“Obviously, you don’t hateme. But all of us. Why did you? I was a Voyager too, remember? We all were. We know what Dane tells people. But I still saw the good in us.”
“Do you expect me not to question it when people are being taken against their will and hidden away? You all were taken, and you just choose to ignore it because people can still have good in them?” I push up onto my elbows and look over at her, but she still lays unmoving, eyes closed.
“Captain has his reasons,” she says.
“But no one will explain them to me, Stass. I don’t understand why he is keeping everyone here. He says he islooking for a way home, but he won’t let anyone go back to Dane and just ask to be sent home.”
“You’re smart, Lennox,” she says. One of her eyes opens and squints at me against the light. “I have a hard time believing that you never had the thought that maybe Dane is the one trying to keep everyone here. Maybe the person in charge of who comes and goes is the reason people come, but never leave?”
I shake my head. “It’s not about the dust. It’s about Weston wanting to steal the healing waters. That’s why he’s taking everyone.”
She closes her eye again and straightens her head, looking back up at the sky.
“If all he wanted was to steal the healing waters, why would we be looking so hard for a way home without them? Don’t forget, none of us have them. Does that explanation even still make sense?”
Her words settle between us.
She’s right.
Why would he want to help everyone leave empty-handed, if he was just trying to bring the waters back to our world to use for his own gain? Especially if he was telling the truth that he came here for someone. He doesn’t seem like he wants to get home, just to have money or power, at least not how he’s been acting recently.
“But Dane said that Weston killed the last Guardian,” I say, forgetting that important detail.
“It seems to me like you’re getting to know him a little better. Ask yourself, does he seem like the kind of person who would just kill someone?”
My jaw slackens as I sit, stumped, but Stassia continues on.
“Dane says Weston did, and you believe him. But if Weston said he didn’t, would you believe him?”
“I don’t know who to believe anymore,” I whisper.
“The island,” she says. “We always trust the island. It hasn’t steered us wrong yet.”
Stassia is right. Dawnlin hasn’t been wrong, even if I don’t agree with it and question the magic. Dawnlin gave me the means to make a map, which helped me find the waters, but after leading me to it, deemed me unworthy. It doesn’t make sense.
If empty handed you leave by dust, in the magic of Dawnlin, you must trust.
Every one of the Castaways left empty-handed, but the island specifically told us to trust it, and if it has been hiding them for all this time, maybe not trusting them is wrong.
The island led me here, led me to the Castaways.
Led me to Weston.
Is this where I was supposed to be all along?
Sometimes I catch myself thinking it feels like…home.
“Can I be honest with you, Stass?” I murmur.
“Hmm?” She hums in response.
“I don’t really have friends back home. Being here, on Dawnlin, is the first time in my life I haven’t been lonely. Whatever happens, you and Sig and Auralie, you all are important to me. I just wanted you to know that.”
She turns her head and smiles at me, reaching over to squeeze my hand.
“Careful Lennox. You’re starting to look like you actually like it around here.”
I chuckle and squeeze her hand back before she releases.
