The Chief’s shelter sits in its own courtyard in the center of the settlement, the largest and only one with an anteroom, where they set Nata before him. Isiuwa crowded around. The Chief is just like every other man in the settlement, only slightly plumper and with a permanent frown on his forehead. He doesn’t dress any differently from the others either, cloaked in the exact same cloth, except for the large woven headpiece made of fragile beads that Nata knows is passed down from chief to chief.
The decision was swift and simple. As custom, she could not be allowed back, lest she anger the gods and the dunes advance on Isiuwa. She would be sent back out with nothing, not even a cloak, to ensure her transition into the mouth of the dune gods was easy and hassle-free. This would ensure the many moons of carefully created community order were not put in jeopardy due to her self-indulgence. The gods would understand. Plus, it was a favor. It was her desire to leave, after all.
But, Tasé. He changed everything. Right in the middle of proceedings, with no regard for the court, he scuttled over to her, kneeling there in the center of the anteroom with her found artifacts laid out on the floor before her. He was younger then, smaller. He touched her hair and smiled. He fondled her ear. He pulled a hand from behind himself and offered her a piece of bread. She took it and munched.
Isiuwa held their breath and waited. Tasé had never found purchase with anybody, no matter how much the Chief tried. Not even his nurses could get him to do anything. He was a person of his own, and the Chief had come to accept that he would exist in solitary and die. There was no hope for Tasé in the world that was to come forth from this, where the strength of community and order would be the sole decider for survival. People like Tasé would have no place in that world. But the Chief had not quite moved on to this acceptance, and Tasé still represented a glimmer of hope for him, a hope that had suddenly rekindled.
The Chief cleared his throat and asked for Nata to be held in lockup. She was there until the next day, and that was how she knew she wasn’t going to be ejected.
No deserter had ever been held. The punishment was always the same right after the courtyard declaration: the sentries would open the gate and prod, prod, prod until the person was several steps away from the bamboo fence. And even if they cried and cried, the gates would be shut against them. Then they would wander away, their cries for help sailing back to Isiuwa in the wind. When it came time for the dune gods to whistle, their wail would be cut mid-scream, and then there would be nothing but silence and safety for Isiuwa once again.
She was brought before Isiuwa the next morning. There was, after all, some use for this one, the Chief said. It would be a waste to discard this one so uselessly because she wasn’t in her right mind, following in the footsteps of the bad example set by her Mam. The troupe would pray to the gods on her behalf on the next trip, while she would atone by serving the community. That service would take the form of becoming a serving companion to Tasé, helping him assimilate into the community and become stronger and better to take up his role in the coming future.
Isiuwa hummed and nodded and praised the Chief for his wisdom, forethought, and benevolence. And this was how Nata knew Mam was right after alclass="underline" that the gods that did exist were not beneath the dunes at all, but words planted in the mind. This was how she knew she was going to leave again.
When they dispersed, the Elders confiscating her artifacts for their archive, Tasé knelt in the dust with her, leaning close, his nose almost touching hers, his young breath racy with excitement.
“Did you smell it, then?” he whispered. “Did you feel it, outside? Did it smell like power?”
They leave at dusk, hand in hand, hearts racing in sync. It is harder for the sentries to spot them in the sand when it’s dark, when shapes no longer exist and the dunes in the distance are the only shadows left. They leave without a light, navigating the darkness through Nata’s mental memory alone, lugging the food and water she has gathered. They wear thinner cloaks so they can move faster. In the cold of the night, Tasé’s teeth chatter.
In every direction conceivable is nothing but sand and dust and wind, with only the peaks and crests of dunes, small and big, for company. The largest dunes, under which the greatest ruins of the perished people before Isiuwa lie, form a shadow against the red glow of failing light in the distance. They avoid walking up the crest of any of the miniature dunes they come across, to stay out of long-range sight. The sand is cool against their feet and leaves many holes for tracks. Nata knows that come morning, they will be easily found if their pursuers ride Isiuwa’s one camel hard enough, or if the fastest sentries are set on their trail.
Tasé is silent, for the most part. For a boy only slightly younger than Nata, his silence speaks well beyond his years. Nata remembers telling him the same thing Mam used to tell her, which she didn’t believe then, but does now: You, alone, are a god. You are a dune too, and the dune will not swallow itself. Don’t let Isiuwa tell you otherwise.
Nata watches him clutch his cloak tight about himself and stare ahead, his eyes fixed on the undulating shapes in the horizon. The Chief doesn’t know that when he punished her, he only gave her more light, see. She is meant to be Tasé’s companion because she is the only one who understands why he is the way he is, because the same questions that are asked of him roil within her. They both grew up listening to the constant susurrus of Isiuwa, wondering if they were sane or just as mad as their mothers, and the questions formed a knot within them that will only be unknotted by leaving. They have always known, in some way, that they are going to find the women who birthed them and breathed this fire of liberty that cannot be quenched; that they are going to find home only there.
They put more distance between themselves and Isiuwa, moving in a straight line, in the direction of the dunes. No one seems to be following them, a good sign. Nata hopes for them to reach a dune before dawn so they can rest in its shadow at high noon. But they can only stomp in the sand so long before their legs get tired. The undulating outlines still loom in the distance, and Nata cannot tell how close they are yet, but they are far enough from Isiuwa that it makes sense to rest.
They have some bread and the roasted termites. Nata lets Tasé have the allowable sip of water for today, while she settles for sugarcane. She munches, wondering what she’ll say when she finds Mam. She has focused so much on leaving that she has forgotten she might not be happy to see Mam at all, that her chest might become tighter, that she might never forgive her for leaving, for not sacrificing everything and coming back for her. But she also isn’t ready for whatever answer Mam has to give. Maybe this is why she found a way to take Tasé with her, despite the odds. Maybe she is trying to do it over, how it should’ve been.
“We should move,” Tasé says.
Nata lies on her back in the sand. “We don’t need to. It will come to us.”
He frowns. She sees this and says, “It’s a roaming whirlwind. That’s what causes the whistle. My Mam used to call it the wind of opportunity, that it comes for you only if you present yourself.”
He lies on his back next to her, wrapped from head to toe and becoming one with the sand. Soon, they fall asleep, and Nata dreams of meeting Mam, but Mam no longer recognizes her. She wakes once, and lies awake, remembering all Mam’s stories about the wind, about the five times she slipped beyond the fence and slipped back in, and what she saw. She called it the whirlwind of liberation, of return to a time when even though her tongue was just as tied, her body just as controlled, it was at least hers. It did not belong to Isiuwa.