Around lunchtime two officers stepped inside the Elf Bosket to take the sack away. It was the same men that had ordered the veterinarian to amputate Volt’s leg. They stank of spirits and wobbled sideways as they walked. The blond had a black eye and blood dripped from fresh wounds on the brown-haired man’s knuckles. That morning they came drunk to work after a wild night outside the town walls. The vice first officer, Joseph Wilder’s former apprentice Jon, determined that they were not presentable enough to move amongst visitors. As punishment they received less dignified assignments for the day.

The officers were strong, and the sack was not heavy. They stood still and quarreled for a while about which one of them would carry the body. In the end, the blond grabbed Kaan’s shoulders and the other his feet, oblivious to the fact that the dead elf had lost half a leg.

The two officers stumbled along a small path through a wood out of bounds to the Dream Park’s visitors. They tripped several times and dropped the sack to the ground. Kaan bit his lip to not make a sound, but could not avoid twisting. The officers failed to notice the moving corpse, or were at least too woozy to reflect upon the matter.

A stone’s throw from the Dream Park’s eastern wall lay a compact stone house with a thick chimney. They stepped inside and threw the body bag on a table, then broke into an argument.

“You’re afraid of the fire, so I’ll light the oven,” said the brown-haired while fixing his disheveled ponytail.

“I’m not!” The blond’s response came too fast for his words to be credible. “You get to cut the elf’s hair and see if he's got any good teeth left. My hands ain’t steady enough for such finger work.”

Kaan heard them arguing from within the bag. Soon they were close to hitting each other. A better moment would not appear, so he sliced open the fabric with his dagger and stood up. The officers focused on their quarrel and did not notice as he descended to the floor and sneaked up on them, sliding through the room like a vengeful spirit. When he raised the dagger and prepared to charge, the blond turned around and saw him. The men screamed like two scared children at the climax of a ghost story. Their reaction made Kaan hesitate for a second. The officers seized the opportunity and threw themselves out through the door.

It was easy for him to round the men and block the path in front of them. Their rifles leaned against the wall of the house. They could have grabbed the weapons and defended themselves, but the officers had passed through life using only their fists to figure their way out of tough situations. Their unexercised brains did not help them when they needed it, so they lunged themselves at Kaan. As they hit the ground, the elf was already on top of the brown-haired officer, pressing the dagger against his neck. Beside them lay the other with his throat cut, too shocked to realize that he had but a few seconds left to live.

Kaan got to his feet and hovered over the man. He wanted him to experience humiliation, to crawl the way the officers used to make the elves crawl. He wanted the man to believe he had a chance to survive and, instead of giving up, suffer as he bled to death. The officer stood up and put his full strength behind a definitive blow to the elf’s head. Kaan leaped forward, his motions so much faster than the man’s that they seemed to come from a place where time moved slower. The officer stumbled as his fist made a giant hole in the air. Kaan stuck his dagger into his mouth and the point pierced through whatever was on the inside of the head. A swift death would do. Now was no time for revenge.

He wiped the dagger clean on the dead man’s trousers and ran down the hill along the stone wall. It was difficult to escape at the Dream Park’s outer border. The wall was high and covered by barbed wire, and the trees near the wall were cut to the ground. Kaan realized that he would have to escape through one of the visitor gates, just like Leon had. He changed his path and walked through the forest towards the side exit. When he glimpsed the gate he sat down with his back against an oak tree and waited. For a moment he considered testing his luck and running for the gate straight away, then the old officer who shot Volt stepped out onto the road. He decided it was best to bide his time.

*

Below the hill where the white villa with Arthur Greene’s office lay, visitors poured out through the gate. Many had traveled from afar to experience the magic and mystery of the famous park and were now heading back home.

Clouds of dust rose from the crowd’s clambering feet. Liv coughed as she zigzagged her way through the horde of people, trying to be as invisible as possible. She did not want the old woman in the ticket booth or the officer on guard to recognize her, but they paid her no attention as she passed. Filled with doubts, she went straight to the Elf Bosket, her desire to speak to Kaan about their dreams stronger than the urge to turn around and leave the park forever. She arrived at the fence and stopped by the sign where she had seen the elf two days ago. There was no one nearby, no elves nor men.

“Kaan!” she called.

Something moved inside the woods and an elf boy stepped out into the evening sunlight. He shook his head and pointed with his entire arm towards the other side of the bosket. Liv understood, or at least she thought she did. She looked around, making sure no one was watching her, then rushed off along the road. Soon she stood at the place where Kaan and his brothers had tried to escape. The gate in front of her was bolted. She hoped that she would make it back to the other exit before it closed and not become locked up in the park with her distant relatives.

Next to the road sat the old officer, the same man under the same tree. He was aiming at the forest. To her dismay she realized what his rifle was pointing at. In a glade stood Kaan. He was motionless, reminding her of their first encounter in the ruin. The elf was trying to summon power from his surroundings, but to Liv it looked like he had become paralyzed at gunpoint. She cursed him for not moving. The officer had not expected another escape and Kaan’s sudden appearance shocked him. He needed a long time to calm his nerves and get his shaking hand under control. The old man thanked his good luck that the stupid creature did not run for cover. He exhaled and was just about to squeeze the trigger when something hard hit his temple. Excruciating pain knocked out his senses, and the world blackened in front of his eyes.

There was a cracking sound when Liv hit the officer with the stone. He collapsed like a puppet doll cut loose from its master’s strings. The rifle fired a bullet as it landed on the ground. It passed through the officer’s chest, missed Liv by an inch and struck into the tree beside them in a fountain of splinters. The old man jerked and spasmed, crimson blood seeping out from his chest. He drooled and his eyes widened with recognition as he saw her. Then he coughed and choked, and his eyes went blank.

For a moment the world stopped and Liv’s thoughts scattered, then she realized that the man was dying and that it was her fault. To some extent she wished that the bullet had hit her instead. Another part of her, the part filled with intoxicating anger, could not bear the man’s empty gaze. She put her foot to his face and pushed it away from her.

Kaan appeared beside her. He bent over, lifted the officer and threw the body into the ditch. His face showed no trace of regret, nor of any other emotion. He raised his hand and stroked her hair.

“Come,” she said and dragged him towards the exit.

With joint forces they unhooked the crossbar and let the gate slide open. A coach rolled up to them. The coachman had tested his luck after most visitors had left the park and driven up to the far entrance to pick up any potential laggards. He was eager to take on passengers and gave no thought to why they were in such a hurry, nor why one of them was barefoot and wore peculiar clothes.

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“I met you in my dreams,” Kaan said once they were inside the coach rolling down the hill. His voice lacked the enchanting vibe it carried in her dreams and was instead a little too high-pitched and quavering for her liking. It made him sound confused about everything.

“It makes me happy to see you here too,” he said.

Liv gave no answer. The old officer occupied her thoughts. She wondered what would happen if he survived. And what about the coachman? When the news spread that another elf had escaped, it would not take long before he figured out who his strange passengers were. Her father could protect her if he wanted to, but the lawman within Gabriel Shannon would never break the law, not even to keep his own daughter out of prison. It did not matter though. She did not wish for his help. She reckoned her two options were to either flee or hide.

Kaan sat opposite her, twisting in his bloodstained clothes. She realized they could not stay in Sommerfort. Their best option was to flee Anland. Long had she fantasized about leaving her home to explore the world. Now when the time came it happened with violence as a means of transport and in the company of a pursued elf who had never set foot outside his cage. It was far from what she wished for. Liv’s stomach contracted and wrapped itself into a thick knot.

“Do you have a knife?” she asked after a minute’s silence. The elf conjured the dagger and handed it over to her. She did not ask where the red spots on the blade came from, nor did she want to know.

“Turn around.”

“Nah, don’t do it,” said the elf and pushed her away. It did not befit an elf to have a short haircut.

“Don’t protest,” said Liv. She set her mind to it and began cutting off chunks of hair without giving him the chance to argue. The coach bumped up and down as it passed through Sommerfort and the blade had become dull. When she finished, Kaan’s hair was shaggy and uneven, not long and handsome as it used to be. She opened the shutter and threw the tufts of hair onto the street. Kaan stuck out his head to glimpse the buildings outside, but she pulled him back and slammed the shutter close. For the rest of the journey, he sat gaping through the slits.

“Amazing,” he said. “I wish Volt could see this.”

*

The coach stopped at Shannon’s house. Liv paid the coachman more money than he deserved and thanked him for his service. She opened the gate to the garden and led Kaan across the lawn to her tree.

“Is this where you live?” he asked, amazed. “Your father must be rich.”

“He’s Sommerfort’s first lawman and his parents owned a large estate in southern Anland. We lived in a bigger house when I was a child, but we prefer a place where we can manage ourselves without servants.”

She told Kaan to hide in the shadows underneath the tree so that no passerbys could spot him from the road, then ran inside to fetch supplies. Soon two coffee-colored leather carpet bags stood on her bed, packed with clothes, bread, dried fruit, water bags and other things she reckoned could come to use. At the bottom in the lighter bag, the one she would carry, lay a small gun. Shannon had kept it in his bedside table for years without ever using it.

The lust for fresh adventure had filled her while packing, and she had felt nothing but ironclad determination. Now doubt and anxiety swept over her as a quick-acting poison. She thought of how idiotic her actions were, how everything would end in tragedy and that Kaan would never stay alive outside the Dream Park. A captive elf could not blend into the human world. When she closed her eyes to calm herself, she only saw the old officer’s dying face. She heard the echo of the gunshot and the crack of bones as the stone struck against his head. They must leave Sommerfort, but she had no plan on where to go. Filled with despair, she threw herself on the bed and pressed her face into the pillow. She kicked her legs and hit the mattress with her fists like a defiant child, and became even angrier at herself for doing so.

Once her feelings had poured out of her she crawled off the bed. Sweat ran down her forehead, but she kept herself under control. She pulled out the top box from her chest of drawers and began putting back the clothes from her bag. Once finished, she took the other bag, the one she had prepared for Kaan, to her father’s bedchamber and returned the clothes she had taken from his wardrobe.

The clockwork above the staircase told her that Shannon should be home any moment. He would notice if anything changed in his room, so she did her best to remember where his things lay. It was impossible for her to understand why anyone cared that much about a closet’s organization.

By accident she toppled over a pile of folded clothes. A golden ring fell to the floor. She lifted it up and held it in front of her eyes for inspection. Lilian had received an identical ring when she married. It came from a set of precious jewelry that had been in their family’s possession for many generations. On its inside were tiny cursive characters and she squinted to read what the engraving said. ‘To Dara.’ Her mother’s name. Shannon married her mother according to his family’s traditions even though she was an elf. What she had just experienced was the doubt that affects anyone before they abandon an acceptable life in search of a better one. She put the ring back in the wardrobe, closed the leather carpet bag and returned to her bedchamber to repack her clothes.

News spread faster than fire in Sommerfort and it was only a matter of time before someone came searching for them. By then they needed to be far away. Liv ran out of the house and woke up Kaan who had fallen asleep with his back against the tree. She handed him a mud colored trench coat and two black leather gloves. On his head she put a checkered wool cap. Her father only wore it on the rare occasions when the mayor forced him and the rest of the Town Council to go hunting.

“They’re the finest clothes I’ve ever worn,” he said, astonished, before Liv forced him to stick his feet into a pair of tight boots. The elf grimaced as if she had filled the shoes with sharp needles.

She thought he looked like a tramp, which was also her intention, but Kaan liked his new outfit. In the Dream Park, the elves were given clothes that resembled the costumes of a street theater, but now he wore something practical. She wrapped the green shawl from the Memorial Store around her head. It somehow felt right to wear it when she helped a Being from the Dream Park escape. Kaan carried the bags and followed her down onto the road. There she stopped.

“Stay here,” she said and ran back into the house.

Two minutes later she returned with her lute swung behind her back. Her eyes shone like green crystals in the afternoon sun.

*

They heard the freight train’s puffing engine and squeaking wheels long before it came into view. Every afternoon, the train traveled around Sommerfort to pick up goods such as glass and porcelain from the town’s factories. It was now on its way to transport the cargo to Southport where it would be replenished with fruits and spices from the warm countries across the sea.

At a small junction where the rail leading to sea branched off and the main railway continued northwest towards Frostport, the train slowed down enough for Liv and Kaan to run next to it. There were no people nearby except the driver, and he was used to seeing tramps along the rails. It did not bother him they climbed aboard the rear wagon, as long as they did not threaten him or tried to steal his goods. It was not long before the train accelerated and soon they swooshed through the landscape.

“Will the train stay on the track?” stammered Kaan. He sat on the wagon’s edge and watched the ground flushing past below his feet. “How do we know it stops when the driver wants it to?”

“Anland’s trains always work. More reliable than any coach,” said Liv.

“How do you know that? “

“I just do. I’ve traveled by train many times.”

Despite her reply, the discomfort did not leave Kaan. He bit his teeth until he reconciled himself with the sensation of rushing forward on a lifeless machine.

The fields grew larger and the space between neighboring houses widened. They rode into a steep ravine and disappeared into a dark tunnel. On the other side the valley was wider and the silhouette of a church tower rose against the distant sky. The hours flew by and soon the sun sank below the burning horizon. Liv and Kaan sometimes exchanged a few words, but otherwise remained silent for most of the journey. They let their legs swing a feet above the ground and felt free like never before. As the night’s darkness settled around them, she leaned against his chest and fell asleep. The elf was about to transcend into the world of his dreams when he spotted two gleaming moons in the distance. One climbed upwards, the other one looked blurred and had a white path leading up to it. The moonlight glittered in his eyes as he closed them and continued to shine in his dreams. It was the first time he saw the ocean.