The Ruby Dream Read online

  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 b
ehind 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.

  An involuntary smile took over my face.

  Wyn.

  Chapter Two

  The tiny lambs jumped up and bleated with excitement as I neared. Wyn lay, unmoving, in the long, wispy grass. I remembered when he had been tall and thin, but as the years thrust him through adolescence, he’d grown strong, solid. The arm tucked under his head was lean and muscled, and his socked toes stuck out of holes in the front of his shoes. Thick eyebrows topped his chocolate eyes, and the sun made tiny stars of light on his messy hair, the color of burnt sienna, and the delicate eyelashes that lay flush against his cheeks. I knew he was awake because he was absently twirling his wooden flute between his fingers. He didn’t notice me until I stood above him, blocking the sun and casting him in a chilly shadow. Then he finally opened one eye and squinted up at me.

  “Did the warden free you early?” he asked with a grin. Dimples appeared in each cheek, vestiges of his childhood, and a smattering of freckles flashed atop his nose.

  “Yes. Right after I ruined yet another batch,” I added miserably. The skirt of my dress billowed around me when I plopped down in the grass next to him. As I leaned back against the mother sheep that Maisie sometimes called Old Bertha, Wyn tsked.

  “Oh, Rube. You’re going to put us out of house and home. Or at least out of bread.”

  “That’s what your mother said.” I pouted. Wyn had Sarah’s gentle eyes and her soft, pink cheeks, but his sharp wit and lightning-fast smile were all his own. Though Sarah had been like a mother to me all my life, Wyn had never been like a brother. He was my neighbor, my closest conspirator, my best friend … and, still, he’d always seemed like even more than all that …

  “What were you thinking about this time?” Wyn asked.

  He was the only person in the world to whom I told my thoughts and dreams – both waking and sleeping. After all, one didn’t like to be called a loon. Even Maisie told me I was making things up for attention when I told her about my dreams. But, today, I was embarrassed to even tell Wyn what I’d been thinking up on Diamond’s Peak. I didn’t want him to know how scared I was of finally embarking on The Great and Mighty Voyage.

  Felix noticed me just then. He wasn’t the brightest dog in Killybeg, but he was the sweetest. He bounded toward me and jumped into my lap, causing Old Bertha to bleat disapprovingly. I took that as an adequate change of topic.

  “Hey, Felix,” I said happily, finding the sweet spot behind the dog’s velvety ears.

  But Wyn nodded as if he knew what I’d been thinking. I prayed he didn’t. It had been Wyn’s idea in the first place, to save up the pocket change we made at the bakery and the boat maker’s and go away, together, some day. There was a whole other world over there, on the other side of the sea, and there were rumors of amazing things. Schools where children were taught anything they wanted, right up to adulthood. Buildings full of books that told you anything you wanted to know. Countries where you could make money doing things other than baking bread or building boats. Or mining precious stones.

  Killybeg’s own schoolhouse, which was really just Mary Finney’s cottage with a few wooden desks in the corner, taught reading, but I had been a fast learner, and had been done with school since I was seven. Maisie had taught me to write, and had four books in her house – more than anybody else in Killybeg – but it wasn’t enough to satisfy me. There was one special story, a fairy tale of a king and queen who sent an explorer out on a great and mighty voyage. I’d read it aloud to Wyn one summer long ago, and that’s when our plan was crowned with its name, and became serious. For I longed to read all the books in the world. And eat foods I’d never even heard of before. Breads as diverse as the gems of Lorrha. Wyn longed to sail ships as big as houses and learn to speak in an entirely new language. Maisie’s books told of men who could forge beautiful works of art out of glass and women who could divine your future just by looking at your hand.

  “I was thinking … ” Wyn said hesitantly
.

  “Oh really?” I smirked. “That’s quite alarming!”

  He punched me gently in the arm, and I pretended it hurt. His fingers rubbed the spot gently and the burn scars on the back of his hand reflected the sunlight. “I’m serious,” he said. He ran a hand through his messy hair and some of it flopped back over the top of his forehead, the tips of it darker where sweat had gathered. “I was thinking we could start The Great and Mighty Voyage a lot sooner if … if we made loads more money a whole lot quicker.”

  “So far your logic makes sense,” I said with a smile. The tiny lambs returned from a romp around the field and settled beside my legs, rubbing their soft little wool backs against my bare shins – a comforting, familiar feeling. “If you’re going to suggest robbing Oren,” I went on, “I think it’s a lost cause. Sure, he spends everything he makes on drink.”

  “No, I was thinking I could work in the mines.”

  My playful smile wilted. That would mean much more than the pitiful handfuls of coins Oren gave him. And any gems we took with us would be worth more than I could imagine in lands beyond Lorrha. My hand went to the crimson rock hanging from a delicate chain around my neck. “But it’s dangerous,” I said.

  Wyn shrugged. “So is boat making.” His perfect teeth peeked out of his grin.

  “You’d have to be building boats much larger than Oren’s to be in danger,” I said petulantly. Killybeg didn’t have reason to build boats that would traverse the ocean. All the gems went to Kinscourt and were traded from there. So Oren built small, wooden fishing vessels that stayed in the waters near the coast, needed only to fill the dearth of food created by a rocky landscape.

  “I’m old enough to do it,” Wyn said defiantly. “I’m seventeen.”

  I shook my head disapprovingly. “Edwyn Martin, you sound like a child. You’re old enough to risk your life for a little money but you aren’t old enough to wash your own clothing?”