Parched Read Online Free Page B

wandering in and out of memory, of nightmare, drinking until the skin no longer hung from his face like that of an old man, until the ripping pains in his belly eased.
    Slowly, the memories ordered themselves, his mind sifting through images he had shut out all those weeks in the darkness, when chains shackled him every day to the same filthy corner. Memories of his mother holding him around the waist and splashing a precious cupful of water over his face. Placing dowsing sticks in his hands and lifting his forearms to just the right height, saying, “Steady, now. Listen, my little Musa. Listen.”
    He remembered running to his brother, Dingane, with the news: “I can hear it! I can hear the water—just like Umama!” And stumbling away, nose gushing with blood, blubbering, bewildered by Dingane’s burst of anger.
    He saw his mother lying on her bed, her face gray and slick with sweat, her mouth opening and closing again, as if there were something she needed to tell him. He saw the door burst open and burly men in Tandie colors dragging Dingane by the collar into the room, shouting, pointing at Musa. He remembered Dingane’s nod, and his wide, panicked eyes. And then the rough hands, grabbing Musa and dragging him out the door, pulling him away from his mother’s outstretched arms.
    He remembered the voice, Dingane’s voice, that whispered through the rusted gap in the corner of the shack. Calling his name. Begging for forgiveness. Whispering that Umama hadn’t survived the sickness.
    Musa held his ribs as sobs shook through him. His eyes burned and his throat ached, but his body couldn’t spare any water for tears.
    A moth lifted away from the branch above his head, twirling upward, leaving silent trails of dust in its wake.
    Each day, the water stored inside the tree sank a little lower. Each day, Musa moved the drinking straw closer and closer to the ground. Even the baobab couldn’t hold water forever. He couldn’t stay there anyway, in the crown of a tree a half-day’s walk from the city.
    So when the sun lit the sky on his third morning without chains, Musa turned his back to the city, to the bright ball of rising heat.
    He took a long, last drink from the baobab tree and began walking.

12
Sarel
    For the second day in a row, Sarel woke with the first wisps of light and set out to look for the wild aloe. But hours later, her hands empty and her feet sore, she stumbled back onto the homestead. It was harder than she thought it would be, finding the trails they used to walk without her mother to lead the way.
    She was tired. And hungry. She wanted to lie down on the cool stones and never get up. But the dogs were panting in the heat of the day, without a roof on the kennel to give them any shade.
    Sarel swiped at the sweat dripping into her eyes and squinted up at the hill behind the homestead. The sweet thorn trees perched on top flashed their green leaves and yellow buds at the black earth all around. They looked healthy enough—she could take a strip of bark from each one and weave them through the kennel roof.
    At least the winds had blown the fire north and east, away from the little hill and its copse of trees. She would need that bark for medicine and the thorns for needles. And though it wouldn’t fill her belly, the sour gum that seeped through cracks in the bark would give her something to chew on.
    But she didn’t have anything to cut through the bark.
    Sarel stumbled over to the sooty remains of the garden shed. The dull edge of a shovel blade poked out of the rubble. She hefted it out of the ashes and set it aside.
    Kneeling down, Sarel rooted around in the char, the remains of her mother’s gardening tools sifting through her fingers. She brushed against something sharp. A single dot of blood beaded in her palm and she brought it up to her mouth, spitting the ashy blood into the dirt.
    Cautiously this time, Sarel reached in and clasped the