Page 63 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
Opal finally looked up, meeting her eyes. “Maybe it already did what it came to do.”
Nora sat on the stool near the front desk and dropped her bag at her feet. “I need you to tell me what the hell is happening to me.”
“You’re blooming,” Opal said. “That’s never a clean process.”
Nora gave her a look.
“No Hallmark version, I promise.”
Opal pushed away from the counter and disappeared into the back. The beaded curtain clattered. Nora sat in the dim silence, heart pounding. The wall of mismatched clocks ticked out of sync. One spun backward.
When Opal returned, she was holding a cloth-wrapped bundle. She placed it gently between them.
“Your grandmother left this with me. Told me to keep it safe.”
“For who?”
“She didn’t say. Just that someone would need it. When the desert started waking up again.”
Nora hesitated, then pulled the cloth back.
Inside was a blade.
Obsidian, sharp and jagged-edged, set in a worn wood handle wrapped with twine. It didn’t glow. It didn’t hum. But something in her responded, like the knife had always known her.
“What is this?” she whispered.
“Ritual. Protection. A piece of the land that remembers how to cut back.” Opal tilted her head. “Or maybe it’s just a knife. Either way, it’s yours now.”
“Was she…” Nora couldn’t finish the question.
Opal shook her head. “She wasn’t chosen. Not in the way you are. But she knew what it meant to love the land without trying to own it. She kept one foot here and one in the world. Taught me everything I know.”
Opal leaned against the counter, arms folded.
“I thought I was called once. Maybe I was. Maybe I didn’t answer the way it wanted. The desert doesn’t explain itself. And it doesn’t beg.”
“Do you regret it?”
Opal looked away. “Some days. Other days, I think it would’ve eaten me alive.”
Nora looked down at the blade. “Why me?”
“You’re not cursed, if that’s what you’re asking. And you’re not chosen, either.”
Opal’s voice gentled.
“You’re choosing.”
“There were always supposed to be two,” she continued. “A guardian, and a bloom. He protects the desert. Becomes part of it. Formed by the land to protect the bloom. To remember her. But without her, without someone to open and carry the life, it all turns to rot.”
“I’ve read this script before,” Nora said. “The brooding immortal monster who softens for the girl with a sacred womb. Do I get a cursed gemstone too?”
Opal snorted. “It’s not softness he turns to, honey. It’s hunger.”
Nora swallowed. “And what happens if I finish the bond?”
Opal’s gaze dropped to her folded hands. “You’ll belong to him. And he’ll belong to you.”
