Page 11 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
She looked out the window at the scrubland stretching to the horizon, what she’d once dismissed as barren. A wasteland. But now, she could see it differently. There was a strange, quiet order to it. A kind of beauty she hadn’t known how to look for before.
She could almost hear his voice again, low and steady beside the fire, telling stories about the land and the people who’d lived with it, not just on it.
Seeing his name in print felt like finding a piece of him she hadn’t realized was missing. His words still carried weight.
She stayed for a long time, making photocopies of the articles she wanted to keep; some for memory, and a few, maybe, for her thesis.
After she left the library, Nora walked down the quiet street to the market. She didn’t pass a single person.
A different clerk was at the counter this time, a girl with a septum ring, heavy eyeliner, and a mouth full of loudly snapping gum. She didn’t greet Nora, just stared.
But when Nora stepped closer, the girl’s expression shifted. She didn’t seem unfriendly. Just… curious. Like she was trying to place her.
She rang up the can of coffee, pint of ice cream, and bag of chips, dropping them into a paper sack without a word.
“Be safe,” the girl said suddenly, eyes sharp now, voice low.
Then she turned away and began rearranging a cup of pens like she hadn’t said anything at all.
Nora blinked.
“Thanks… you too.”
She stepped back into the blinding sun, the interaction sticking to her skin like sweat.
The sun hung high, the heat warping the air, making it feel thick and heavy. Nora should’ve gone home. Should’ve curled up with her laptop and pretended she was a functional academic human being. But instead, her hands moved on their own, steering the car down a narrow dirt road she hadn’t thought about in twenty years.
The sign was still there, half-swallowed by brush, letters barely clinging to the wood:
HOLLOW WASH. NO TRESPASSING.
She snorted under her breath at theNO TRESPASSINGpart.Yeah, that was going to work.
She parked just before the road disappeared into scrub and walked the rest of the way. Dust rose in slow, deliberate swirls behind her boots. The sound of her footsteps seemed too loud in the unnatural stillness.
Then she saw it. The Hollow Watcher. A formation of stone and heat-carved granite, leaning slightly, almost as if it were listening. The base was scorched, darker than the rest of the earth. Scattered around it were small bones, dry and bleached, littered like half-forgotten offerings.
In the center of a circle of stones sat a bundle of dried flowers, wrapped in red string. Her breath caught. It was just like the bundles in her grandfather’s house. Maybe he’d been here not too long ago.
Or maybe… someone else had.
The thought pushed through her brain, unwelcome, and she shook it off.
Great. Love that for me. Nothing says “mental stability” like chasing ghost bouquets into the heatstroke zone.
Crouching beside the bundle, she traced the tight knot in the string, her fingers brushing the brittle petals. She saw something shining out of the sand, next to the flowers, as if they were marking its location.
Obsidian. Smooth. Thumb-sized. Sitting in the dust like a gift.
She reached for it slowly. The surface was warm, almost too warm, like it was being held by someone and not just resting on the earth. Her fingers curled around it, and a soft hum slipped through her skin, low and steady, like a pulse.
It was the kind of object you were definitely supposed to leave alone. The kind people in horror movies picked up right before the sky turned red and the demons crawled out.
And yet, she pocketed it. Because of course she did.
She straightened, turning in a slow circle. The silence stretched out, vast and heavy. A gust of wind kicked up, rattling the loose stones and sending sand into her eyes.
The place had always drawn her. Even as a kid, she’d felt some kind of unnamed power here, something that made the air feel hard to breathe. Her grandfather used to say it was because the desert kept its own secrets. Some places just held on to things.
