“That’s fuckin’ water, mate.” Jack downed the last of his canteen, refilled it, drained it again, and swiped his arm across his mouth, throwing shimmering droplets into the air. “Ahhh. Damn good water, clean and clear as hell, but still just water.”
Liam leaned against the cliff wall, face in hands. “It can’t just be water.”
Roger, enjoying his morning tea, watched as one of the women from the village across the valley picked her way up to his cabin. He had a hard time recognizing her until she crested the hill, not fifty feet from the comfort of his chair; he wanted to blame that on too much time away from the village, but he had a nagging sense that his eyes were just getting that bad.
He maintained his silence, staring past her into the mountains looming in the distance, turning purple at the sun’s first touches. Breathing heavy, she trudged over to his chair and dropped herself onto the ground. After a few moments, her breathing slowed and she spoke.
“What a view, eh? I guess you see it every day, but I should’ve made the trek up here sooner.”
Roger set down his cup, half-turned toward her. “Don’t try an’ flatter me, Emma. Twenty years out here by m’self, an’ you’re the first visitor in all that time. Tell me what brought you my way.”
The knock at the door turned Maya’s arm to stone.
She drew it to her side. The squeal of the marker bounced off the wall behind her, amplifying into a blaring alarm, piercing her ears. She stared at the last name she had written, the final letter smudged. Breath held, she tried to wipe it away with her handkerchief, but only made it worse. For several seconds, there was silence. She convinced herself that the knock had been her imagination, her paranoia eating at the edges of her nerves.
The second, more insistent knock helped her find her voice. “Just a second!”