Being in the desert reminded Iris of the beach. Somehow through it's desolate haze of mirages stampeding at the horizon like a ghost herd — under an unblemished sky so blue it may as well have transubstantiated into an ocean and dropped solidly to the earth — it conjured the ringmaster antics of her mother and the sea. An improbably connection, like the desert stretched out before her; like the distance between one star and the next in the desert night containing in that vast emptiness the thrumming answers to her mother's long absence. Here in the desert, barren and desolate, cracked and striated, a fossilized remnant of a lake some faded age ago, was the memory of the sea. And somewhere in there was her mother – the ringmaster of the water.
Iris stood in the harsh sun and accepted its rays. She remembers one day along the coast – too young to remember which (California? Hawaii?) – when her mother collected cat's eyes shells along the gentle break. One by one, she plucked them out of the water and placed them into Iris's palm. The white shells, like fish eyes, flat on one side and convexed on the other, sat lifelessly along the lifelines in her palm. Her mother held out the small plastic tray that had once housed a bacon and lettuce sandwich, and placed the shells on their flat bottoms in a circle. "Now," she said. "I brought this especially for this. It's plain old vinegar, but here it performs wonders." She pulled out her flask — a flask that Iris had seen her drinking out of before, at gatherings, at lunches, in buses and bus stops, in trains and train stations — and unscrewed the cap. Slowly she poured the vinegar into the tray, forming a clear, shallow and pungent pond. "Now watch," she whispered. They set the tray down between them and both let their knees sink into the cool wet sand and watched. The cat's eyes began moving, one by one. Slowly, they broke from formation, formed lines and began chasing and eluding each other. "How are they doing that?" asked Iris. "Magic," said her mother. But even then, Iris knew it was simpler than that — that it had more to do with the vinegar.
And now at 25, she stood on the cracked, parched, landscape schooled to know now that those cat's eyes moved as a result of the vinegar's acetic acid reacting with the shell's calcium carbonate. There was no magic. And here, in Death Valley, in the dried and flat lake of Racetrack Playa, she was going to prove just that. They were called sailing stones – mysterious rocks that traversed the flatland, dragging their bodies along the valley floor, crisscrossing, changing directions, leaving long, linear tracks and baffling most scientists. How did these stones move? Even the smallest stone weighed 20 pounds, too heavy for even a gale force wind to effectively put its shoulder against. When did they move? No one has ever witnessed their pilgrimage. Some said it was an ongoing hoax, others claimed that there were strange magnetic fields, and there were even fringe theorists who believed their movements were the results of other worldly beings.
As a child, Iris had read about a grouping of stones that would steal the soul of anyone who had stepped on their shadows. She had read about flying saucers, and bigfoot. She had seen the portrait of the Lochness Monster and read about the Bermuda Triangle. For other children, these tales tickled their imaginations. The world was still new, and these mysteries held promise of magic and wonder, of greater worlds beyond their own. Not so for her, and as she grew older she smirked at the revelatory truths behind them as technology and science unveiled their mysteries. For her, there was always a simple answer. That is why she excelled in the sciences. That is how she had found herself here, reluctantly investigating an area of Death Valley where "sentient" stones moved on their own with 10 other interns from NASA's Lunar and Planetary Science Academy.
Drew walked behind her and offered her a bottled water. "It's really beautiful out here, isn't it?" he said, resting his hand along her lower back. Iris moved away and took his bottled water. Drew rested his hands on his hips and his shoulders protruded from his plain white t-shirt like the handlebars of a bicycle. He was built like a track bike, all angles, always cutting through the wind. "It's humbling, when you think about it."
"What's humbling?" Iris asked.
"So many things we don't know. All the mysteries of the natural world."
"There are no mysteries in the natural world. This isn't a mystery, we're here to confirm a simple hypothesis," she said, taking excessive gulps of his water and letting it cascade along her cheeks and down the collar of her shirt.
"We don't know for sure. It could be a lot of things," said Drew, and squinted into the sun. Iris wondered about the purpose of such an affectation; to raise one's face to the sun and squint. He had been squinting into the sun since morning.
"There are no mysteries in geology. A liquid hydrocarbon lake on Saturn's moon is like any other. You should have burned your pseudoscience magazines when you were 12," she said and handed him the water bottle. "The only mystery here is in human nature. As in, why do you constantly look into the sun only to have to squint? If you don't look at the sun, you won't have to squint. Why?"
"Because it's the sun," he smiled.
"And I suppose you find romance in this," said Iris.
"One of us has to," he said, flipping his half-empty water bottle like a juggler flipping a bowling pin. He let it drop to the hard sand, and it bounced and rolled toward Iris's feet. "Keep the water," he said and walked off to join the others in taking GPS measurements of the area.
Iris pick up the bottle and put it in her back pack. She approached a stone and studied its shape. She jotted down her measurements in an old leather notebook, and measured the length of its traveled path. It weighed 32 pounds and had traveled roughly 600 feet. Its track had a depth of 2cm. The ground surrounding it resembled the scaly back of a lizard.
"Hygrochrons show moisture. Logged some humidity," shouted Salvie from the east. "Looks like we're right on."
"Same here," called out Drew.
"Disappointed?" shouted Iris, her hand cupped over her mouth.
"Why would I be?"
"Such a simple answer to such a grand mystery!" she called out.
"I'm getting tired of your... snarkiness," said Drew.
"Then leave," she said.
"Fine. This stone, has sailed."
"Good one," she said.
Salvie loped up, shifting his Yankee's cap and flipping a hygrometer like a coin. "The two of you put apart show promise. Together, you two are loons," he said. "Go gather the readings from the west end. Looks like we got water after all. "
Iris picked up her pack and began walking.
* * *
On the day her mother took her to the shore and showed her for the first time the marvel of alchemy in a flask of vinegar and a cat's eye, she told her she was leaving. They ate dinner quietly at the end of a long wooden pier, the flask no longer filled with vinegar, but with the glint of a sunset administered something else that mellowed her eyes. The ocean, hushed and lapping against the pillars beneath them, holding them up to a darkening sky, sloshed back and forth rhythmically.
"Iris, baby. I have news. Mommy's going to have to leave."
"Can't I come with?"
"No sweetie. You'll be staying with your Aunt Cora."
"For how long? When?"
"Eventually. Until you grow up, then you can do as you please."
"Why? Where are you going?"
"Nowhere far."
"Why?"
She paused and took a swallow. Behind them, a fisherman pulled up a small cage-load of crabs.
"I'm sick, sweetie," she said and smiled.
"Why don't you go to the doctor, then?"
"I've tried. Okay?"
"No! Not okay! Why can't I come with you?"
"You'll be with your Aunt Cora."
"When are you going to come home?"
"I won't be."
"No," Iris began to sob. Her mother held her. A small fish jumped out of the water, then disappeared.
"I know this is hard," her mother whispered. She held her hand against Iris's cheek.
"No!" Iris screamed. She stood up and began kicking her mother's back.
"I'm sorry, Iris."
"No! No! Mom! Why are you doing this?"
"I'm sick, sweetie," she said.
* * *
The sun began to set against the desert and the air began to cool. Along the rim of the Racetrack Playa, the sky had taken on a bruised quality. Iris had collected all of the hygrochrons and put them in her pack. She took out her sweater and put it on. Next to her, she fancied a rock was sneaking off in microscopic increments.
People always did that – snuck off in invisible, unmeasurable increments, unnoticed until they were too far gone.
The wind picked up and blew her hood over her head. She sat the with her arms crossed and closed her eyes. She imagined the rock moving while her eyes were closed, and when she reopened the rock was gone. She looked around and couldn't find it.
Drew walked up, a dark silhouette with a white shirt and a fishing cap. "Iris, we're leaving. Get your stuff."
Iris removed the hood. "I'm sleeping here for the night."
Drew crossed his arms and began to shiver. "What are you crazy? You'll freeze. How the hell are you going to get back? Don't be silly, let's go."
"Just leave me alone, Drew."
Drew sat down and took off his pack. "So what is it now?"
"I just want to stay."
"That's an impossibility. But if you want to camp, we can come back some other time, better prepared and make a night of it."
"Just leave me alone. That's what I want."
"Just leave you alone, huh? In the middle of the desert. Overnight. Like that."
"Yep."
"I don't get you, Iris. I don't get you at all. One minute we're close and the next..."
"Yeah. I'm a cold, heartless bitch."
"What's eating you? Did i do something? I don't get this!"
"That's right! You never will!"
"Excuse me?"
"Look. We're not good together! With you, it's like your head is always in the clouds! Romanticizing the desert! Squinting at the sun! I'm over it! I just need to be alone. Away from you, okay? Got it?" Iris drew her knees in and pulled the waist of the sweater over her shins.
"Fine. I'm a simpleton. I know nothing of the world. I'm in a fairy tale land where everything is nice and easy. That's what you think of me?"
"Yup."
"Well, see you later, then! Freeze to death in the desert alone! You'll always be alone! You know that? You're like one of these moving rocks." Drew stepped back with his arms open and kicked a rock from it's trail. "Like that one! There's evidence of movement. There's a trail that it's made for miles. But no one has actually seen it move. You're like these rocks, Iris! There's always a hint of something special. There's the possibility of something wonderful happening. People like to think about it, and they send their minds into flights of fancy over it. And I'm not speaking from a scientist's point of view, but from someplace different. You lack that propensity. For you, it just boils down to water, mud, ice and the wind helping the rock along. The entire world is just an existential cluster fuck rattling us one way and another with no magic or mystery to it. That rock is nothing. Cold and lifeless and indifferent to everything around it. That's you." Drew snapped his fingers, threw his pack over his shoulder and walked off.
"Spoken like a true gentleman of science," said Iris, pulling her sleeves out over her hands. "A sailing stone gathers no moss!"
Drew called back. "Stay here tonight, if you're still alive in the morning we'll come get you."
Iris leaned back on her pack. She faced the sky and saw the first of the infant stars announce its arrival. Drew would be just around the corner, sleeping in a one of the vans that he would borrow, waiting for the sun to come strolling up in the morning. He was a puppy with a bell on his collar waiting to hear his name called. But he loved her, and she knew it. Iris took no offense to his words. That was how he felt. He was soft and nurturing, and a dreamer. Perhaps she would come to love that side of him. Or perhaps she would never see him again. People left in invisible increments, the close ones anyway, delaying the moment of truth out of guilt and kindness.
The stones around her began moving. They dragged their bodies against the earth and made soft, breathing noises. In the dim moonlight, she could see a dozen small, dark shadows moving along the desert like giant snails. One stone tipped over, then righted itself and continued moving. Above, the milky way hung like an X-ray negative of the cosmos.
She set her pack onto the hard sand and laid herself down on her back. All around her were the soft exhalations and sifting of the stones. A smaller stone touched her ankle lightly. She picked it up and examined it. When she set it down it remained still for a moment, then it began moving again.
The desert reminded her of her mother; of the ocean; of a vast and desolate absence, of the cat's eyes moving in the plastic tray. She took a breath and waited for the desert stones to converge on her. She waited for a million seashells to spill out of her body. She waited for the desert to fill with water. She waited for her mother to surface.
A shooting star sliced the sky open. With one eye open, she asked to make a wish.
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