The Borderlands

The air shimmers as heat rises off the pavement, and in the distance, something winks in the bright sun. It is the sea, waves lapping like tongues against a sliver-beach of fine white sand, and when Riario rolls down the window, the air is clean, and salty. Matted dune grasses slump on the gentle slope up from the beach to the packed red-clay dust that surrounds them in every other direction, that they have been driving through since Whenever. The crumbling highway leads up to the lip of this slope, and then ends. Only the water spreads out before them. Leo taps the brakes slowly and they crawl to a stop. Everyone is silent.

"I didn't know we were near the ocean," Zo finally says, leaning forward with his elbows on the front seat shoulders.

"We're not," Riario says.