Long shadow

“I would come with you, if I could,” said the first of the two figures, eventually.

From behind, both figures were made into silhouettes by the sun setting in front of them. Side by side, they stared across the desert. They had been stood in silence, their shadows slowly lengthening behind them.

“I know,” said the other.

“That’s a lie. I wouldn’t come. It’s pointless, Eabha.”

Eabha made no reply, except to shrug.

“Why are you going?”

“Somebody must.”

“No, it’s pointless! No-one who has tried has ever come back. You’ll just die. Like all the others.”

“No one will ever make it if no one even tries.”

“But why you?”

“Why not?”

“Answer the damn question!”

“I know where the water caches are. Hell, I’ve refilled all of them at one time or another, and I placed a good number of them myself.”

“Others know too.”

Eabha shook her head. “I feel as if I’ve spent my whole life waiting for this, Seana. Even when Riri and Aobh were still… When they were...” Eabha barked out a sharp burst of hurt. “Even then, I felt the desert pulling me.”

“Are there no other reasons to stay. Me? Cal and Nuala? They love their Auntie Eabha.”

Eabha hung her head. “It should be enough.”

“That’s settled then!” Seana turned to walk back to the village and took Eabha by the hand. But Eabha resisted her pull. “Damnit, why do you have to go? You’re my sister. I love you!”

Eabha finally turned to look at the first. “I know, Seana. I-”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t leave. You’re just like Father!”

Eabha recoiled and shrugged Seana’s hand away.

“I’m sorry,” said Seana. “I didn’t mean that.” Eabha turned away from Seana as she tried to pull her round. Tears were welling in Seana’s eyes.

“Why not… why not keep caching more water? Go next year, maybe?”

Eabha shook her head. “You know it has to be now. The crops have failed every season for the past four years. There is less and less water to spare.”

“How do you even know there’s anything on the other side? How do you even know there is another side anymore?”

“It doesn’t matter. If there isn’t, there should be.”

“Please don’t go.”

Eabha looked out across the desert.

“Please?”

Eabha looked out across the desert.

“Eabha?”

Eabha looked out across the desert.

“Go then. Go! Cross your desert.” Seana spun and hurried back towards the village, pulling her shawl tight about herself as if she were cold. Eabha still faced the desert. The sun was gone, and only its glow remained.

Eabha swallowed, picked up the pack that lay next to her and started walking.

*

At the first cache, Eabha rested. She drank her fill from the cache, and refilled her own bottles. The sun would not rise for a few more hours, but the water here was plentiful, and there was shelter. A few small plants even grew here. When the younger cachers replenished this store, they would start the return journey immediately, and walk during the day. Eabha was walking in the opposite direction, so she rested while she could.

Small trenches had already been dug, and piles of stones stood at the corners of each. Eabha took a tarpaulin from her pack. She folded it double and used the stones to secure each corner. As the sky behind her began to brighten she turned back to face the home she had left behind, and sat down to eat.

She ate facing the foothills that cradled her small village, though in the darkness she could not see them. Behind them the mountains towered above, diminishing the hills’ own scale. In her youth, white could be seen on the mountaintops every winter, but no snow had been seen for a decade and the flow of water in the streams had slowed to trickles. Only the Arboro River now flowed through all four seasons and even the swamp it drained into was shrinking year by year.

Eabha took only small bites of her food and chewed each morsel slowly. For several hours, she barely moved. When the heat grew, she moved to the shelter she had made and slid in underneath. She pulled her hat down over her eyes and lay still, but her breathing did not fall into a pattern that would indicate sleep.

With the day’s heat fading, she emerged from her shelter. She watched the sun set behind the same horizon that she had looked upon with her sister the previous evening. She did not wait for the sun to vanish below the horizon to pick up her pack and begin walking.

*

Days later, Eabha woke again. As with every awakening, she spared no look behind her.

Hours later, as she ate before sleeping, she sat and looked back over the way she had come. Even with the dawn, she could not see the foothills. The mountains had lost their definition. They loomed as large as ever, but the colours had all run together, like memories.

*

Eabha woke again. It would be a simple matter to calculate how many nights she had been walking, but she chose not to. Her next stop would be the last cache. That was all that mattered. She set out towards the sunset.

At dawn she stopped walking. Looking back over the path she had taken, she wondered how she would feel when she woke. She wondered if it would be hard to go on.

*

It wasn’t

*

She tried to count the nights. She had travelled for… nights and nights. Her own water was done. She walked each night without thought, other than to keep moving her feet.  One in front of the other. She thought she had slept twice since she exhausted her water. It was hard to be sure. The nights flowed together.

She sat looking back, though she had nothing left to eat whilst doing so. The mountains were grey. Just grey. She thought about a skeleton she had passed. She had not paid it much attention at the time. Perhaps it had been her father.

*