Chapter Fifteen
I can hardly believe what I breathe, that this world is so vastly different than the South. I wonder why that chaos hasn’t overrun these pristine valleys before. I see Knowland and I guess I have my answer. He’s like the other men that defend the borders of Utopia, fierce, brutal and loyal beyond all else. He has been all of that to me.
Approaching this familiar ground I want to take off my shoes and run my toes through the mud, and the grass through my hands. I want to taste the water in the streams. I can already hear and smell the ocean just over the bluff, where, if I race full speed, I could find our cove and dive into the clear wet sand and look for pieces of rope we left there.
Sighting my house, I see flowers blooming by the doorway, little violets and yel
