Page 124 of Dawn of Hope

My mother’s fate is sealed. The healing waters were the last hope.

I wasn’t going to use the little dust we had left to go home empty-handed, and seal my own miserable fate.

No.

I am staying. I found happiness and love here. I can help others as they come to the island,ifthey can come to the island. I can help Dane figure out how to replenish the dust, and I can show the rest of the Voyagers where the healing waters are so they can have a chance to be worthy. I can find the Castaways and save Fin.

I can have a purpose here.

I look around the chamber, my mind made up and eager to return to camp. A dark archway appears to the left of the alcove. I assume this was Dawnlin’s way of excusing me and asking me to leave. I don’t ask any questions. I want to get out of here.

I want to go home.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Istep through the archway into a tunnel similar to the way I came in, the torches lighting as I move through. This time, I don’t walk.

I run. I need to get back to Dane.

Beneath all the anger and the hurt, another emotion threatens to burst through the surface, one I had been avoiding since before I arrived here. I don’t want to think about it, don’t want to feel it.

Failure.

I failed at what I set out to do, but Edmond always said even if I fail, I can change my perspective and see things in a new light. I may have failed at saving my mother, but in the process, I found a whole new life I never thought possible, and wouldn’t be possible without this island.

Yes, it has deemed me unworthy for whatever its reasons, but I can still help other people. Maybe if I do, Dawnlin could change its mind. My mother has survived in this barely alive state for twenty-one years, surely she could make it a little longer. As long as my father didn’t give up on her.

I weave through the tunnel, my breaths heaving as I run as fast as I can. A bit of light appears ahead, and I hope it is the end. I slow my steps as I approach, so I don’t go barreling off a cliff and fall to my death.

You never know what the island has planned for those it deems unworthy.

The archway at the end of the tunnel is dark, lit only by moonlight.

I’ve been gone all day.

Dane and the others must be worried, especially since I was supposed to stay at camp all day. After everything that happened in the past few days, I’m sure they are out looking for me.

I cross under the arch and feel the magic of the portal surrounding me as I walk through.

My boots squish into sand as I step out onto a moonlit beach. I look back toward the portal so I know where to find it again. How has it been missed all these years?

There is nothing but rock, the cliff face of a beach. I reach out and touch it, expecting my hand to go through like the one back at camp, but my fingers only meet the smooth stone carved away by years of rain and wind.

The portal doesn’t go both ways. There is no way anyone would have ever found it. It truly is hidden.

I turn back toward the beach, trying to get my bearings in the dim light of the moon. The sky is clear, the stars shining brightly in the crisp air, as if the island hadn’t just been ravaged by a storm for the last two days. I take a few steps away from the wall, following the path in the sand that weaves between large boulders toward the open beach. I need to see which side of the island the portal spit me out on.

I pass the last boulder and stop short.

Wait.

This is the beach where I found Fin’s things broken in the sand.

This is the beach where he fought the Castaways, where he was taken.

Was he here by chance? Was he this close to the healing waters and didn’t know it?

Or…or had he…found them?