Edge of Reality by Charley Marsh

Author:Charley Marsh [Marsh, Charley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Timberdoodle Press

9

Sydney wasted no time. She dashed from the king’s chamber. She needed to make a plan, one that would liberate the king and his followers as well as Jordan, and preferably one that didn’t involve bloodshed.

She returned to the gardens to check on Ginny and Henrietta. The hens were happily scratching up greens and bugs so she left them there. She grabbed her backpack from the plastic barrel and made her way back to the cliff steps and the access hole. Something told her that any hope she had of defeating Sir Thomas would be found in the town above.

Climbing the rope ladder with her pack took most of Sydney’s remaining strength. Her arms and legs trembled from the effort. Several times she was forced to stop and hook her arms through the ladder and simply hang, panting, while she gathered enough strength to continue on.

Once she missed the rung with her foot and slipped. She hung by her hands for what seemed an eternity while she frantically searched for a foothold. The pack felt like an elephant hanging on her back, dragging her toward the ground. Her shoulders screamed in protest and the rope burned her fingers as she willed herself not to let go.

At the moment she knew she couldn’t hold on any longer her right toe grabbed hold of the rung. She released a sob of relief and quickly placed her left foot beside the right. It took several minutes before she felt able to free her cramped hands from the ladder.

Sydney leaned her forehead against the dirt wall of the access hole and waited for her ragged breathing to smooth out. I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough.

But what were her options? She had no choice. She had to find a way to defeat Sir Thomas or Jordan would die.

She took a deep breath and resumed the climb. She gave a weak shout of victory when she reached the top, pulled herself onto the hot, dry surface and lay gasping in the sun. When her racing pulse slowed to a normal pace she stood and stumbled toward the town.

She made her way past the house with the tumbleweed, (wasn’t she just here?), past the streets of modest homes, to Main Street and the municipal building. She needed to eat to replenish her energy and then come up with a rescue plan. The town office was the safest place to do all of that.

She caught movement from the corner of her right eye, but when she turned to face it there was nothing there. She quelled the cold shudder of fear that ran down her spine.

“I’m hallucinating,” she muttered to herself. “It’s just tumbleweed. This may be a ghost town but there is no such thing as ghosts. Buck up, Sydney girl. You still have to save an asylum full of lunatics and find a way to escape the aquifer that doesn’t involve dying in the desert.”

She forced herself to start walking again. Her current situation was as serious as any she had ever faced.

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