Chapter 1

R

omance. Where has the romance gone in this world? Arnica didn't know. She was sitting on her big hay bed in the loft of the hut next to the Nine-Gates Lake. It smelled like magnolias. She spent the day here nearly every day, looking beyond the great, wide lake. She looked for something. Honestly, she didn't know exactly what she was looking for. But she looked for something.