more open. The dark, empty sky seemed lower and heavier somehow.
Then she looked over her shoulder. It took her a few moments
to understand what she was seeing.
Miles away, there was a line across the land and sky, where the
flat nightscape turned back into the more familiar, hillier dayscape.
The different time zones sat next to each other like two
paintings in an artist?s studio?unmoving, unchanging, and both
equally as real. Here, time was a place and it never moved. Somehow
that made sense.
Helen walked. It was cold in the night version of the dry lands,
and her teeth chattered uselessly. In the dayscape, there was no
relief from the heat, so Helen knew that in the nightscape there
would be no warmth no matter how much she rubbed her arms
and shivered. She saw someone up ahead. He was panicking.
She hurried forward until she could see that it was Lucas. He
was on his hands and knees, feeling around as if he were
blind?grabbing at the sharp stones, cutting his hands on their
edges. He was very afraid. She called out to him, but he couldn?t
hear her. She knelt down next to him and took his face in her
hands. He flinched away from her at first and then reached out
blindly with relief. He mouthed her name, but no sound came out.
In her arms, he felt very light. She made him stand up even
though he was so frightened he hunched over on shaking legs. He
cried silently, and Helen knew he was begging her to leave him
behind. He was too frightened to move, but Helen knew she
couldn?t heed him or he would never leave this dark, dry land.
Even though he screamed, she forced him to get up and walk.
Helen was in terrible pain. She wanted to groan but she didn?t have
the strength to make any noise. She could hear the ocean close by,
but she couldn?t move or open her eyes to see where it was. She felt