Page 71 of Dawn of Hope
She is right. This whole event has completely shaken me to my core and opened up my eyes to the dangers that Dawnlin possesses. It makes sense though, that the island is full of peril, making anyone here have to earn what they sought. That’s how getting here was. It was a challenge. It had to be put together and discovered. It wasn’t just handed to you with easy directions. There is now nothing that made me think finding the elixir was going to be any different.
“What are we waiting for?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Where to now?” I ask Mara as I take in our new landscape.
“Through here,” she says, pointing to a pathway that cuts through the rock.
“Are you going to tell me what we’re looking for now?” I ask.
She scans the rock walls as we move. “Dane already explained to you we are looking for the cure, right?”
“Yes, he told me that no one knows where it is or how to get it.”
“Did he tell you anything else?”
“No. He was in the middle of showing me around the island to get acquainted when he was called away for Fin.”
“Right. It’s important to get to know the island like the back of your hand. That’s why we go out searching every day.”
“Maybe I’m not understanding something correctly. I’m assuming you’ve been here…a while…and you go out and search the island every day. You and all the other boys know every square inch of it. So, why is it you haven’t found the elixir yet?”
She stops in the middle of the path, turning to face me.
“It’s because the island changes. The land stays the same, but parts of the land, they’re different. It’s like a giant obstacle course with traps along the way, and every day you don’t know what different place you’ll find. Any of them could lead us to the right place, to the hiding place. We have to keep trying every day.”
“How do you find them?” I ask, as I take in our surroundings. The rocks, the trees, the packed dirt from being trodden repeatedly every day for years. Nothing looks like it is fake or constructed. It all looks so real, so solid. But maybe that is all magic. It is all an illusion until you fall into the right place. “Everything looks so normal to me.”
She turns and continues down the path, climbing up over a boulder that is blocking the way and hopping down to the other side.
“Me personally, I think Dawnlin is alive. I think it is watching us all. I feel like itchoosesto show you things when it wants you to find them. Dane doesn’t agree with me. He says if that was the case, then why have none of us found the hiding place yet?”
“He’s got a point, though. Wouldn’t the island want to help you find it?”
“Maybe it’s protecting it. It was hard to get here, right? Maybe it is making us earn it.”
I agree with Mara. So far, everything I have seen and learned about this place has been earned. The myth says nothing about how to find it or how to find the elixir. You have to figure that out on your own in order to get here. It almost feels as if the accomplishment is acknowledged by the magic that lives here. Maybe that magicisactually protecting the island and the cure, and making sure the person who finds it is deserving.
Like keeping it away from Weston.
But how does it know?
“What kinds of things do we look out for?”
“Some are obvious. An enormous hole in the ground, a trip vine. Some are less obvious, and you just stumble upon them. But wheneveryou think you want to look somewhere you discovered again, it might not be there. It will be something else or just gone.”
“So that’s why you can never stop looking. There’s always somewhere new to look.”
“More or less. Sometimes, they can be pretty dangerous. Sometimes, it’s just a dead end. You always have to stay on your toes.”
I eye the pathway with the boulders and sharp rocks differently now, realizing that at any moment, anything could change. “So, between the island basically trapping you every day, and keeping an eye out for the Castaways, how does anyone survive here?” I say.
She smirks. “That’s what makes it fun. It’s also what makes it seem like you haven’t been doing the same thing every day for years and years.” She glances down at her feet and kicks a rock off the path.
“If you don’t mind me asking Mara, how long have you been here?”
“We don’t really keep track. It’s?—”