The Ruby Dream

The Ruby Dream

Annie Cosby

Chapter One

I stood on the precipice, not knowing that this
humid day would be the one when I finally met the man who held the key to my
past. The key to who I was. Beyond just an orphan in Killybeg. That day,
oblivious to my destiny, I was planning an incredible journey, though it wasn’t
the one fate was planning for me.

Can I really leave behind everything I know?
I wondered miserably.

I’d been plotting an
adventure with my best friend Wyn for as long as I could remember. “The Great
and Mighty Voyage,” he called it. Going across the sea, leaving behind our
boring existence to do, to
be
something grand … it was my greatest dream. So why was it that now, when Wyn
was finally taking it so seriously, making plans, counting money, I felt a
nervousness in my bones that threatened to undo me?

I looked down from
Diamond’s Peak, the ocean, a great unknown, glittering to my right, the waves a
sapphire as deep and clear as the gems mined all over Lorrha. Nestled into the
shadow of the little mountain I stood upon, the town of Killybeg stretched out
before me like a well-worn blanket. Familiar, comfortable – almost
stiflingly so – and yet …

“Ruby!”

My dark curls swirled
across my vision as I spun back toward the bakery, and my breath hitched.
The scones!

My dusty leather boots, my
only pair of shoes, scrabbled over the rocky ground to the squat, white stucco
building, which sat overlooking the ocean and town like a beacon to weary
travelers and townspeople alike. That is, if the town ever
had
any visitors. It didn’t. At least not that I could remember. No
matter how long I watched the waves, no boats ever breached the horizon. A
remote, craggy outcropping in the far western corner of Lorrha didn’t exactly attract
exotic visitors. Not even people from the East cared to visit Killybeg, not
when it was flanked by a haunted wood and about a million miles of bog.

When I arrived in the
bakery, Sarah stood in front of the oven, a tray of blackened lumps in her
hands. “You’ll daydream us both to poverty, dearie.” She wasn’t scolding; she
never scolded me. Instead, she sounded almost wistful.

“I’m so sorry!” I cried,
wringing my hands on the dirty white apron she insisted I wear over my clothes.
As if my tattered dresses could be any more ruined by a bit of flour. “I was
just … I just put them in, and then I was thinking … and … I’m sorry.”

“It’s my own fault, child.
You’ve been working long enough today.” Tiny wisps of tawny hair escaped her
bun as she sighed and hung the tray out the open window, letting the ruined
scones fall to their death. The sea breeze pushed its way into the tiny bakery,
bringing the temperature down to something near bearable. It had been Sarah’s
own husband, God rest his soul, who first had the idea to perch the bakery on
the sea cliff overlooking the town. Killybeg could be stifling hot in the
summers, but that was no excuse to turn off the oven, he said. And so, thanks
to the ever-present breeze, the townspeople had bread to eat no matter the
temperature.

“Just let me make a new
batch,” I suggested, guilty, moving toward the wooden counter that ringed the
tiny room. It was the second time that week I’d ruined the scones, and I hated
disappointing Sarah. Not to mention Maisie, who had been the first to take in
the little impoverished orphan from elsewhere. Parents dead by the savagery of
the sea, I’d been the most pitiful thing in the world, or so Maisie said.
That’s how I’d ended up in her tiny azure cottage, Sarah and Wyn next door. The
two older women, together, made one formidable pair of mothering hens. And here
I’d disappointed them both.
Again
.

“No, no, child.” Sarah
stepped in front of me and shooed me toward the door. “You’ve been up here
since dawn. Go find Wyn. He’s in the fields, I think.”

Guilt, as heavy as a lob of
dough, settled in my stomach, but the nurturing, motherly smile Sarah threw my
way pushed me over the threshold of the little building. Maybe she was right.
There was no point in my burning
another
batch today.

“We’ll make it all up
tomorrow,” she promised. Her smiling eyes were on me, but her hands were
already kneading another batch of dough.

I tore off the apron and
hung it on my little peg by the door. There were two pegs there – one for
Sarah’s apron and one down low, near my waist, for my own. I’d been Sarah’s
helper for as long as I could remember – since I was only tall enough to
reach that low peg. And I realized just then that there would come a time when
I didn’t climb Diamond’s Peak every morning. If – no
when
– I went away with Wyn, I wouldn’t wear this apron
anymore. Then who would help Sarah bake for Killybeg?

Surprised by my own
hesitance at this dream that had been so long in forming, I darted over the
rocks. I needed to see Wyn. He was the only one who would listen to my most
confusing and troubling thoughts without judgment. And his brilliant brown
eyes, warm as a scone fresh out of the oven, were just as comforting as his
words. His mere presence would tear my worries away.

Or so I desperately hoped.

The dusty path wound its way down the cliff
face, and my boots needed no direction. But as I hopped down the steep trail,
eyes on the shimmering surface of the sea, I nearly bowled right into Oren,
Killybeg’s resident boat maker.

“Morning, lass,” he said
with a tip of his threadbare cap. It was a friendly gesture, but his beady eyes
appraised me with amusement and all his gestures felt threatening. He had a
scraggly beard and skin as tanned as leather, along with a notorious temper. It
was common knowledge that his late wife had disappeared under mysterious
circumstances. Of course, it was only the gossipy children of Killybeg that
claimed Oren himself had slain her with his own kitchen knife. Regardless of
its validity, however, the story sent shudders up my spine and I longed to run
back to Sarah and tell her the vile man was coming.

“Going to find Wyn?” he said,
raising a filthy eyebrow. He’d had his eye on Sarah’s ringless finger for years
now. And despite her own discomfort with his attentions, and his flagrantly
drunken bouts, Sarah insisted that we be cordial, because Wyn was the boat
maker’s apprentice. He wouldn’t very well inherit the business one day if we
went around shunning Oren, would he? Or so she liked to say.

He doesn’t
want
to be a boat maker
forever
, I longed to tell her. But spilling about our plans would only
worry Sarah, who was apt to do something brash like lock her only son in the
cottage until she convinced him to stay.

So I merely nodded in
Oren’s general direction, keeping my eyes low. I might have been obliged to be
polite to him when Sarah was around, but that didn’t mean I wanted to have a
conversation with him on my own.

“He wasn’t in today,” the
man went on. “So I thought the two of you might be up to something.”

I could very well have run
back to the bakery, and maybe things would have been different if I had gone
back. If I hadn’t gone to meet Wyn in the fields at all. But the air was cool
on my heated face, and the jagged Lorrha countryside stretched before me,
unending. My feet just wouldn’t turn back.

Without a word, I moved
forward, and with a grunt, Oren continued on his way, too.

As soon as I turned the
corner to the old diamond mine, I was out of his vision and the glory of the
day filled me up again, like an empty milk bottle. The afternoon unfolded
before me, a handful of hours for just me and Wyn, my oldest friend, my biggest
confidant. The gaping black hole of the abandoned mine opened to my right, a
testament to past days of furious mining. Lorrha was covered in mines laden
with precious stones – emeralds, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and amethysts.
It had an unnaturally high concentration of gems, which covered the land like a
thick carpet, making it a miner’s heaven. They were worth little to the people
of Lorrha, as common as milk, but were traded to lands beyond the East for
massive sums.

The blackness of the
island’s past disappeared behind me just as an emerald and deep blue
hummingbird appeared in front of me. I didn’t recognize this one, but stuck out
a finger, and he alighted on the perch, grasping round my knuckle as I dashed
on. Hummingbirds had a strange tendency to follow me. I’d never questioned it.
But others did.

“You’re a loon, Ruby Beg,”
I could hear any number of kids in town saying. Only loons were followed by
hummingbirds, lived with a strange old woman, had ghostly dreams, or saw
specters in the Haunted Wood. Unfortunately, all those things described me.

Maybe that’s normal across the sea
, I thought. Maybe there, I
wouldn’t be crazy.

But here in Killybeg, there
was only one kid who didn’t think I was odd. Eager to see him, I took the last
steps down the hill three at a time, and landed in the lush green grass with a
thump
.

And it was then, just as I
regained my balance, that a chill racked my spine. I froze. It took me a moment
of frenzied thought, but I finally recognized it. It was the feeling of being
watched.

Had that awful Oren
followed me? Trying to look casual, I glanced over my shoulder at the hillside.
But Oren wasn’t there. Nobody was there. Even the abandoned mine was just that
… abandoned.

So why were there two
tingling spots on my back, as sure as if they’d been stuck there by touch?

Turning back around, I saw
no living creature but the tiny bird on my finger. The familiar grassy lane
unfolded before me, winding through the cluster of the oldest cottages in the
village, including Sarah’s lemon-yellow one and the bright blue one where I
lived with Maisie. Empty as ever.

“So paranoid she’s sure the
plates and spoons have eyes,” Maisie would say. But Maisie wasn’t here.

There were plenty of
thieves about, known for stealing traveler’s valuables, but they stayed in the
forests and bogs, where they had some cover of safety. That’s why no one left
town. Why I wasn’t allowed farther than the Haunted Wood.

But there had been whispers
recently. Rumors of bands of thieves traveling up and down the southern part of
the Amethyst Coast, getting bold and entering towns in the dark of night,
stealing people’s most prized possessions. My free hand touched the ruby
necklace that lay upon my collarbone. A scream might frighten a thief away, but
there were things that didn’t scare so easily. The Haunted Wood lay dark and
foreboding on the far side of the cottages. Most people thought no ghosts
really
haunted that place. But I knew
better.

This was an unfamiliar
feeling for me. I’d never felt threatened in Killybeg.

With a gulp, I retracted my
finger and the hummingbird twirled upward like a spring. There was only one
person who could make me feel safe. The same person who had pulled me out of
the bog when I’d fallen in, just a little kid. The boy who had curled up and
fallen asleep by my side when I heard noises in the dark. So I picked up the
skirt of my woolen dress and sprinted down the lane like a madwoman.

Who
really
looks batty now?

When the road ended at Pat
Manor’s field, I climbed hastily over the crooked fence and dashed toward the
line of evergreen trees ahead. The grass was strewn with rocks that Pat Manor
had missed when he’d dug them all up decades before, but I knew where the big
ones were and dodged them deftly.

It wasn’t until I reached
the evergreens that my racing heart began to ease. I stepped into the umbrage
of the trees, and paused in the safety of the maze of branches. The feeling was
gone. Paranoid or not, I felt better in here. I peeked back out at Pat Manor’s
empty field.

You’re a loon, Ruby Beg.

Turning back and heading toward
my destination, I picked aside the last branch and stepped into Maisie’s field,
forgetting all else. The sun let its brilliant rays fall onto my sticky, hot
skin as I scanned the field, my eyes roaming over the fluffy white and gray
sheep that huddled here and there with their young. Felix, a bumbling black and
white sheepdog, ran the perimeter of the field, entertaining himself. And an
ewe with a particularly small pair of lambs was curled right in the middle of
the field, a figure stretched out next to her, his head resting against the
fluffy wool.