He prayed and listened for the sound of digging—but heard nothing. His pulse. His pulse. Maybe the sand wasn’t so deep. Maybe his mother was okay, pressed there against the wall. Maybe Violet—his half-sister—maybe she would live and her story would be known. He might have a minute of air left. They could dig him out. But that rumble—that rumble—too much sand. It had gone black in the room. The sand had swamped the second story of the Honey Hole. The great wall must’ve gone. Collapsed. Blown up. And the sand on Conner’s back grew deeper and heavier with this thought. In the dark and quiet, he imagined the horror that must be taking place outside. His rapidly approaching death became a pinprick in a wider world of hurt. That grumble of sand he’d heard had been the dune coming at them, the great dune behind that teetering wall on which he’d been born. A life given and then taken away. It had come for him. Had found him. Was now going to claim him.

The struggle against the sand was futile, so Conner relaxed. As he did, it felt as though the bullies on his back grew heavier, like he had sagged within himself and the sand was eager to consume that space, to take whatever he might give. How much longer? The need to breathe grew intense. Like the training games with his brother, when they strained their lungs and counted with fingers. Dizzy. No way to inhale or exhale. Would just black out. And as he felt it coming, his panic surged anew, and there came an intense drive to not die. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to call out to Rob, to his mom, tell them he loved them, get them out of there, somebody please dig me out of here.

As his senses faded, the press of sand all around him softened. It was as if his skin was growing numb to the pressure. Or the blood flow was stopping. Conner had a bright flash of a memory, his father waking him up one morning with a finger pressed over his gray beard, urging Conner to be quiet. Conner, confused, half-asleep, leaving the room he shared with his brothers, his father taking him up the narrow stairs to the top of the great wall. They sat there with their faces to the east and their feet dangling over the ramparts. A windless, noiseless sunrise. The first quiet dawn he’d ever seen, one of those rare moments when the gods stop their thundering and become calm, when the sand isn’t blowing down on them—and Conner sat and watched the morning sun swallow the stars and then Mars, and then a golden dome of light grow and blossom into a perfectly blue sky.

“Why’s it so quiet?” he had whispered to his father. He was young and confused. “Will it always be like this?”

“Another half an hour,” his father had said, studying the sky. “If we’re lucky.”

This placed an enormous pressure on Conner to enjoy the moment. To remember it. To soak it up. The way that crow up there flapped its wings as it took advantage and made for the east. The way the sun warmed the cool morning air. The stillness on his cheeks. His father’s heavy hand on his shoulder. Remember. Remember, he told himself. That intense pressure to make this last forever, to cup his mind tight like hands under a running tap. And then he had glanced up and down the ramparts and realized they were enjoying this moment alone.

“We should wake the others,” he had whispered. “Palmer and Vic—”

His father squeezed his shoulder. “They’ve had theirs. This one is yours.”

And nothing more was said as the sun broke free of the dunes and the wind returned and whatever made that noise that haunted their sleep resumed its infernal grumbling. And it dawned on Conner, sitting there on the great wall with his father, that the world was full of secrets and strangeness. At some point in the past, he had slept while Vic and Palmer had been taken up into the darkness to witness this. They had never told their little brother, had never shared that moment, and Conner knew he never would either.

And it occurred to him there in the Honey Hole, buried under all that sand, that Rob had never been given a windless dawn with their father. Had never been given any kind of morning with him. Had never known him. And the sand loosened even more around his body, and Conner knew it was happening. The last of his breath. The last of sensation. He’d had a minute or two there under the press of dune to consider his life—and now his time was up.

But as the sand grew lighter, he felt his body more keenly, not less so. He swallowed back a sob. Swallowed. The fists around his neck lost some of their grip. There was a hum in the earth. A hiss. That sound of someone diving nearby. He’d heard this sound before, his ear pressed to the hard pack as he listened to his father scavenge beneath him. It was the sound a diver could only hear when his suit was off and another’s was on. And Conner discovered that he could move. Someone was loosening the sand.

He still couldn’t breathe, was still buried and blind, wasn’t sure how many ticking heartbeats he had left in his lungs, but he struggled against the sand to reach for his boot. Couldn’t swim in this. Couldn’t get anywhere. But might be able to bring his knee up, stretch his hand down, reach inside, bring out the band, hit the power, fumble with the wires, the scratch of the rough floor as he wiggled beneath what felt like a thousand heavy blankets, his little brother crushed beside him, his little brother who could never hold his breath quite as long. Got the band plugged in. Sand crunching between the contacts. Wouldn’t work. No way. Band on his head, the sand growing less viscous, and then feeling a connection with the drift, with the sand pressing in all around him.

No visor. No way to see. No way to breathe. But he could move. Not much time. Conner went to where he thought his brother would be and felt a body. He grabbed Rob, didn’t feel anyone grabbing back at him, didn’t feel life there, but he had no time to consider this. No time to think about the miracle of the boots or the nearby diver, only of getting to the bed. He pulled Rob along like some scavenged find. Another body. Someone on the bed. He felt someone on the bed moving.

Conner groped. His mom. Alive. Something in her lap. He didn’t wait, didn’t think, didn’t have a heartbeat of air left in him. He pushed up. Up. Made the sand hard over his head to protect him. Was back in that box Ryder had made, that coffin cube, breaking through, up through the ceiling and into the third floor. Dark. Loose sand. Light. Dim, but there. And then air. Stuffy attic air. A glorious pocket. And Conner, exhausted and choking on grit, passed out.

46 • A Buried People

He couldn’t have been out for long. He woke on top of a shifting pile of sand. His mother was beside him, her lips pressed to Rob’s, his young cheeks puffing out as she blew into his mouth, sand spilling from her hair and coating both their faces.

The sand beneath them was sinking. Swirling and draining out somewhere. A creak and the snap of timbers overhead. A thrumming violence all around. The whole world was moving. The Honey Hole was moving. Slashes and stabs of light lanced through fresh cracks in the wall. Barrels and crates were piled up, having been shoved aside when Conner pushed his family up through the ceiling. They were in the third-floor storerooms. But they were sinking back down, riding the plummeting level of the sand, fighting for purchase and stability, their mother cursing and losing her grip on Rob.

Conner remembered the boots. He hardened the sand beneath them all, made a platform. His mom breathed into Rob’s mouth again. The girl was there. Violet. Eyes open, alive, looking at Conner, taking deep breaths. Father had taught her well. But Rob. Poor Rob, with an affinity for all things diving but never a chance to swim beneath the sand. His first time. Don’t let it be his last. Don’t let it be his last.