Read Along: Weeping Water

'DeMalo. The Pathfinder. Master of New Eden. I'm dreamin. This cain't be true.'

Saba finds herself with the one person she never dreamed she would and her eyes are opened to a new world of possibilities and experiences...

'Down, down, down I fall.'

Saba has flung herself over the cliff hard and the crash at the bottom is even harder. Unconsciousness beckons, but something else beckons more urgently...

'It's DeMalo.'

DeMalo, the man she has dreamt often of, has saved her from drowning in the rockpool. He's saved Nero too, although the bird is injured by the fight with the hawk, who is revealed to be DeMalo's own bird, Culan. They walk back to DeMalo's 'retreat' where he is staying alone. As he begins to treat Nero's wounds, Saba contemplates the idea that he 'doesn't seem to be the same man' she knew from Hopetown. He is smiles all round when it's just Saba in his company, it would appear. Then he starts to heal Saba's cuts too, which she allows.

'I do look at DeMalo. An he looks at me.'

Saba describes a 'pull' that she feels towards him in what is undeniably a sexual tension. DeMalo's 'closin' of the tent flaps makes this even more evident. It scares Saba; this sudden spark, and she tries to leave. But DeMalo talks her into staying, and provides her with warm, dry clothes. 

'This has gotta be the strangest thing I could ever imagine to happen.'

Saba expresses an innate sense of feeling free and being in the 'right' place. Saba sees DeMalo's sunrise tattoo as he changes his own clothes. 

'Seth.'

DeMalo is no longer just a stranger to Saba, but now reveals himself to be called Seth. As Saba questions him about why he's helping her, he fails to give any answers, which raises the reader's own curiosity about how he feels about her.

'I'd like to show you something...something wonderful.'

As DeMalo, which Saba is still calling him, begins to take Saba to somewhere unknown, he gives her a dress to wear, that is strangely well-fitting...almost as if he had brought it with him just for her. They wander through New Eden until they reach a 'rusted metal door set into a hill'. Upon arrival, two Tonton appear to take Saba inside. She feels like it's a trick. They address DeMalo as 'master'. The small underground compartment is revealed to be a bunker 'from Wrecker times'; perhaps from the final days before the Wreckers finally all died out after having ruined the earth, or from one of the many wars that had confined people to underground hiding places. 

'We're all in the dark.' 

The Tonton lead Saba into a room where twelve Stewards of the Earth also await. The room descends into darkness before some kind of projector seems to illuminate the room. DeMalo creates a prism of light from this by using a crystal; Saba is in awe. Sounds of birds and a 'stringbox' that we'd probably know as a guitar or violin can be heard. Images of light and grasslands appear on the walls. And soon images from the world before the Dustlands; from the world us modern readers see on wildlife documentaries are filling the room. Saba sees things she never dreamed existed: skyscrapers, airplanes, cars, the ocean. And then only the stars of the universe remain. From this, I would personally interpret this to be video footage found in the bunker by the Tonton who have worked out how to use it, and were just as surprised and awed as the Saba and the Stewards. This may have been what caused DeMalo to want to create New Eden; to bring back what once was.

'Nobody speaks a word.'

The footage has obviously has the desired effect. DeMalo tells them of how he came across the footage; he could hear the music playing from the bunker as he passed. He believes this to be 'Mother Earth' calling him to action. The Stewards are hooked; he is converting them to what he believes is 'destiny'. He claims that Mother Earth himself told him he was the Pathfinder.

'This is the dawn of a new day on earth.'

DeMalo has successfully shared his vision for a new world. Alas, Saba is somewhat dismayed by his selective programme which purges the sick and old. DeMalo reveals what he sees in Saba; he believes that she is working towards the same thing as him because she 'conquered' Hopetown and killed Vicar Pinch. Whilst this isn't the real reason why Saba did these things, she begins to understand how they helped. 

'The thread between us tightens an tightens.'

Saba feels even closer to DeMalo now. He, too, clearly feels the same as he proclaims that he's 'been waitin' for her his 'whole life'. The pathetic fallacy which follows; a burst of sunshine and rain sees their first kiss flourish. They return to DeMalo's tent, where he reads poetry to her - an extract from Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. It appeals to Saba on a grand level. 

                        'Suddenly I move, in a rush, an I'm kissin him.'

Saba is overwhelmed by everything that has happened and full of desires for this new man. And they 'lie down together', which for those of you not in the know, means they have sex. To stop in their tracks any comments about Saba's virtue or DeMalo's control, let me highlight the line 'I lead him to the bed'; this is Saba's choice and her own actions. Full consent!

                                     'I'm in DeMalo's arms. In his bed.'

To back up my most previously made statement, although Saba expresses shock at what happened, she clarifies that she 'wanted to do it'. But there is little time to swell on past pleasures because Saba has a family to return to. DeMalo is equally mesmerised by what has happened, perhaps even more so, as he claims they're 'going to be beautiful together...in [their] perfectly beautiful, perfect new world'. But he takes it further than Saba even thought of; DeMalo talks of having a baby. It causes her 'panic to rise higher'. And suddenly she feels different, the complete subversion of her life is confusing her. DeMalo begrudgingly lets her go, but only because he believes she'll come back to him. 

'I'm trapped by my thoughts.'

As Saba begins her return journey to her family and friends, she feels shame for what she did, as well as panic which causes her to fall and trip on the precipitous pathways. She plays over in her mind DeMalo's statement that he's a 'fever in [her] blood' which echoes almost exactly Jack's that she's 'in [his] blood'. Confusion continues to rise...