much more than this one. She’ll be happier, and I’ll join her eventually.
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Zeke said. He spoke of her with such admiration it made my throat thicken. There wasn’t one person here that wouldn’t give their life to protect her for as long as it took to get her here. “Do you think she will hate us, though?”
Yes, absolutely.
I shrugged. “I’m sure once Donald and Fiona explain she’ll understand. She challenges society’s ideas already so I don’t think it’ll take her long to come around.” She didn’t challenge them. Well, she might, I just hadn’t had a conversation like that with her.
“What is it like living out there?” Willow asked, making it sound like we’d moved to the moon. It didn’t feel too far off actually.
“It’s horrible,” Finn said. “I can’t wait until she’s back here and I never have to step foot outside the commune again.”
“You’ll still have to do the food runs,” Willow pointed out.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m with Finn,” I said. “Although I’m not having quite as hard time adjusting. It’ll be good to be home permanently.” When that happened it’d mean Scarlett would be dead. I didn’t like ‘civilisation’ much, but I’d stay there if it meant I could stay with her. I wished Donald would give me four years with her.
I took a deep breath and pushed all of that stuff away. I wasn’t home long, and I was determined to enjoy it. Whatever I was feeling would sort itself out. We all loved her, but I knew her in a way no one else did, that was bound to throw up some issues and emotions. It didn’t mean I wasn’t still just as devoted to Eternal Light.
After our meal, I helped to clean up and we gathered goblets of water. The year of Water was coming to an end, in a short few months the year of Earth would start again and Scarlett would be safe for a while. If it wasn’t for the fact that we already had her within our grasp, of course.
Fiona gathered us around a lake I helped to build six years ago. It was between the edge of the forest and our wooden houses. We’d dug it wide and somewhat narrow, so it was rectangle with curved edges. It was the length of forty people with their arms stretched out to their sides.
I held my goblet up in one hand, mirroring what everyone else was doing. Donald walked along the line, touching each one and bowing his head.
“You give us life, give us the means to sustain ourselves,” Fiona said. “Water cleanses the earth, it allows people to drink, to wash and grow crops. You give us all we need to live now and beyond.”
Donald reached the end of the line and took his offering from Fiona.
“We will not forget to be thankful every day for what the earth provides us. We will not take it for granted, nor will we be selfish with it. We will take only what we need and make sure we are able to replenish what we use.” He tilted the goblet, and the water poured over the lip of the glass and into the lake, adding to the water we’d blessed and built up over the last six years.
Once Donald’s was empty, he bowed his head, giving the cue for us to follow. I tipped mine slowly and watched it trickle into the water. There wasn’t a day that passed that I wasn’t grateful for life. People abused the earth we lived on, most without any realisation of what they were doing. I wouldn’t turn into that.
For the next two days, I fell back into my old life but there was something missing. Or someone. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, wondering what she was doing, if she was hoping I’d call. There was no way I’d get signal out here, and they’d already done a run into town to get supplies last week.