“Hey Scede! There goes your freckle-faced girlfriend! I bet if you didn’t hang out with that Nesnan she would actually notice you!”
The comment had caused Scede to blush horribly. While Eydeth’s crowd let out a roar of laughter, Kihna looked daggers at them and Jahrra became furious.
“I wouldn’t talk if I were you!” she shouted. “The closest thing you’ll ever have for a girlfriend will be a fence post, Eydeth!”
This comment drew a few chuckles, but Eydeth was ready with a waspish reply.
“As long as it’s not a Nesnan, I don’t care.”
The words were squeezed out of his mouth with such anger and hatred that even Jahrra, who was used to his scorn, felt taken aback.
Jahrra took a deep breath and shook these thoughts from her head. They had happened several weeks ago, and now that school was out, she and her friends could relax in a world free of the twins and their acidic remarks.
“Where to?” asked Rhudedth happily as everyone finally met up just in front of the boardwalk.
“We were thinking of a picnic on one of the sand dunes further south along the beach. Maybe even along the bank of the Oorn River,” Scede answered, darting his eyes sheepishly towards Kihna.
She smiled shyly, her pale blue eyes dropping as a pink blush touched her cheeks. Scede looked away, pretending to be interested in a cormorant sitting on the pilings in the middle of the lake.
“That sounds like a good idea, I haven’t been out here in such a long time,” Pahrdh said dreamily, his hazel-brown eyes practically smiling.
Jahrra always envied Pahrdh’s and Rhudedth’s unusual eyes and unique hair. She thought that Rhudedth’s hair looked like autumn leaves, and sometimes wished hers was that color too.
The six horses thudded over the boardwalk single file and headed west towards the ocean shore. Jahrra, Scede, Gieaun, Rhudedth, Kihna and Pahrdh, in that order, waved to the local Nesnan farmers who were fishing or simply enjoying the day as they passed. They all chuckled as Jahrra retold the story of the lake monster for what seemed like the hundredth time, and how it had almost devoured Eydeth that fateful night.
“Oh,” exclaimed Rhudedth, wiping tears from her eyes, “if only it was real and it did eat Eydeth!”
Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede had finally caved and told their other friends the truth about the lake monster a few months after it had happened. They confessed to them one weekend on a camping trip to Lake Ossar, revealing every little detaiclass="underline" how they had come up with the idea (not mentioning Denaeh of course), how they had spent a year putting it together, and how they had finally tricked Eydeth into searching for it. They even went out to the little island where Gieaun and Jahrra demonstrated the pulley system, bringing their now rather decrepit-looking creature out of the water. Everyone had stared at the three friends in a combination of horror and admiration.
“Jahrra! I showed up to make sure he went through with the dare! It scared us half to death!” Pahrdh had said, more in shock than in anger.
“Yeah, but it was more fun that way, wasn’t it?” Jahrra had responded with a mischievous smile.
Since that first camping trip together, the newly formed group of friends had spent many fine days at the lakes, racing on the beach with their horses or just telling stories from school. Jahrra’s favorite story, no doubt, was that of the lake monster, and she often changed the ending a little so that Eydeth got eaten of course. Gieaun enjoyed telling everyone about the unicorn hair they had collected and Scede liked to tell stories, to Jahrra’s slight annoyance, about the dragon Raejaaxorix. She enjoyed the fact that she’d been too busy to even think of the irritating Tanaan dragon lately, and Scede’s recollections only reminded her of her ire towards him. When he insisted on telling everyone how Jahrra had acquired Phrym, she would just try and imagine he was talking about a different dragon.
Rhudedth, Pahrdh, Kihna and her sisters had been all very intrigued by the stories they’d heard, and had a few to tell of their own. Rhudedth and Pahrdh always loved to recall the story of Jahrra’s dramatic fall in Kiniahn Kroi, and Kihna loved telling everyone about what it was like shopping in town with Ellysian.
“You should’ve seen her at the tailor’s in Kiniahn Kroi once,” the Resai girl had said through tears of laughter. “She was so rude that the seamstress kept poking her with the pin on purpose, saying ‘I’m terribly sorry’, or ‘Oops, my hand slipped’. She must have stabbed her at least fifty times!”
Everyone had fallen down laughing as they imagined Ellysian flinching, and they’d begged Kihna to tell more.
Suddenly, Rhudedth’s friendly voice cut into Jahrra’s happy reminiscing and she was brought back to the present.
“Oh, don’t you just love the ocean!” she sighed aloud as the horses stepped onto the soft, sandy trail opening out onto the shore.
The Oorn River curved out to the sea just to the north, slicing through the dunes and beach sand like a sapphire serpent cutting a groove through the desert sand. The view, like always, was breathtaking. The blue ribbon of water was lined on either side by the pale sand, and to the east it swept against the wetlands that eventually became scattered woodlands behind the dunes.
The six friends encouraged their horses into a gallop and then set them to a run, racing down the beach and tearing across the shallow delta of the river, startling a large flock of birds and sending a plume of briny water soaring into the air.
“Can you believe the Great Race is only one year away?” Pahrdh breathed as the children slowed their horses to a stop next to some trees on the other side of the river.
“Ugh, don’t remind us!” Kihna groaned, trying to catch her breath. “Eydeth can’t stop talking about how he’ll be old enough to enter the race and how he is definitely going to win first place with his father’s prize semequin.”
She shook her head in annoyance, her light blonde hair looking like a streamer of delicate dune sand caught in a gust of wind.
“I say we just forget about the twins and the race, and focus on Gieaun’s birthday,” Rhudedth added, not wanting to dwell on their common enemy.
As the day progressed, however, the girls couldn’t keep the boys from talking about the upcoming race. “It’s nearly twenty miles long and only the best semequins can enter!” Pahrdh chattered excitedly to Scede, ignoring Kihna’s and Gieaun’s baleful looks.
“What is so great about this race anyway? And for goodness sake! It’s a year away!” Gieaun said exasperatingly, finally ending all talk about the race.
With the boys’ enthusiastic discussion finally over, the conversation turned to the Fall Festival and Sobledthe.
“I can’t wait!” Jahrra practically yelled. “I’ll finally be old enough to go to Lensterans without adult supervision and stay the whole night! And I’ll be able to take part in the scavenger hunt!”
“You and that scavenger hunt,” Scede mumbled, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Honestly, that’s not the only interesting thing that happens at the festival.”
“Oh, come on, it’ll be great! Don’t you think it’ll be fun Gieaun?”
Gieaun had no opinion either way, so she remained silent, shrugging her uncertainty.
“You three are going, aren’t you?” Jahrra turned her questions on Rhudedth, Pahrdh and Kihna, since her other two friends refused to comment further.
“I think so,” said Rhudedth, “and I think that Mahryn is coming too.”
Rhudedth grinned and gave Jahrra an impish wink.
Jahrra shrank back and slouched. Mahryn was Rhudedth’s cousin from Glordienn, and it was common knowledge that he was quite fond of Jahrra. Jahrra had nothing against him, he was a nice boy, but he stared too much and never said more than three words together.