Canyon Red by Ryan Drawdy

Author:Ryan Drawdy [Drawdy, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent
Published: 2019-10-27T22:00:00+00:00

By the time the ghost man emerged, stumbling and alone, from the top of well-hidden steps in the grass beside the well, he was no longer a ghost. He was human.

The man, stunned and silent, fell to his hands and knees, moving his fingers, pinching his skin, smelling the grass. Then Radley emerged from the same staircase in the grass. He was unhurt. Even more, he was exuberant. It was the happiest Brosie had seen him.

“It’s a joy to see you again,” Radley said to Brosie and Cethia with a smile. “You have both been incredibly brave in the time I have known you. I’m more proud of you than I can say.”

Brosie curtsied. It felt right. As she dipped to the ground, she saw a mouse scamper out from behind the well.

“Now you know my secret,” Radley said. “We didn’t lose all of the animals from my land. There aren’t many warm-blooded things around, but there are enough...”

“Enough to get a few ghosts out,” Cethia finished.

“This man is alive!” Radley shouted into the sky. In the distance, the girls heard what sounded like cheering. “This is cause for celebration, don’t you think?” When the two girls and the newly human man looked confused, he told them to follow.

They did, around the well, through the back of the rock, where the darkened walls felt more protective than aggressive now, and through the pass until they emerged onto an open plain of some sort. A beautiful white-sanded beach, glowing by a silver light from underneath it, spread out from the edge of the plain to the sea.

The sea. Brosie remembered her first few minutes in Marathon, hearing the ocean but not seeing it. Somewhere on Marathon, it seemed, there really was an ocean. Had she been hearing it then, from all the way down in the ghost village?

Here on the shores and surrounding plains, hundreds of humans were gathered together bathed in torchlight and filling the air with laughter.

“Do you know where you are, children?” Radley asked, grinning. They shook their heads. “Look at the ground.”

All around the area, up to the white sand of the beach, the ground was rocky and dark, yet faintly glowing to the brim with silvery light.

“Now look at the sky,” Radley said and pointed his nose at the spot he wanted them to see. The children gasped in awe. Instead of looking at stars and the moon in the sky, they were looking at the surface of a planet—right in the middle of which was the beautiful, phosphorescent Field of Flowers.

Brosie spoke first. “Is this…”

“The moon,” Radley said. “This is where I’ve been staying. I’ve made it my home, and the home of many others.”

There was that giddy, sweeping, adventurous feeling in Brosie again. She was walking on the moon and yet still able to breathe. Despite the danger she’d been facing since coming to Marathon, she felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

She looked again at the Field of Flowers. From above, she noticed what it clearly resembled: a giant eye.

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