time since arriving, I saw the 1950s couple. God, they really were cool and gorgeous. They looked like they had just stepped out of another era. She was wearing a red, polka dot, retro dress with a really cinched waist. Her hair was bleached blonde like Marilyn Monroe and it was piled on her head in huge curls that looked like they wouldn’t move, even in a gale-force wind. Red lips, gorgeous cat-eye glasses and pushing a baby in a vintage pram. Her husband looked like he’d walked off the set of Mad Men. A dapper suit and tie, with a red triangle of fabric peeping out of his jacket pocket. They looked amazing, and I could see why living in a place like this would suit them. I scanned the crowd further, and there she was: the reclusive writer with her sharp, bobbed black hair and black-framed glasses that really stood out against her pale skin, which looked like it never saw the sun. She was wearing black. From head to toe, and to be honest, a cloud of misery hung around her head. Perhaps that was just her artistic persona? The somber, brilliant reclusive writer, who brought masterpieces into the world every decade or so. I saw Jim and Natasha standing there on the side, giving me a massive wave and a thumbs up. This was nice, I admit. It was really good to feel part of something like this, even if it was still possibly—no, definitely—the silliest thing I had ever done before. Although, Samirah and Mark might point out that taking photos of my breakfast and not eating it was probably sillier.
“You ready?” Mark whispered in my ear.
“Uh . . . I guess. I mean, I’m not totally sure what I’m meant to do.”
“Don’t worry, no one really knows what they’re meant to do. We basically just all walk down this road to the spring and have a big party.”
“So why did we rehearse all that stuff?” I asked.
Mark shrugged. “For fun, I guess.” He smiled at me. And I kind of got it. This wasn’t really about being historically accurate, no matter how much Ian said it was and how much we were all dressed up. This was really just an excuse for the whole town to come together in celebration. And honestly, this place and its people were something to celebrate.
CHAPTER 70
The atmosphere in the crowd as we all walked down the street together was amazing, fun and funny and so full of joy. And when we came to the part of the road where everyone was meant to stop and I was meant to step out of the procession and say my few lines and swing my giant stick around, recreating this mystical jackal fight, I was more than happy to do it. Even though I giggled all the way through. But the crowd loved it, everyone burst into applause and then we all started walking again. Faizel’s part was next, when he reenacted the moment when he chased the Ackermans off his land. And within half an hour, we were all at the end of the road, walking towards the spring that the town was named after.
Even though I’d been here for a few weeks, I’d actually never seen it before. And when I did, I finally got why the Ackermans were so thrilled to have found it. It really was like an oasis in the desert. In the middle of all the sand and dust and dryness was a cluster of huge rocks. They looked out of place, as if dropped from the sky. In between the rocks, as if they were holding it all in, was a pool of bright green water. Perhaps the brightest and greenest water I’d ever seen. It was hard to imagine how this little miracle of water had happened out here, but it had.
“And now for the—” Ian’s voice shouted at us, but he stopped abruptly when there came a loud and unfamiliar noise. We all turned our heads: it sounded like cars. Many, many cars.
And it was. Where had all those cars come from? And those vans? I counted five cars and two vans and they were coming towards us. Everyone was watching in utter confused horror as the cars finally came to a stop and people started pouring out of them. I looked at them all, trying to figure out what was going on. And that’s when I saw it. It looked strange