Joy stays up during the entire time Justin and Charlie are awake. Madelyn appears on the ship after they have vanished, but she chooses to contend with her own dream, and leaves for the dream that was originally hers. Amahle appears on the deck late into the day, being from South Africa, but she is busy dreaming about raising a small baby. And Colin and Yumio have not come yet and we’re not sure they will.
Joy is tired, but she refuses to go to sleep. Suzy and I join her and Master Mind as she takes the ship to the ice mountains of Mars and climbs them, then skids down on the ice, then does it all again and again and again.
She does this for hours. Even when she clearly can’t really walk anymore, she climbs up very very slowly and does it again.
“What is she doing?” Suzy whispers to me as we watch her put one foot in front of the other.
I shake my head. I have no idea.
An hour later, she comes down again. She trods in our direction, hardly able to move. Her eyes are half-closed.
“Joy, what are you doing? Aren’t you frozen?”
Joy falls to her knees and then leans on her two hands. She crawls towards the deck on all four.
“A little more,” she says once she’s on the deck. “A little more.”
“A little more what?” Suzy asks.
“Little Pirate, I find your behavior bizarre,” Master Mind says. “For it makes no emotional sense.”
Joy’s head begins to lower as her eyes close, then she pulls it up and forces her eyes open.
Suddenly, she smiles. “Look,” she says. “I did it. I did it.”
“Did what?” I ask.
“I beat her. I beat her!”
I follow her gaze and see that Joy’s shadow, underneath her, shows that Joy has fallen asleep.
“Oh, my god!” Suzy gasps.
I chuckle. “That is a disconcerting thing to see.” Joy is still awake, and her shadow is asleep.
“Ha ha…” she mumbles. “I beat you! I am separate from you! I am…” her eyes droop shut. “Separate…” her arms bend against her will and her cheek comes to rest on Bonny’s Revenge’s deck. “From…”
And she never finishes the sentence. She is now asleep.
“Wow,” Suzy says. “Wow. She is… That is… I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Me neither. She did all those things, during the last sixteen hours or so, for a strange victory that only lasted a few seconds. Justin has raised a warrior.
—Told by Grampa Walt