“You kissed?”
“Sort of. I…”
Hazel said nothing and Randy found that he was breathing heavy.
“I loved her. Not that I didn’t love grandma, I did, but this was before The Day. Sarah was special.” He scrunched his face in frustration.
“Then why does your face get red when you talk about her?” Hazel said.
“Because she didn’t feel the same way about me. She used me. Like Milly uses your father. Drags him into her shit, but never gives him the love she teases.”
“Milly’s like her mother, huh?”
“Sarah wasn’t Milly’s real mother,” Ben said.
Randy would come to find out many people knew this, but his heart sank.
“Not her mother? So, Sarah wasn’t Randy’s grandmother?” Hazel said.
Ben paused and didn’t seem to know how to answer. “If you put stock in blood, then no, she isn’t. If you put stock in everything else, then she is.”
Randy didn’t understand.
Hazel said nothing.
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t want you seeing that boy, Randy. He’s always skulking around, watching you, asking about you.”
“I told him to buzz off, but he’s like a fly,” Hazel said.
Randy chuckled, then put his hand over his mouth.
The room fell silent and Ben looked his way and Randy flinched even though the old man couldn’t see him through the wooden shutters.
“Then swat him,” Ben said.
“I can’t do that, grandpa.”
“Those people aren’t what they seem, Hazel. Your dad didn’t listen when I forbade him to see Milly and look where it’s gotten him.” Ben pulled his granddaughter to him. “They will trade your life if it means saving their own skin. Never forget that. No matter how you feel about this boy, he’s Sarah Hendricks’ grandson, and Milly’s son, and he will betray you.”
Randy snuck off and went home to bed. He didn’t think Hazel would try to sneak out again on this night, and he didn’t know if he wanted her to.
The next day in Foundation when Hazel saw the leaf bandage on Randy’s nose, she threw him a bone. “You OK?” They were waiting for Ms. Nancy, who would read the next chapter of sacred text The Sheep Look Up.
“Doc Hampton said you broke it, but I’m fine,” Randy said. “I’m sorry, Hazel. My dad beat my ass when I told him what I did. He said you never kiss a girl without permission. First time he’s said anything to me in a long time, so thanks for that, I guess. I wanted to tell you last night, then I got you in trouble. It’s just…” His words fled. What he saw in her eyes made him love her even more. He was thrilled she hadn’t stalked off.
“I didn’t mean to break your nose,” she said. That was as close to an apology he’d ever heard from her.
A gust of wind ripped through the cave and the reading candle went out. The class inched through the cave toward the entrance like a flock of lost birds, and when they reached it, Hazel gasped. A gale tore at the trees and ripped at the Womb. The roar of the wind increased, and a solitary figure came running across the Womb toward them.
“Get to the back of the cave. It’s a cyclone,” Fire Master Aragorn said. He rushed into the Foundation, cradling and directing students as he moved to the rear of the cave. Hazel and Randy put their backs to the wall and waited for the commotion to pass, and once it had, they peered out into the maelstrom.
The Womb was a twister of debris: tree branches, leaves, sand, dirt, and rocks. When a human body streaked by in the chaos, Hazel screamed. Trees cracked, boulders fell, and the crash of the ocean and the applause of thunder roared across Respite.
“The fire,” said Randy. The Perpetual Flame looked to be almost out, and a thick waterfall cascaded into the fresh water basin causing it to overflow and fill the Womb. A tree collided with the mountainside, and its shards crashed across the cave mouth. Hazel and Randy jumped back, but a branch caught Randy and he went down hard.
Hazel ran to him, but he got up on his own.
“What are you doing up here?” fire master Aragorn said. “Get to the back.”
They spent the night huddled deep in the Foundation. Master Aragorn sent a runner to the parents informing them it was safer if the children stayed where they were. The wind howled like an insistent beast and clawed at the mountain. Rock cracked and creaked, boulders fell, but the mountain stood against the onslaught. The Womb filled with water, but it rose nowhere near the Perpetual Flame or the Foundation entrance.
Randy watched Hazel in the darkness, her face split down the center; one side in darkness and the other lit by faint torchlight. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing heavy.
When the storm receded, it left in its wake a horror Randy hadn’t imagined in his worst nightmares. Most of the trees were flattened or ripped from the island, and topsoil and sand were rearranged, burying fields and huts. A section of Citi was destroyed, its pieces thrown like children’s toys across the shallows.
Randy wept when he saw the beach. Most of the palm trees were uprooted, and many had been sucked out to sea by the cyclone. First thing they did was build up the Perpetual Flame, which had been kept smoldering by a brave group of fire guards that refused to let the light of the community go out.
Randy took Hazel’s hand, but when he started to speak, she told him to shut it. The sea lapped on the beach, waves tumbled in, the air sweet. They walked in silence. This new Respite would be theirs.
