The Fire and the Note

“Hope doesn’t always flicker gently. Sometimes it barrels in, barefoot and breathless, clutching banknotes and a name that undoes you.”

As I sat beside the dying embers of the campfire, my thoughts swirled in a relentless maelstrom, each one colliding with the next in a clamour of fear, doubt, and disbelief. The brightness of the day—clear, sharp, unforgiving—felt like a cruel parody of my inner state. It mocked the unease that gnawed at the edges of my resolve, the grief that throbbed like a hidden bruise beneath the surface.

Noah, bless his heart, had tried his best to preserve some semblance of order amidst the disarray. I watched him gently place a few logs onto the fading fire, his movements methodical, almost reverent. It was a quiet act of care, a whispered attempt to summon something familiar in a world that felt anything but.

The wood crackled as the flames licked hungrily at their new fuel, but the warmth they gave off was shallow, barely reaching the places in me that needed it most. Still, I let my eyes settle on the shifting shapes in the firelight, hoping they might yield some kind of answer, some divine message hidden in the dance of flame and shadow. But the flames offered no revelation—only their hypnotic, flickering indifference.

My gaze, once alive with the assurance of belief, now stared blankly into the fire, dulled by uncertainty. It wasn’t just the physical displacement that unsettled me; it was spiritual disorientation. Like a compass needle spinning wildly, no longer able to find true north.

Paul had made several gentle attempts to draw me out of my brooding. A kind word here, a quiet hand on my shoulder there. His presence was like a balm I couldn’t yet let soothe me. His reassurances, no matter how tenderly delivered, were swallowed whole by the ever-present clamour of what-ifs and how-could-this-be?

Even the distant hum of work—the clatter of tools, the muffled shouts of men erecting another shed—barely registered. What could once have signalled progress, purpose, even hope, now rang hollow in my ears. It all felt performative, absurd even, set against the backdrop of our displacement and disillusionment.

The silence crept in then, uninvited but insistent. Not the peaceful kind that brings reflection, but a dense, oppressive hush that pressed on my chest. Only the crackle of fire and the occasional exhale of desert wind punctuated the stillness, yet neither sound brought comfort.

I sat, unmoving, cradled by a silence so complete it felt like grief itself. And I realised, not for the first time, that nothing—not the logs, not the fire, not even Noah’s quiet efforts—could bring back what we’d left behind.

Not really.

Suddenly, the fragile peace was shattered by the sound of pounding footsteps, the frantic rhythm slicing through the stillness. My heart lurched into my throat, a jolt of fear and adrenaline surging through me as I turned towards the commotion.

Jerome.

He burst through the camp’s gate like a shot, breathless and wide-eyed, clutching something tightly to his chest as though it might vanish if he loosened his grip even slightly.

“Paul, you won't believe this!” he gasped, the words tumbling from his lips in a breathless flurry, his feet skidding to a halt just short of our small circle.

I leaned forward instinctively, drawn by the breathless urgency in his voice and the glint of paper peeking out between his fingers. At first glance, they looked like nothing more than scraps—but as he fumbled with them, I caught a flash of colour, the unmistakable crispness of banknotes.

Australian notes.

Even as curiosity flared within me, it was swiftly accompanied by a deeper, gnawing unease. This place, Clivilius, was already too strange, too unmoored from everything I knew to be real. And now—money? From Earth? It felt like an intrusion, or worse, a harbinger of something yet more destabilising. Whatever Jerome held, I feared it was yet another crack splintering the fragile foundation we stood upon.

Noah’s hand came to rest gently on my thigh, a silent gesture of support that I accepted with a faint nod. The warmth of his touch, the solidity of his presence, reminded me that I wasn’t alone in this storm. And yet, beneath that gratitude simmered a low, bitter ache. This wasn’t the life we were promised. None of this—none of it—was part of the covenant we’d upheld so faithfully.

“What's going on, Jerome?” Paul asked, his voice steady, as always. Measured and practical, as though calm words could bind together all the broken pieces we were trying to hold.

Jerome opened his hand with a triumphant flourish, revealing a fan of bright, pristine Australian notes. They looked almost absurd in his dusty fingers, their vivid colours clashing starkly with the worn, earthen tones of the world around us.

“Beatrix and this new Guardian, Jarod, they brought us all this cash!” he exclaimed, eyes wide with wonder, almost gleaming with disbelief.

Cash.

Here.

I stared, baffled, my frown deepening as I tried to make sense of it. The very idea of money felt silly now, like something from a forgotten dream. What good was paper in a world without shops, without cities, without any of the familiar systems that had once given it meaning? It was like discovering a credit card on the surface of the moon—utterly irrelevant, absurd even, in its context.

A knot twisted in my gut, a cold coil of confusion and dread. I didn’t know what this meant—but I knew enough to sense it wouldn’t make anything simpler.

“Cash?” Paul echoed, his voice tinged with the same unease that was already coiling in my stomach.

Jerome’s grin widened, maddeningly oblivious to the apprehension that now thickened the air. He handed a few of the notes to Paul and Noah, the crisp rustle of paper sounding far too clean, too civilised for this raw, untamed place. It was like unwrapping silk bandages in the middle of a battlefield.

“I don't know the full story,” Jerome shrugged, as if he were recounting a tale of pocket money earned rather than an inexplicable windfall from beings who traversed dimensions. “Beatrix was in a rush. Something about it being time-sensitive.”

Time-sensitive.

The phrase struck me like a warning bell, vague and foreboding. It floated there between us, weightless but oppressive, dripping with implications none of us could yet see. My chest tightened, breath catching painfully in my throat. My thoughts spiralled—what urgency required such a sudden, untraceable act? What crisis loomed on the edge of this reality, pressing in with invisible hands?

Noah's frown deepened, his fingers toying absently with the note in his hand. His brows pinched together, his eyes dark with thought. He was trying—valiantly, I knew—to make sense of it, to fold this mystery into the neat lines of his faith. But even he seemed adrift, unable to anchor this turn of events within the doctrines that had always been his compass.

Paul, meanwhile, had shifted into action. I recognised that glint in his eye—the stubborn glimmer of his childhood, when he’d refuse to leave a problem unsolved, even if it meant missing dinner or breaking curfew. “We need to find out what's going on,” he said, and his voice snapped like a taut wire, no room for hesitation.

But just as he turned, ready to charge into uncertainty, Jerome grabbed his arm with startling urgency. “Wait, the laptop,” he blurted. His voice shook with something new—anticipation, perhaps, or barely-restrained excitement. “Luke said we can talk to Charles with it.”

My heart stuttered.

At the sound of my youngest son’s name, my head jerked up as if pulled by strings. “Charles?” I breathed, the name fragile on my lips, trembling with hope and aching need. My pulse surged. The yearning to see his face, to hear the tone of his voice—to know he was alive and whole and still tethered to us—was overwhelming. In that moment, all the grief, all the betrayal and bewilderment fell away, eclipsed by a mother’s singular longing.

Jerome beamed, completely swept up in his own delight. “He should be home from school any minute now. Luke's waiting for him.”

The flame of hope flared within me, sharp and blinding. Charles. My boy. My heart.

Somehow, impossibly, it seemed there might still be a thread connecting our fractured lives.

I was on my feet in an instant, my heart pounding like a war drum in my chest as I surged towards the gate. The world around me blurred—the tents, the dry wind, the harsh Clivilian light—none of it mattered. All I could think of was Charles. My son. My boy. The aching gap his absence had carved into my soul screamed to be filled.

Noah, bless him, was quick to follow, his footsteps heavy against the sandy ground as he tried to keep pace with my frantic strides. I could hear the effort in his breath, the concern in every hurried step behind me.

“Do you really think we should bring Charles here, too?” he asked, his voice rough with uncertainty, laced with a worry I knew came from love—but one I could not entertain.

I stopped so abruptly that he nearly collided into me. I turned to face him, the desert wind tugging at my clothes, lifting the loose strands of my hair from my damp forehead. The fire in my chest flared, fierce and unwavering.

“I don't know where we are, and I don't really understand any of this,” I said, my voice trembling, not from weakness but from the force of the emotion surging through me. “But I'll be damned if I'm going to be separated from my children.”

The words tasted foreign on my tongue—harsh, almost unholy—but I meant every syllable. Noah flinched slightly at my rare use of such language, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he nodded, solemnly, knowingly. He understood. He always did.

He had seen, time and again, the depth of the love I bore for our family—the fierce, unwavering love that made me hold our babies tighter when they cried in the night, that made me kneel longer in prayer when one of them faltered. He knew the quiet vows I had made long ago, when each child was placed into my arms: that I would never abandon them, never leave them behind, come what may.

We pressed forward together, climbing the sandy incline with renewed urgency. The fine grains slipped treacherously beneath our feet, as though the land itself sought to slow us down. But I would not be deterred. Not now. Not when Charles was so close.

Noah stayed close beside me, steady and strong. His hand hovered near my back, ready to catch me if I faltered. I didn’t look at him, but I felt his presence—solid and dependable—a quiet strength in this dizzying, fractured world.

Every step we took brought us closer to the one thing that still felt real. Our son.