Marcus held his arm over Mel’s shoulders and led her to a small table with two chairs by the ferry landing. They sat down where Leigh had told them they could wait until midday. Leigh was always close, running in and out of his house, blowing hot air into his hands to warm them up and basking in the early morning sunlight coming in over the lake.

Mel handed Marcus a piece of bread from her backpack and lowered her voice so that Leigh wouldn’t overhear them.

“Do you think he knows?” Mel asked.

Marcus looked back at Leigh. He was putting more oil into his lantern and was trying to keep busy with not much to do around the ferry landing.

“No,” Marcus said. “I think he knows we're not who we say we are. But I don’t think he knows who you are or the importance you have to the dragon cult.”

Mel fiddled with her own piece of bread in her hands, feeling her motions stiffen. The cold had taken over her body by now and she was nothing more than a frozen block of ice. She hoped the sun would rise faster, so that the warmth could spread into her body and midday would arrive sooner.

“If this doesn’t work,” Mel said. “Do we have any other options?”

Marcus shook his head, and a bitter smile stretched across his face.

“Maybe we could take a boat across?” Mel asked. “Or walk around? Maybe even swim over?”

“I know of no boats crossing the lake,” Marcus said. “We can’t walk around it. It’s more of a river than a lake anyway and it stretches from the most north point of the valley all the way to the sea. And swimming across would only be for a desperate fool.”

“Well,” Mel said. “What if I’m a desperate fool today?”

“Then I would advise you to not swim across anyway,” Marcus said. “The water is treacherous, underneath sharp rocks are hidden and there is a strong current pulling toward the sea. It’s one thing I think your uncle Joe wasn’t lying about. This lake should be crossed nowhere else than by Leigh’s ferry.”

“Yeah, but what if he was lying?” Mel asked. “Or exaggerating?”

“Sure,” Marcus said. “That’s possible, but what do we know about the world outside of Windbrook? We’ve only ever heard stories from the few merchants who pass by once a year or from Joe. We don’t really know about the dangers awaiting us out there. What if the current took you and sent you out to sea?”

Mel nodded, feeling quiet after his speech.

She knew nothing about the world outside of Windbrook. Marcus was right, it could be very dangerous. The real question was, if this didn’t work out, what was better? Being dragged back to Windbrook or taking her chances swimming across Dragon Lake?

#

Midday had arrived and Mel finally felt her limbs getting warm in the sun. Marcus paced back and forth from the ferryman's house to the place where Mel sat. He seemed anxious and if Mel hadn’t been so tired from freezing all morning and not sleeping last night, she might have joined him.

“Oh, here they are,” Leigh said.

Marcus and Mel looked up at the road leading to the ferry landing, seeing four people and a donkey walking toward them. Mel and Marcus shared a look of relief and started packing up their stuff.

“Welcome,” Leigh said to the newcomers. “How was Bardeen?”

Both Marcus and Mel froze in their motions. This wasn't good.

The merchants had been in Bardeen and it would seem awfully strange that Marcus and Mel hadn’t waited to travel with them instead of alone at night.

“Could have been better,” the man holding the reins to the donkey said. “Those farmers don’t know the value of cloth anymore. They think a pack of grains and some apples can be traded for fine cotton. We had to stoop low to accept their barters.”

“I tried telling them we only take coin,” a younger man next to him said. “But they just looked at us like we were crazy.”

The man with the donkey lifted his nose to the sky and pushed air out of his lungs in a puff.

“We won’t be coming here again,” he said. “Not worth the trip or the coin it costs to cross the lake. Let’s be off from this dirty hole and get back to the east side of the valley where the trades are better.”

Leigh shook his head and had a disappointed look on his face. He took the reins from the man and led the donkey across the bridge and onto the ferry. Then he walked back to the merchants, standing close to Mel and Marcus.

“Why don’t you try taking your wares to Windbrook?” Leigh asked.

“Windbrook?” the merchant said. “No, only a fool would go there. That nasty cult is there, claiming to hear the dragons. Crazy-talk if you ask me. I wouldn’t go there for all the money in the world. I’ll not let one of those red robed priests lock me up because they think they heard the dragons command them in their minds.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He made a circling gesture around his head to signal the sort of crazy folk that came from Windbrook.

“That’s not true,” Marcus said. “Don’t say things like that. People from Windbrook aren’t crazy and the cult wouldn’t lock anyone up.”

Mel grabbed his arm, giving him a warning look. This wasn’t a fight worth getting into. They would find out Marcus and Mel were from Windbrook if he kept speaking.

The merchants turned to regard Marcus and Mel.

“Who are these young people?” the merchant asked.

“Newlyweds from Bardeen,” Leigh said.

“No,” the merchant said. “They can’t be. We didn’t see them there, and I swear there were only twenty people living in that dirty hole they call a town.”

Mel swallowed a lump in her throat, feeling her heart speed up. She didn’t know what to do. Was she going to jump into the lake and try to swim across now?

Footsteps in the distance broke the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the party. Everyone turned to the west, and Mel squinted toward the road leading to Windbrook. Two guards were running toward them and, to Mel’s horror, they wore uniforms in red.

Mel took a step back and grabbed Marcus’s arm to steady herself. She looked up at him and he had a worried expression on his face. Mel took Marcus’s hand and turned. They ran across the bridge onto the ferry with the donkey standing quietly tied to a pole in the middle.

“Stop,” they heard the guards yell. “Stop them.”

There was a rope connecting the two ferry landings to the east and west, a rope that the ferry itself was connected to. Mel saw a small wheel with a handle on, attached to the pole the donkey was tied to. She grabbed the handle and started spinning the wheel around, making the ferry move out onto the lake.

Marcus stepped up next to her and took the wheel from her hands. He put his muscles into it and wheeled them further out onto the water.

“That’s my donkey,” the merchant yelled from the western ferry landing.

Mel felt a breeze in her hair and a smile stretched over her face as they sailed across the lake. She could see the next landing on the other side and she felt so close to freedom now that she could almost touch it. Mel stretched out her hand toward the horizon, seeing the mountains far away in the distance. She felt like she was flying across the valley and soon she would be in Aldrion, where all her dreams would come true.

Then the ferry shook and Mel fell to her knees. The donkey whined, and Marcus’s arm jerked back from the wheel. The ferry moved backwards and Mel saw the mountains getting smaller in the distance again. She felt her dreams being ripped out of her and she felt an ache in her heart.

“What’s happening?” Mel asked.

“They’re pulling us back,” Marcus said with a deflated tone in his voice.

“No, that can’t be,” Mel said. “We’re so close.”

She threw off her scarf on the deck and stepped up to the edge of the ferry. Mel took a deep breath, filling her lungs with as much air as she could. Her muscles tensed and she took a leap out toward the mountains.

But before her body fell to the water, she felt herself being pulled back by Marcus. They crash landed together against the wooden deck, lying side by side on the ferry.

“Don’t do it,” Marcus said, through shallow breaths. “Don’t jump into the lake. It’s not worth dying for, Mel.”

Mel sat up, looking toward the mountains as the ferry was dragged back to the western landing. She knew she had failed. She had to say goodbye to her dreams of seeing Aldrion, of becoming a mage smith.

#

Melissa sat in the kitchen, feeling tired and broken. She hadn’t slept, and she’d barely eaten, but it was her dead dreams that really killed her. She looked at the oven where her mother was baking a loaf of bread. It smelled like heaven, and Mel’s stomach growled.

She could see the bread rising slowly through the half-open hatch and a pleasant warmth spread inside her body. She felt like she wanted to lie down here on the table in the kitchen and sleep for the entire day.

“Thank you, Mr. Wickett,” Mel’s mother said from the hallway. “I will make sure she doesn’t run away again, and that she knows how disrespectful this was to your guards and the town.”

The door closed, and Mel sucked in a deep breath. She knew this wasn’t the time to relax or sleep, this was the time for punishment. She had known there would be consequences to being caught, but she’d chosen to go through with the plan, anyway. Marcus and Minnie would have to take the consequences of her actions as well, and that was somehow worse than whatever her mother would do to her.

“I can’t believe you,” her mother said, disdain dripping from her voice.

Mel focused on the surface of the table in front of her, not wanting to meet her mother’s gaze.

“This is the most important time for our family,” her mother continued. “How could you do this to us?”

“I don’t know,” Mel said, still staring down at the table. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” her mother said. “You are not sorry at all. This is so like you, Melissa. Always getting into trouble and never caring about the consequences it will have for the rest of us. You know I have been sewing for weeks. The emblems with our names on for our new appointed seats in the chapel. There is one for you too, and now you want to throw that all away for what?”

Mel looked up at her mother, catching her gaze.

“I’m sorry,” Mel said. “But I don’t care about getting better seats in the chapel or being popular. I want to choose my own destiny.”

Her mother slammed down her hand on the table, causing Mel to jump.

“We don’t get to choose our destiny,” her mother said. “The dragons choose whether you like it or not. And it’s not just better seats or being popular, it's more money. More opportunities for you and Andrew. Moving up in the cult could mean great things for us.”

Mel stared down at the table again and said nothing. There was no point in arguing with her mother. She was right, and that was how it always was. If she wanted popularity, Mel needed to bend over backwards to get it for her.

“I will watch you,” her mother said, her tone coming down a few octaves. “We will have two guards patrolling the house tonight. I will personally sit in your bedroom and stare at you while you sleep all night. You will not pull something like this again and tomorrow you will be at the ceremony. You will receive the blessing from the dragons and listen to your destiny as it is revealed for you by High Priest Alcon. Is that understood?”

Mel nodded.

“Is that understood?” her mother raised her voice and leaned in over the table.

“Yes, mom,” Mel said.