Absolute

Part 4 (ending)

***

The more I thought of home, the more certain I became that I'd wake the next day to the cliché realization that it was all a dream. That I'd manifested the tale I grew up with, and there never was a cave or any truth. I'd be ready to forget that place and lay my father's journals to rest with him.

I suggested to the guide that we eat before heading out and he nodded. The sky darkened above us as we plowed through our rations like wolves, fire waning to a bed of embers. Belly full and at ease, I doused what remained of the sparks and gathered the supplies.

"Time to go," I said.

The guide didn't budge. Instead, he gawked up at the clouds billowing with the promise of a storm and continued to sip from his canteen. I assumed he didn't understand me. He'd said very little to me the entire trip, mainly speaking in gruff affirmations with the occasional pointed finger and bob of the head.

I gestured at the way back to town. "We should leave. It's getting dark and the weather looks bad."

He shrugged, muttering something in an unfamiliar tongue. I had no ear for language, but it certainly didn't sound like the one he had used among the locals.

The wind picked up, rustling the trees. I could feel it pressing into my back with alarming force, urging me to flee. I flailed my hand at the turbulent sky. "We need to go now!"

Still, the guide sat, babbling in secret code, so I decided to go on without him, marching into the gale. Bits of leaves and other small debris whipped across my face. I lifted my arm to shield my eyes, wiping a speck of muddy water from my cheek. Behind me, the guide grumbled before speaking.

"You should've lied, prince. Might've changed the old girl's mind."

I froze, reduced to a pile of quivering limbs while the guide swilled again from the canteen it occurred to me should have long been empty. The sky roared, and I looked up just as a blanket of clouds began to part.

There was something on the other side of the fissure, and before it broke through—beneath the steely crack of its thunder—the guide laughed sweetly with an affection that reminded me of my father.