The Rosewood Prophecy

Chapter 44

                                                                         Indigo

We trudged along the road, each thinking our own thoughts. Now that I actually have time to think about our next steps, I realized there were a lot of problems with our hastily made plan. It had seemed very simple: get to the Northern Mountains and defeat Lord Victor. But if we walk all the way there, we won't make it before winter sets in and the mountain passes get filled with snow.

Another problem was lodging. There won't be enough villages and towns along the way for us to spend the night, so we'll probably be camping in forests a lot. But our food supply was running low, and Ashley's bag of magically refrigerated food wasn't going to last us forever. I doubted Lucian would be able to catch us a hare every night, so food will be a major issue too.

One more thing...Lord Victor believes that all of the Rosewood Seven are dead, so we'll have to be extra careful about how we behave and what we say to whom. We should probably all have aliases and a plausible reason why we're going towards the Northern Mountains. I voiced this thought to Rachel and Lucian. "Let's think of names for ourselves," I suggested. "We don't have anything else to do besides walking anyway."

"Good idea," Lucian agreed. "I'll be Luke, uh, Baker. Yeah. Luke Baker."

"I'll be Sarah Browne," Rachel said. "What about you, Indigo?"

"Um, I think Lillian Rolfe sounds nice," I answered. "What do you think?"

"That sounds like a lovely name," Rachel replied with a smile. "Now that we have our names established, let's come up with our fake back-story."

"Oh, I know, we can be cousins who are visiting our sick grandmother in a village near the Northern Mountains," Lucian responded excitedly. "We can just name a random village around the mountains if anyone asks."

"We look nothing alike," Rachel pointed out. "It's kind of a stretch."

I looked at ourselves: Lucian with blonde hair and hazel colored eyes, Rachel with auburn hair and green eyes, and me with brown hair and honey colored eyes. Yeah, we were totally related.

"But it'll earn us some sympathy, and no one will ask that many questions," Lucian explained. "What do you say, Indigo—I mean, Lillian?"

"I guess that works," I replied. "Anything that will keep Lord Victor from suspecting that we're alive."

* * * * *

The mountain range on our left gradually gave way to open land, scattered with trees and bushes. The forest on our right stretched on, seemingly endless. After a few more days of camping in the forest and trudging along the dirt road, we finally came across a village situated at the intersection of two roads around mid-afternoon. Although forests were near the village, I noticed that a large area of land had been cleared, some parts still scattered with tree stumps. A small hand painted sign at the edge of the fencing told us that the village was named Sheep Lane—which explained why there were several flocks of sheep milling in the fields nearby.

"It looks busy enough," Lucian noted, watching traders bustle in and out of the

village. "Perhaps we can find lodging for the night here."

We wandered in, trying to find something that resembled an inn. The main road was lined with shops and stalls, and many villagers were busy trying to sell their wares. Some of the shoppers seemed to be their fellow villagers, but a lot were people who came from other villages. Everything was sold, from pottery to clothing to the freshest produce. A small group of children ran past us, headed for a stall selling taffy candy in front of us.