“All I can think about is those dumplings your mom made,” I say to Abigail.

“It’s been three days since you’ve had them.”

“I know, but do you think she’ll make them again for us?”

“She adores you, so I think she’ll make them for you.” I smile. “Maria is coming soon. Are you ready for your lesson?” I nod my head enthusiastically. I’ve been looking forward to today’s lesson, because Maria and I have been talking about what I need to do in order to see the world. Elise has been very supportive too. But Abigail has become a bit withdrawn. I think that there are things happening that she can’t tell me about.

I have a feeling it’s got to do with God’s Haven. “Are you okay?” I ask as I gather my books and head into the family room with Abigail.

“Yeah, of course.” She puts on a fake higher-pitched voice.

“Abigail, I know something’s happening, but you’re not telling me what. Do I have to leave here? Am I getting in your way?”

“No! I love having you here.” Her shoulders slump.

“But?” I try and push her to tell me what’s bothering her.

“Nothing, I’ve just got a lot on my mind.” She smiles, but the happiness doesn’t reach her eyes. She’s not ready to tell me what she needs to just yet, and I need to respect that. Because if anything, Abigail has shown me patience, compassion, and respect.

“Will you tell me if it’s got something to do with me?”

“Absolutely. I’ve been thinking, when you’ve finished your lesson, we can go to the beach.”

“The beach?” I shriek almost in too high a tone. “With water and sand?”

“It’ll take about an hour and a half to get there, and it’s cool today so you can’t go swimming. Actually,” she pauses and tilts her head. “You wouldn’t know how to swim, would you?”

“In God’s Haven, we had bath tubs we’d have to share when we were young, then we had showers. We weren’t allowed in the tubs after we reached a certain age. I don’t know the age, because they never told us how old we were.”

“That’s got to be hard, not knowing how old you are.”

“The hardest part for me was when I tried to learn and they’d beat me.”

We’re interrupted by a knocking at the door. Instantly my mood changes. It was heavy for a moment as I recalled painful memories from God’s Haven. But, now I have a whole new future to look forward to. A future where I’m in control, and I can do whatever I want.

Abigail opens the door, and Maria enters. “Hi, Luna, Abigail,” she says with a wide smile. “Ready to learn?” Maria is always happy. She brings a lightness with her whenever she enters the flat. It’s quite infectious. I like it. I like her.

“Am I ever!” I feel like jumping out of my skin. I’m super eager and I can’t wait for whatever today’s lesson is about.

“Luna, I need to go to work, will you be okay here?”

Abigail has left me on my own two times now. This will be my third, and every time is easier than the time before. She was right when she first told me if I didn’t do it then, then I never would. “Are we still going to the beach?”

“I’ll be back in about an hour, so we’ll have plenty of time.”

“Okay, bye,” I call.

Abigail looks shocked. I wonder if I’ve said something wrong? I’ll ask her later, but for now, I can’t wait for my lesson with Maria. “See you in about an hour.” She hesitantly heads out the door.

“We’re going to concentrate on Asian countries today. Specifically, China, because Abigail called me and told me how interested you were when you were at her parents’ house.”

“Do you honestly think it’ll be possible for me to see the world?”

“I think you’re an extraordinary young woman who can do whatever she wants.” This is a variant on the same answer she gives me every time I ask.

“How do you think I can see it? Is there anything that can pay me to see the world? Like Abigail is a police officer? I want to do something that helps me experience everything the world has to offer.”

“You can be a flight attendant, or a pilot, a travel agent, or even an English teacher in a foreign country. The world is your oyster.”

I hold up a finger. “First, what does foreign mean? And second, how can the world be my oyster when an oyster is tiny?”

She smiles. “Foreign means a place different to where you live or what you known. And…”

“Does that mean you’re foreign to me because you didn’t grow up in God’s Haven?”

“Technically yes. Anything you don’t know is foreign, but once you learn about it, it’s not foreign anymore.”

I stand, head into the kitchen and pour myself some water from the faucet. “I like that,” I say to Maria. “Would you like water?” I feel terrible for not offering it to her earlier.

She shakes her head at my offering. “And there’s a saying which is ‘the world is your oyster’ which was actually written by a very famous man named William Shakespeare who was a writer back many hundreds of years ago. He wrote a different version of that saying in a play he wrote called The Merry Wives of Windsor. And it basically means, with hard work, you can achieve anything you want, but you have to work for it. An oyster has a small shell, and it’s hard to open, but once it’s been opened, you can be rewarded with a beautiful pearl inside.”

“Ohh,” I say scratching my head. I really don’t get it. I mull her words over in my head, trying to understand them. “Ohh! I get it. If I work hard at something, I’ll have opportunities.”

“Not without working for them though.”

“I get it.” I nod my head. “Yeah, I really like that saying. I think the world is my oyster.”

“That is exactly right. Which brings us back to your question. You can see the world, Luna. You just need to focus and work hard. It’s not going to happen overnight, but if you persevere, then it will happen.”

“Wait.” I jump up, and run to my room and get my dictionary. As I walk out, I’m already trying to sound out the word persevere. “Purr, purr, purr-sss. Hmmm, is it P-E-R?” I ask Maria trying to figure out how to spell the word.

“Yes, well done.” She looks impressed with me. “I’m not going to help you. I think you can figure it out by yourself.”

I puff my chest out. “I don’t want help. I’m sure I can do it by myself too.”

It takes me a few tries, but I finally get it. I figure it out, all by myself with no help from anyone.

“That was a tricky word too,” Maria says sitting back and smiling at me. “I’m proud of you.”

“I’m proud of me too.”

“I can tell you, you’re the most determined person I’ve ever met. For someone who’s come from a background where education wasn’t permitted, I’m beyond impressed with your drive to learn.”

Smiling, and with my dictionary in hand, I sit and stare at her. “I want to be more than they ever said I could be. I want to prove that I can.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to them, Luna.”

I shake my head and smile. “I’m not proving it to them, because I don’t care what they think. I’m proving it to myself. I owe myself the world, and that’s what I’m going to give myself.”

Maria just stares at me, a huge grin on her face. “You are so much more.”

“More than what?”

“Everything. You are more than everything. I think you’ll do amazing things in your life, and for me it’ll be a privilege to watch.”

“You, Abigail and Elise are going to help,” I say, suddenly worried they’re going to abandon me and leave me to do it myself.

“We’re guiding you, but you’re doing all the hard work.” I like that. I like that a lot. I’m doing it all. “Now, let’s get on with our lesson.”

I’ve read about the beach, but I’m not sure what to expect.”

“Expect to get sand in every part of your body where you don’t want it.” I scrunch my nose, which Abigail sees and laughs. “Sand gets everywhere. Regardless of how hard you try to keep it away, it’ll get into places you don’t want it to.”

“I’ll be really careful.”

Abigail laughs. “You can be as careful as you want. But I’m telling you, it’ll get everywhere.”

“How much longer before we’re there?” I watch the scenery as it changes by the minute. We’ll be driving through areas that have lots of houses, then we’re in open spaces. The open spaces are what I feel most comfortable with, because they remind me of home.

I laugh to myself, not loud enough for Abigail to hear, but enough that the small sound barely makes it to my own ears. Home, where lies were everything and the truth was nothing.

“We’re not far,” Abigail responds, breaking me out of the heaviness of my own mind. I need to shatter the chains they’ve wrapped around me. I need to break free and invest in myself. Because, well, I can.

“I can’t wait.”

“This is fall, which means the days are still warm, but not warm enough to go swimming in the water.”

“I don’t know how to swim, so that’s okay. But I’m going to learn.”

“I’ve brought a towel though, in case we need it.”

“Why would we need it if we’re not going in the water?”

“I just have a feeling we’ll need it. It’s good to have, just in case.” She lowers her window and takes a deep breath in. “Can you smell it?”

“I’m not sure what I should be smelling.”

“Roll your window down, and take a long breath in through your nose.”

The window goes down without me doing anything, and I look sideways at Abigail, noticing she’s pressing a button beside her. Then I turn my head, slightly move it closer to the door, and take that long, deep breath in. “Wow,” I whisper. “Smelly, salty, warm and different.” Closing my eyes, I take a bigger breath in, savoring the different aroma coming into the car.

I feel the car jerk, then Abigail turns it off. “We’re here.”

Opening my eyes, I’m met with something I can barely describe.

“Wow,” I say in a small voice. I can’t get out of the car quick enough to look at the immense beauty in front of me.

Flinging my door open, I get out of the car, and head straight in the direction of the water. Abigail is only steps behind me. I don’t wait for her; I can’t. It’s too beautiful.

“It’s too cool.”

“It’s perfect,” I reply. “Look at that.” I point toward the horizon. “They meet in a way where you don’t know where the water ends, and the sky begins.” As I head closer to the water’s edge, I find myself sinking into the ground beneath my shoes. Stopping, I kneel down and touch the strange surface. “This is sand?” I pick a fistful up, and let it run through my fingers, every last grain disappearing.

“It is. Take your shoes off. Let it get between your toes.”

I slide my shoes off, leaving them where they lay and walk toward the water. The feel beneath my feet is weird. It’s squishy, and I sink into it as I walk. It’s kind of hard to walk on. As I reach the water, I notice the sand is harder, and easier to walk on. “Why is it hard to walk on over there.” I point behind us. “But easier here?” I stamp my feet showing Abigail I mean the wet sand, not the dry sand.

“Because the water moves, see here?” Abigail points to the water as it rushes toward us, then quickly retracts.

“Yeah, I do.”

“As the water moves, it takes the small, loose sand with it, leaving the coarser sand behind. And the coarser sand absorbs more water, making it harder than the sand behind us.”

I stare at Abigail, then look to the water. “That’s magical. No one is telling the water to do it, it just… does. The world is an amazing place.” I kneel again, this time getting wet as the water comes up to us, then rushes back out again. “It’s cold.” I say. But I don’t care. This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.

“We’re only in the middle of fall, and the weather will become colder soon. It’s already started. Feel that chill from the sea?”

“I can feel it. Look.” I hold up my arm, showing the small bumps all over it.

“The closer we are to the water, the cooler the nights are. We’re a bit too far to get the ocean breeze where we are. But if we lived on the beach, like those houses up there, they’d have cooler nights than us.”

I look behind Abigail and see big houses lining the sand. “They’re so large.”

“Yes. To own homes on the beachfront, you have to be rich.”

“Rich?” I question. We begin walking toward the big houses. My feet are right on the edge of the water, and every time it comes up, I feel like it’s going to knock me down. The water is strong, but I manage to keep my balance. The more we walk, the sturdier I become.

“Rich means people having a lot of money. And the more money you have, the more things you can buy.”

“Is that the goal for people? To have a lot of money and buy lots of things?”

“For a lot of people, yes. For some people, no.”

“Is that what you want? A lot of money and a lot of things?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be a cop.” She laughs. “Police don’t get paid a lot of money. Not as much as other jobs. I do what I do because I want to make a difference. I want to be able to help people.”

“You’re helping me. Does that make you feel good?”

“More than you can ever know.”

We walk further along the beach, and I can’t help but look at the sky. “It’s just so beautiful. No wonder people want to live here. Look at those amazing colors over there.” I point out to the water. “Pink, orange, and yellow. All different shades. The world is filled with color. You know, we never had anything as beautiful as this inside God’s Haven. All the females had to wear the same hideous dress, and all the males had to wear the same thing too. I wonder why when there’s so much color.”

“Maybe because it was their way of making sure you knew you never had free will. Or maybe it was their way of ensuring you didn’t feel like an individual, didn’t think for yourself.”

We move up the sand, where it’s harder to walk, and I sit, looking out at the water. “I think about Cain. I miss him. I want to go back and save him.” I hug my knees to my chest, but my eyes are glued to the magnificent hues of the sky.

“We’re working really hard to try and figure out how to make that happen.”

Above us, an airplane soars through the sky. “The first time I saw an airplane, I asked Elder William what it was. He told me it was a plane and it was taking the tortured souls to Hell. The devil would be waiting for them, ready to execute them. Later, the Elders said the airplanes were looking for the righteous, to bring them to us.” I let out a humorless chuckle. “The lies they told us. One lie will trump all truths. I can’t believe anything they ever said. I have to question every word they’ve ever spoken, because I haven’t seen anything like what they described.”

“The world isn’t all colorful sunsets, Luna. There is sickness, death, poverty and even evil, but on the whole, it’s actually unbelievably beautiful. You just have to surround yourself with beauty instead of the alternative.”

I stare out at the sunset, and watch as the colors darken and the sky blackens. Leaning my head on Abigail’s shoulder, I take in a huge breath. The salt in the air is thick. “I’m going to fight hard, Abigail. I’m going to fight real hard, because this is what I want. I need to learn how to live out here, and be the best I can.”

Abigail slings her arm around my shoulder and squeezes. “You inspire me.”

Here I am, a girl who’s always been told I’m too dumb to learn, and now, I’m inspiring someone else.

This is where I’m meant to be.