She walked slowly and forced herself to relax. She was on an adventure and needed to explore before she was back to work and on someone else’s schedule. She shook her head and sucked in a cold breath of air. Daydreaming about a man she didn’t even know was not what she had planned by coming to Stagholt.
She set her shoulders and took a good look around. To her right, a bakery stood in a brick building with frosted windows, tucked in between a barber shop and a hardware store. A painted sign in the glass readSTAGHOLT BREAD & BISCUIT, and as she neared, she could smell the cinnamon and fresh baked bread, mingled with the delicious scent of coffee.
She pushed the door open and walked into the most unique coffee shop and bakery she had ever seen. A huge hand-carved wooden sign hung on one wall with shelves of mismatched mugs, decorative nesting boxes for chickens that contained displays for the various baked goods. People hunched close together over dark tables, some sipping on steaming mugs and others eating anything from muffins to pastries. The hiss of an espresso machine interrupted the quiet roar of conversation.
A fire glowed in the hearth on the far end and created an inviting atmosphere, but the friendly faces grew solemn as they took notice of her. Conversations hushed and the laughter seemed clipped in an instant.
Bryn’s heart sank. She started to just turn around, but the smell of coffee was too strong for her to resist. She ignored the stares and walked up to the counter. To her delight, there wasa display of tall tumblers emblazoned with Stagholt’s beautiful mountains.
“I’ll take one of those with as much coffee as it will hold.” She pointed and forced a smile to compete with the sour look of the cashier.
“Cream and sugar?”
“Just sugar, please. Extra sweet.” Bryn perused the various displays while the cashier poured coffee. “And one of those muffins, too. With the cinnamon streusel on top.”
Once she had her purchases, she resisted the urge to run out of the bakery. Outside, she let out her breath and congratulated herself on the coffee grab.
Maybe they’re just cautious because their king was shot.She hadn’t seen a newspaper inside, and she wasn’t going back to look.
Across the street, a bookstore boasted hundreds of books with brightly painted windows and carts set up out front. While she loved bookstores and had nearly lived in the one back home, Bryn made a mental note to return to it. It was the building next to it that really caught her attention.
Scenic train rides.
Bryn hurried to the ticket booth, which was pleasantly deserted. She scanned the menu. “Two hour trip. Automated train. See the sights.” She pulled out her credit card. “Sign me up.”
She lucked out and the next tour started in just a few minutes. She paced the station until the doors slid open, much like a tram at a big airport. She stepped inside and counted the moments until the door shut to seal her inside.
She almost jumped for joy when no one else joined her. She had the entire car to herself for the next two hours so she could move about without irritating anyone.
When the tinny voice came over the loudspeaker and announced their departure, Bryn took a seat and relaxed the tension in her shoulders. She knew the people in town weren’t blaming her directly. When someone was injured, there were always suspicious thoughts. And she was a stranger in town, although she doubted she was theonlystranger passing through.
She cleared her mind of anything except looking out the window and taking in the scenery. As the train started off slowly, she saw the last shops that she hadn’t reached. A florist with bright blue flowers in the window, an outdoors store with sleds stacked by the door, a diner with its sign hanging crooked above a worn canopy. Each storefront looked quaint, almost postcard-perfect, and Bryn felt like she was seeing old friends. The pictorial she had obsessed over so many years ago had captured the essence of the town in the photographs, but there was just something about seeing them in person. They did not disappoint.
As the train pulled away from town, she saw a building in the distance. A town hall of sorts with a huge electronic sign out front for notices and announcements. Now it blinked with COMMUNITY MEETING CANCELLED. PRAY FOR KING AFTERVADEE.
“Answers that question,” she mumbled to herself. “Their king actually was injured.” But the question remained whether or not it was the man she had helped. She pulled out her phone real quick to try and find a photo of King Aftervadee, but sighed when it showed no signal.
“You’re not in Alabama anymore, stupid. What makes you think you’d have service?”
She tucked the phone away and focused on the scenes in front of her. It only took a minute before she forgot all about kings and cell phones.
The train swayed gently on the tracks, its wheels humming a steady rhythm. Bryn leaned closer to the wide window but backed off when her breath fogged the glass. Fields streamed past in soft blurs of various hues of green, dotted with cattle that grazed and paid no attention to the train. A cool draft slipped through the seams of the window and kept her senses sharp and clean.
The landscape changed as the elevation began to rise. Green fields turned into valleys of dark forests, tall trees that stretched for miles. And then, as the train rounded a long bend, the mountains revealed themselves. Their jagged peaks soared high, wrapped in glistening snow that caught the sunlight and reflected it like glitter in a snowglobe.
The sight mesmerized Bryn. The Silver Snow Mountains.
The magical place that she had fantasized about since she was a girl. A place that she had escaped to a thousand times when life got hard. She instinctively reached for her ring before she remembered that it was lost. The Iskara Northlands territory had always been a dream and now it was right in front of her.
She stood, unable to sit with the beauty she saw. A tear of overwhelming emotion rolled down her cheek. A waterfall cascaded down a distant cliff and flashed briefly before it vanished into a shadowed ravine. She caught a glimpse of a lake amongst the trees and a deer that darted out of sight.
The car darkened as the train headed into a tunnel. When it burst out the other side, the mountains loomed even closer, commanding and impossible to ignore.
Each turn revealed something new. Patches of snow. A ski lift way in the distance. Stands of tall pine trees. A deep valley with a river flowing through it. A summit veiled in drifting mist. The world outside the train was alive and wild, and Bryn found herself forgetting about everything while she reveled in the natural beauty passing by.
As the train slowly looped back toward the station, they passed an area that made Bryn frown. Devoid of trees, the panorama was in complete contrast to everything she had seen. The shadowed land held no life, sad and hopeless, like it had seen evil things it couldn’t recover from. This section had not appeared in any photographs in the books she had spent hours absorbed in. A choking feeling of dread and unease spread through her and squeezed her heart as the desolate landscape continued. She sipped her coffee and while still warm in the tumbler, even it had lost its appeal in the barren wasteland.
After a few minutes, the no-mans-land ended and the treeline reappeared. She was soon gazing back at the beautiful scenery and the claustrophobic feeling receded. She giggled at herself for almost hyperventilating over an area that obviously had seen a forest fire or some other natural disaster. At least that’s what her personal explanation was going to be.
