Sand: Omnibus Edition Read online

  This was how keenly the moments were felt. Especially by the crack in the earth, the Bull’s gash, where a haunting depth opened in the soul of any who stood there, where toes were daringly dangled just to feel the cool air rush up between them, just to pretend that the howl was for the delicately poised, just to imagine a lovely visage down in the darkness screaming Don’t do it. Step back. You are too bold and lovely and singular to look down in here and upon me.

  Conner sat there anyway and swung his legs in the gash, so intimate had the two become the past weeks, so hollow the threat and weak the pull. He dribbled sand through his hand and down toward the center of the earth. Nearby, marbles of glass were flicked to the far side, those small beads formed by Palmer, who spent much of his time showing that he could, no doubt thinking that it would’ve been better had he gone, the eldest son.

  And on the eighth day, when the hike back should have ended, when they could wait no more, as the last of the water splashed Rob’s tongue and even the moldy heel of the bread was divided among their family, they gathered by the gash in the earth, crossed and re-crossed like a thread leaps and forms stitches, and surveyed that boom-less and quiet horizon.

  It was early. The sun a mere hint. A pink ghost lurking. An unusual heaviness to the sky, the lingering night sky, as the stars disappeared. But it was not the light of coming day that swallowed them; it was something in the air. Conner dropped his ker, the sand that normally stirred on the winds succumbing to some mystery, alerted to some presence, a sound like marching in the far sand, and the cool morning grew cooler, the ice in the desert night clung piteously to dawn, fearful of the pink ghost, and Conner heard footsteps. He heard a grumbling. A noise. Something approaching.

  “Something’s coming,” Rob said, scrambling to his feet. “Something’s coming!” he shouted.

  Palmer and Violet and their mother paused in the dismantling of the tent and ran to the gash to join the two boys, eyes and ears straining in the heavy darkness, tent canvas flapping in a gathering wind, the rhythmic sound of a steady advance, an approach, not of the dead or their long-gone sibling or their father—but of the even more impossible. It struck Rob first and then their mother, pattering across the desert floor, coming with a whoosh of cold wind and a blotting of the stars, a wetness from the heavens, an answer to the long silence, a sign that someone far away was listening.

  Their mother fell to her knees and burst into tears.

  And the sky wept for its people.

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  Footnotes

  [1] Sand that collects in boots.

  [2] Sand held rigid by a dive suit.

  [3] Wet sand.

  [4] Sand collected in clothing or in mouths.

  [5] Sand trapped in one’s hair.

  [6] Wet sand packed in the soles of one’s shoes.

  [7] Fine sand, usually airborne.

  [8] Sand that enters a home.

  [9] Sand knocked loose from someone’s exertions.

  [10] The sand that gathers inside goggles and around the eyes.

  [11] The sand found in the bottom of any container.

  [12] The sand that flows across the desert floor, covering objects and filling tracks.

  [13] Sand stuck to a window.

  Table of Contents

  Part 1:

  1 • The Valley of Dunes

  2 • The Belt of the Gods

  3 • The Map

  4 • The Dig

  5 • The Dive

  6 • Danvar

  7 • A Burial

  8 • What Pirates Do

  Part 2:

  9 • The Brief Hiss of Life

  10 • Sissyfoot

  11 • A Date?

  12 • Father’s Boots

  13 • Son of a Whore

  14 • Sandtrap

  15 • Sins of a Father

  16 • The Long Hike

  17 • The Bull and the Boy

  18 • No Man’s Land

  Part 3:

  19 • The Prodigal Daughter

  20 • A Scrounger’s Trade

  21 • Buried Alive

  22 • A Fight with Madness

  23 • Missing Treasure

  24 • A Mad Dash

  25 • The Risk of Believing

  26 • A Long Way Up

  27 • Mother

  28 • No Room for Breathing

  29 • A Soul’s Weight

  30 • Into the Starry Night

  31 • A Bounty

  32 • Run

  33 • Not Happening

  34 • That Final Embrace

  Part 4:

  35 • Oasis

  36 • A Note from Father

  37 • The Sand-Filled Screams of the Dying

  38 • No Place for a Girl

  39 • A Rose on the Pillow

  40 • Ticking Bombs

  41 • A Smuggled Tale

  42 • The Letter

  43 • The Great Wall

  44 • Held Down, Violently

  Part 5:

  45 • A Quiet Dawn

  46 • A Buried People

  47 • Not Enough Buckets

  48 • A Fortunate Few

  49 • Half-Sisters

  50 • The Backs of Gods

  51 • Waterpump Ridge

  52 • A Pillar of Smoke

  53 • Father’s Last Rites

  54 • Low-Pub

  55 • A Deep Discomfort

  56 • A Place to Rest

  57 • Swinging the Gaze of God

  58 • A Rap Upon Heaven’s Gate

  Footnotes

  Table of Contents

  Part 1:

  1 • The Valley of Dunes

  2 • The Belt of the Gods

  3 • The Map

  4 • The Dig

  5 • The Dive

  6 • Danvar

  7 • A Burial

  8 • What Pirates Do

  Part 2:

  9 • The Brief Hiss of Life

  10 • Sissyfoot

  11 • A Date?

  12 • Father’s Boots

  13 • Son of a Whore

  14 • Sandtrap

  15 • Sins of a Father

  16 • The Long Hike

  17 • The Bull and the Boy

  18 • No Man’s Land

  Part 3:

  19 • The Prodigal Daughter

  20 • A Scrounger’s Trade

  21 • Buried Alive

  22 • A Fight with Madness

  23 • Missing Treasure

  24 • A Mad Dash

  25 • The Risk of Believing

  26 • A Long Way Up

  27 • Mother

  28 • No Room for Breathing

  29 • A Soul’s Weight

  30 • Into the Starry Night

  31 • A Bounty

  32 • Run

  33 • Not Happening

  34 • That Final Embrace

  Part 4:

  35 • Oasis

  36 • A Note from Father

  37 • The Sand-Filled Screams of the Dying

  38 • No Place for a Girl

  39 • A Rose on the Pillow

  40 • Ticking Bombs

  41 • A Smuggled Tale

  42 • The Letter

  43 • The Great Wall

  44 • Held Down, Violently

  Part 5:

  45 • A Quiet Dawn

  46 • A Buried People

  47 • Not Enough Buckets

  48 • A Fortunate Few

  49 • Half-Sisters

  50 • The Backs of Gods

  51 • Waterpump Ridge

  52 • A Pillar of Smoke

  53 • Father’s Last Rites

  54 • Low-Pub

  55 • A Deep Discomfort

  56 • A Place to Rest

  57 • Swinging the Gaze of God

  58 • A Rap Upon Heaven’s Gate

  Footnotes

  Sand: Omnibus Edition