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Back The Wilderwomen Save as PDF
Chapters (37)
  1. Copyright Notice
  2. Dedication
  3. BEFORE
  4. AFTER
  5. ONE THOUGHTS ON SUN HATS
  6. TWO TIME FOR CAKE
  7. THREE TWELVE MONTHS
  8. FOUR PSYCHIC KARAOKE
  9. FIVE A SECOND SLEEPING BAG
  10. SIX SIX MONTHS
  11. SEVEN THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE PANCAKE
  12. EIGHT SIX MONTHS
  13. NINE FOLLOW THE MUSIC
  14. TEN THE STARS ARE BRIGHTER IN THE DESERT
  15. ELEVEN SIX MONTHS
  16. TWELVE EVERY STAR HAS A SONG
  17. THIRTEEN PSYCHIC KARAOKE
  18. FOURTEEN ONE MONTH
  19. FIFTEEN A WELL-TRAVELED HAT
  20. SIXTEEN JOEL VS. THE VOLCANO
  21. SEVENTEEN TWO WEEKS
  22. EIGHTEEN HOUSE OF MEMORIES
  23. NINETEEN IF TREES COULD TALK
  24. TWENTY THREE DAYS
  25. TWENTY-ONE SEARCH PARTY
  26. TWENTY-TWO NOT THE SAME ZADIE
  27. TWENTY-THREE WAVES OF SMOKE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR THE DAY OF
  29. TWENTY-FIVE THE SKY IS FULL OF BIRDS
  30. TWENTY-SIX NEST
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. EPILOGUE
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT A SONG ABOUT A BIRD
  34. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  35. Also by Ruth Emmie Lang
  36. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  37. Newsletter Sign-up

Then as she absentmindedly ran her fingers across the surface of the table, she felt a deep scar. Finn let out a short gasp as she looked down and saw the initials NZF carved into the wood. A moment later, her mind began to slide, lose its purchase on the present and drift into another time. The heat from the sand dissipated. The sky plunged into darkness and stars descended upon her like rain. A heart that was not hers raced.

Music.

She heard music.

She was lost, but the music made her feel found.

Where am I? she said aloud.

Who am I?

The sky was a dusting of faint stars. Sailors used them to navigate across oceans.

The music would be her compass.

If she told it her name, maybe it could tell her something, anything about her life.

My name is Nora, she said.

No one answered.

A gate. The music was on the other side.

She was on the other side.

She would follow the music.

TEN THE STARS ARE BRIGHTER IN THE DESERT

Zadie woke to the color orange and the smell of coffee. The tent walls were aglow with morning light, and Finn’s sleeping bag lay crumpled and empty. She wiggled her toes and discovered that the inside of her sleeping bag was coated in a fine layer of sand. This must be what it’s like to live in the desert, she thought. You wake up feeling like an excavated mummy.

Zadie sat up slowly, groaning. As she had predicted the night before, every part of her body ached: her shoulders, her neck, her back, even her hips. One week, she thought grimly, fluffing her pillow. She did a quick calculation in her head of how much it would cost if they stayed in motels every night: at least four hundred dollars, probably closer to five. She hadn’t budgeted for lodging—a friend in Galveston had generously offered her family’s beach condo for the first iteration of their trip. Five hundred extra dollars would almost clean out her savings. She supposed she could ask Finn for money, but as usual, her pride got in the way. I’d rather sleep on the ground.

A sudden wave of nausea rocked Zadie. Worried she was about to be sick, she scrambled out of the tent and found Finn seated in front of a crackling fire holding The Fisherman’s Desire in one hand and a thermos in the other. “Good morning!” Finn chirped.

Zadie swallowed. It appeared she wasn’t going to be sick after all. “Morning.”

“How’d you sleep?”

“Like a rock. Sorry, I mean like I was sleeping on rocks. Which I was.”