Page 16 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
No warning. No helpful beeps or dashboard lights. Just a slow exhale from the machine and a shudder, like it had beenholding its breath too long and finally gave up. Nora coasted to a stop. The car sat heavy in the dust, heat glinting off the hood. The only sound was the faint tick-tick of metal settling in the sun.
She turned the key twice. Nothing.
She checked her phone. No bars.
Of course. Perfect.
She climbed out, the heat scorching. One hand braced on the hot roof, the other wrapped tight around the stone as she stood in the middle of nowhere. The map flapped on the seat beside her, like it was trying to fly away and leave her here.
Her grandfather’s notes danced across the page, messy and looping.
No metal past this point.
Avoid if the wind changes.
Yeah, well. It already had.
The desert didn’t feel empty today. The Joshua trees leaned in closer. She swore they were listening.
The sun wasn’t even at its peak, but it pressed down on her scalp, heavy and sure. Her skin prickled. Sweat slid down her spine, sticky as it pooled at the small of her back.
Ahead, the road forked. One way wound back to town. The other twisted into the low foothills, the land that shimmered like a half-formed thought. There was an old wooden post with two rusty nails and no marker, like someone had torn the directions off and left her to guess.
She didn’t guess. She knew. Not in her head, but somewhere deeper, like the land was nudging her toward the hills
That’s when she heard it.
Footsteps. Soft, steady, not in a rush.
There was no trail in that direction. Just brush, dry ravine, and long shadows.
She turned.
A man emerged from the scrub. He moved like he’d been standing there a while. Waiting.
Lean and weathered, he wore a faded green ranger uniform, sun-bleached and threadbare in places. The name stitched on the chest read G. MORALES. His forearms were tan and dusted with grit, sleeves rolled to the elbows. His boots were tight-laced and caked with dried mud.
“Hey there,” he said, raising his hand in greeting. “You lost?”
“Car died. I was heading into town.”
He moved past her, straight to the hood like he’d been summoned. “This stretch of land does that,” he said, popping the hood and poking around with sure, practiced hands. “Sensors get scrambled. Something in the minerals out here. Nothing stays calibrated for long.” He glanced up. “Did you try a hard reset?”
She blinked. “No. I didn’t know that was a thing.”
A faint smile twitched his mouth. “It is out here.”
He moved with the ease of someone who belonged to sun and dust. Heat shimmered off the metal, and around him too, more than it should have. Like he pulled it with him. Or pushed it away. Her skin flushed. The stone in her pocket burned against her palm, a steady thrum beneath her fingertips.
Morales looked up. “Desert’s been waiting. You look like him.”
Nora blinked. “You… knew my grandfather?”
Morales nodded. “Orin taught me things out here. Tracking. Listening. The kind of stuff that doesn’t show up in books.”
Nora’s throat tightened. “He passed last month.”
He nodded slowly, eyes flicking away like he’d lost something too. “He used to say the desert kept its own calendar.”
