Cress

Twenty

Cress awoke to a dizzying assortment of sensations. Her legs throbbed and the bottoms of her feet ached. The weight of the sand that they’d buried themselves in to keep warm pressed down on her from neck to toes. Her scalp was still tingling from its strange new lightness. Her skin felt dry and scratchy, her lips brittle.

Thorne stirred beside her, moving slowly so as not to disturb the square of parachute material they’d draped over themselves to keep windblown sand out of their faces, though the grains in Cress’s ears and nose proved that it hadn’t been entirely effective. Every inch of her body was covered in the stuff. Sand under her fingernails. Sand at the corners of her lips. Sand in her hair and in the folds of her earlobes. Attempting to rub the dry sleep from her eyelashes proved a difficult, painstaking operation.

“Hold still,” said Thorne, settling a palm on her arm. “The tarp may have gathered some dew. We shouldn’t let it go to waste.”

“Dew?”

“Water that comes up from the ground in the morning.”

She knew what dew was, but it seemed silly to expect it in this landscape. Still, the air did seem almost damp around her, and she didn’t argue when Thorne instructed her to find the tarp’s corners and lift them up, sending whatever moisture there was down to its middle.

What they found when they had shimmied out from beneath it was a little less than a single gulp of water, muddied from the sand that had blown up onto the fabric overnight. She described their underwhelming success to Thorne and watched disappointment crease his brow, though it soon faded with a shrug. “At least we still have plenty of water from the satellite.”

Plenty being their last two bottles full.

Cress looked out at the brightening horizon. After walking nearly the entire night, Cress doubted they could have slept for more than a couple of hours, and her feet felt like they would fall off with the next step. She was disheartened when she looked up at the mountains and discovered that they didn’t seem any closer now than they had the evening before.

“How are your eyes?” she asked.

“Well, I’ve been told they’re dreamy, but I’ll let you decide for yourself.”

Flushing, she turned back to him. Thorne had his arms crossed over his chest and a devil-may-care grin, but there was something strained beneath it. She realized that the lightness in his tone had also rung false, covering up whatever frustrations were simmering just beneath his cavalier attitude.

“I couldn’t disagree,” she murmured. Though she immediately wanted to crawl back beneath the parachute and hide from embarrassment, it was worth it to see Thorne’s grin become a little less forced.

They packed up their camp, drank some water, and retied the towels around Cress’s ankles, all while the taunting morning dew steamed and disappeared around them. The temperature was already climbing. Before closing up their pack, Thorne shook out the sheets and made Cress wrap one around herself like a robe, then adjusted his own sheet to make a hooded cloak that came over his brow.

“Is your head covered?” he asked, brushing his foot along the ground until he found the metal bar he’d been using as a cane. Cress tried her best to mimic the way he’d covered himself before confirming that it was. “Good. Your skin is going to crisp up like bacon soon enough. This will help for a little while at least.”

She fidgeted with the cumbersome sheet while trying to guide Thorne up the slope they’d camped on. She was still exhausted and half numb from walking. Every limb throbbed.

They hadn’t traversed four dunes before Cress stumbled, landing on her knees. Thorne dug his heels into the ground for purchase. “Cress?”

“I’m fine,” she said, pulling herself up and rubbing the sand from her shins. “Just a little drained. I’m not used to all this exercise.”

Thorne’s hands were hanging in midair, like he’d meant to help pull her to her feet, but she noticed it too late. Slowly, they sank to his sides. “Can you keep going?”

“Yes. I just need to get into a rhythm again.” She hoped it was true and that her legs wouldn’t be loose cables all day long.

“We’ll walk until it gets too hot, then rest. We don’t want to exert ourselves too much, especially under full sun.”

Cress started down the dune again, counting their steps to bide the time.

Ten steps.

Twenty-five.

Fifty.

The sand grew hot, singeing the soles of her feet through the towels. The sun climbed.

Her imagination circled through her favorite fantasies, anything to keep herself distracted. She was a shipwrecked pirate from the second era. She was an athlete training for a cross-country journey. She was an android, who had no sense of exhaustion, who could march on and on and on.…

But the dreams became more and more fleeting, reality pushing them aside with pain and discomfort and thirst.

She began to hope that Thorne would let them stop and relax, but he didn’t. They trudged on. Thorne was right about the sheets, which kept the merciless sun from scorching her, and she became grateful for the dampness of her own sweat keeping her cool. She began counting again as sweat dripped down the backs of her knees, and though she felt awful for thinking it, part of her was glad Thorne couldn’t see her in this state.

Not that he was immune to the trials of the desert. His face was red, his hair messed from rubbing against his makeshift hood, and dirt streaked down his cheeks where there was a shadow of facial hair.

As it grew hotter, Thorne encouraged Cress to finish off the water they’d opened in the morning, which she drank with relish, only afterward realizing that Thorne hadn’t taken any for himself. She was still thirsty, but the day was stretching on in front of them and they had only one more bottle. Though Thorne had told her they shouldn’t ration it, she couldn’t bring herself to ask for more if he wasn’t drinking also.

She began to sing to herself to pass the time, humming all the pretty songs she could recall from her music collection on the satellite. She let the familiar melodies distract her. Walking became easier for a time.

“That one’s pretty.”

She paused, and it took a moment for her to realize Thorne was talking about the song she was singing, and it took another moment for her to remember which one it had been. “Thank you,” she said uncertainly. She’d never sang in front of anyone—never been complimented on it. “It’s a popular lullaby on Luna. I used to think that I’d been named for it, before I realized what a common name ‘Crescent’ is.” She sang through the first verse again. “Sweet crescent moon, up in the sky. You sing your song so sweetly after sunshine passes by.…”

When she glanced back at Thorne, he had a faint smile on his lips. “Your mom sang you a lot of lullabies?”

“Oh, no. They can tell you’re a shell right when you’re born, so I was only a few days when my parents gave me up to be killed. I don’t remember them at all.”

His smile disappeared, and after a long silence, he said, “You probably shouldn’t be singing, now that I think of it. You’ll lose moisture through your mouth.”

“Oh.” Pressing her lips tight together, Cress placed her fingertips against Thorne’s arm, the signal that had come to mean they were starting down a slope, and slogged on. Her skin had been scraped raw by the heat, despite the shelter of her makeshift robe, but she was propelled on by the thought that it was nearly midday. And while midday would bring about the highest temperatures yet, Thorne had also promised a respite from walking.

“All right,” Thorne finally said, as if the words were being dragged up from his throat. “That’s enough. Let’s rest until the temperature goes down again.”

Cress groaned with relief. She would have kept walking all day if he had asked it of her, but how glad she was that he hadn’t.

“Do you see any shade at all? Or someplace that looks like it might be shaded when the sun starts going down?”

Cress squinted across the dunes. Though there was some shade over the occasional hillock, at high noon it was almost nonexistent. Still, they were coming up on a big hill that would soon cast some shadows—it was the best they could do.

“This way,” she said, spurred on by the promise of rest.

But as they crested one more dune, her eye caught on something in the distance. She gasped, grabbing Thorne’s arm.

“What is it?”

She gaped at the glorious sight, struggling to find words to describe it. Blue and green, a stark contrast against the orange desert sand. “Water. And … and trees!”

“An oasis?”

“Yes! It must be!”

Relief spilled over her. She began to tremble with the promise of shade, water, rest.

“Come on—it isn’t far,” she said, plowing through the sand with renewed energy.

“Cress. Cress, wait! Reserve your energy.”

“But we’re almost there.”

“Cress!”

She barely heard him. Already she could imagine the cool water slipping down her throat. The breeze beneath a palm’s canopy. Maybe there would be food, some strange tropical Earthen food she’d never tasted, that would be juicy and crisp and refreshing …

But mostly she thought of collapsing into a nice patch of shade, cooled and protected from the sun, and sleeping until nighttime brought the return of cooler temperatures and endless stars.

Thorne trooped after her, having given up trying to make her stop, and soon she realized she was being cruel to make him go so fast. She slowed a little, but kept her eyes on the lake that shimmered at the base of a dune.

“Cress, are you sure?” he asked when he’d caught his breath.

“Of course I’m sure. It’s right there.”

“But … Cress.”

Her pace slowed. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. “No, just … all right. All right, I can keep up. Let’s get to this oasis.”

She beamed and grabbed his free hand, leading him over the desert’s ripples and tides. Her fantasies took over, eclipsing her fatigue. The towels had nearly rubbed the soles of her feet raw and her calves were sunburned where her sheet didn’t protect them and her brain was swirling with thirst, but they were close. So close.

And yet, as she slipped along the powdery sand, it seemed that the oasis never came any closer. It always lingered at the horizon, as if the shimmering trees were receding with each step she took.

She plowed on, desperate. The distances were deceptive, but soon they would reach it. If only they kept moving. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other.

“Cress?”

“Captain,” she panted, “it’s … it isn’t far.”

“Cress, is it getting any closer?”

She stumbled, her pace slowing drastically until she stopped, gasping for breath. “Captain?”

“Do you see it getting closer? Do the trees look bigger than they were before?”

She squinted at the water, the trees, the most gorgeous sight, and swiped her sleeve over her face. She was so hot, but no sweat was left behind on the cloth.

The truth was so painful, she almost didn’t have the strength to say it. “N-no. But that’s … how could…”

Thorne sighed, but it was not a disappointed sigh, merely resigned. “It’s a mirage, Cress. It’s the light playing tricks on your eyes.”

“But … I can see it. There are even islands in the lake, and trees…”

“I know. Mirages always seem real, but you’re only seeing what you want to see. It’s a trick, Cress. It’s not there.”

She was mesmerized by how the water rippled in little waves, how the trees trembled like a breeze was teasing their branches. It looked so real, so tangible. She could almost smell it, almost taste the cool wind blowing toward her.

Cress barely managed to stay standing, her fear of being scorched by the hot sand alone giving her the strength.

“It’s all right. Lots of people see mirages in the desert.”

“But … I didn’t know. I should have known. I’ve heard stories, but I didn’t … I didn’t think it could look so real.”

Thorne’s fingers brushed against the sheet, finding her hand. “You’re not going to cry, are you?” he said, his tone a mixture of gentle and stern. Crying was not allowed, not with water so precious.

“No,” she whispered, and she meant it. Not that she didn’t want to cry, but because she wasn’t sure her body could make enough tears.

“Good, come on. Find us a sand dune to sit down for a while.”

Cress peeled her attention away from the fleeting, bitter illusion. Scanning the nearest dunes, she led him toward a southward-facing slope. The moment she was over the crest, it was as if a thin string that had been holding her up snapped. Cress let out a pained groan and collapsed into the sand.

Thorne brought the blanket and parachute square out of the pack and laid it out for them to sit on, to keep them off the hot sand, then pulled the corners over their heads like a canopy that blocked out the sun’s brightness.

He put an arm around Cress’s shoulders and tugged her against him. She felt so dumb, so betrayed—by the desert, by the sun, by her own eyes. And now the truth was settling upon her.

There was no water.

There were no trees.

Nothing but endless sand, endless sun, endless walking.

And they may never make it out. They couldn’t go on forever. She doubted she could go on for another day like this, and who knew how long it would take to reach the end of the desert. Not when every sand dune multiplied into three more, when every step toward the mountains seemed to send them even farther into the distance, and they didn’t even know that the mountains would offer any protection when they got there.

“We are not going to die here,” Thorne said, his voice soft and reassuring, like he’d known exactly where her thoughts had been taking her. “I’ve been through much worse than this and I’ve survived just fine.”

“You have?”

He opened his mouth, but paused. “Well … I was in jail for a long time, which wasn’t exactly a picnic.”

She adjusted the towels on her feet. The hair-ropes had begun to cut into her skin.

“The military wasn’t much fun either, come to think of it.”

“You were only in it for five months,” she murmured, “and most of that was spent in flight training.”

Thorne tilted his head. “How’d you know that?”

“Research.” She didn’t tell him just how much she’d researched into his past, and he didn’t ask.

“Well—so maybe this is the worst I’ve been through. But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re going to survive. We’ll find civilization, we’ll comm the Rampion, and they’ll come get us. Then we’ll overthrow Levana and I’ll get loads of reward money and the Commonwealth will pardon my crimes or whatever and we’ll all live happily ever after.”

Cress nestled against Thorne’s side, trying to believe him.

“But first, we have to get out of this desert.” He rubbed her shoulder. It was the kind of touch that would have filled her with giddiness and yearning if she hadn’t been too tired to feel anything. “You have to trust me, Cress. I’m going to get us out of this.”