Chapter Three

What begins as an escape becomes a return—
 not to where they started,
 but to something truer.
With popsicles in hand and sand between their toes,
 they run toward cliffs that rise like castles.
 They shout into the wind and hear it shout back.
They are wild now.

Not in rebellion, but in rhythm—
with each other, with the earth, with themselves.
They climb, wander, disappear, reappear.
They don’t ask for directions.
They trust their own.

The sky is wide.
 The sea is loud.
 And inside them,
 a quiet knowing:
They’ve arrived.