Page 2

CHAPTER 2

T wo months later…

Bella tightened the last bolt on the wagon’s engine compartment with a satisfying twist of her wrench, and ran her hand across the gleaming metal surface, proud of their work. The motorized wagon had been a labor of love for months—salvaged parts, rebuilt systems, and countless late nights hunched over schematics by the light of an artificial lantern.

Its copper-plated exterior gleamed in the early morning light, giving it an appearance far more elegant than its cobbled-together innards deserved. The mismatched gears and repurposed valves beneath that shiny surface told the true story of their financial situation—making do with whatever they could find or afford.

“All set,” she called, wiping her hands on a rag tucked into her belt.

Her father emerged from their workshop, the morning light accentuating the lines on his weathered face. He carried another wooden crate filled with their inventions—small mechanical toys, practical tools, and a few experimental gadgets they hoped would impress the northern villagers.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, unable to keep the worry from her voice. “We can just wait and send these with the traders to Port Cantor as we usually do?—”

“And lose half our profits to them,” he said dryly. “I know we don’t want to take the long trip to Port Cantor, but if we can find markets closer to home, we won’t have to rely on traders.”

She pretended to fidget with the bolt again so her father couldn’t see the look on her face. He was right that it was a long journey overland to the spaceport—a three month round trip by horse-drawn wagon—but he was wrong in assuming she didn’t want to go. She would have loved to have had the opportunity to interact with the type of technology that didn’t exist outside of the city.

Just because she could repair and construct almost anything didn’t mean she had the opportunity to do so. Instead, she was stuck in this village, fixing the same things over and over again. Her skills were being wasted here, but she could never tell her father that. Not when she knew how much he hated the city. Not when it was just the two of them.

She folded her arms across her chest, the worn fabric of her overalls pulling tight across her shoulders as she turned back to face him. “You know the mountains are Vultor territory.”

The Vultor were another race that had settled on Cresca, although they preferred the wild mountain regions to the farms and pastures most humans chose. Those differences had not prevented violent incidents between the two races, and she’d spent most of her childhood listening to tales that painted the Vultor as ruthless predators.

Her father finished securing the crate to the wagon bed and waved a dismissive hand.

“The mayor’s been negotiating with them for months.”

“Negotiations aren’t the same as agreements,” she countered, glancing up at the horizon where the mountains rose like jagged teeth against the sky.

“Perhaps, but two of your school friends have chosen Vultor husbands. You’ve seen Vultor in the village. If we can accept them in our territory, I’m sure they will accept a harmless old man in theirs.”

She wasn’t convinced that it was that easy. The Vultor who had visited their village were very different from the wild creatures who had haunted her nightmares, but they were huge, muscular, and intimidating, moving with a predator’s grace even when they were simply walking down the street—and predators defended their territory.

“Then I should go with you. I’m the one who fixed the compression chamber. If anything goes wrong with the engine—and you know something always does—I can repair it faster than you can.”

“You worry too much. Always have. Even when you were knee-high to a grasshopper.”

She rolled her eyes at the old Earth expression and managed a smile. “One of us has to.”

“Nothing is going to go wrong.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, and she felt the slight tremor in his fingers that he tried so hard to hide. “The shop needs you. Mrs. Holloway’s water pump won’t fix itself, and we can’t afford to lose her business. And Tessa would never forgive you for missing her bonding ceremony.”

She sighed again. “I doubt Tessa would notice—she’s too focused on her new mate.”

Her father raised an eyebrow at the edge to her voice and she winced. She knew she wasn’t being fair to Tessa. Her friend was still the same sweet, cheerful person she’d always been, but she spent less and less time in the village these days.

After a mysterious disappearance, Tessa had returned with a Vultor mate in tow—much to the shock of the villagers. While Bella had no interest in a husband, she found herself envying her friend’s radiant happiness—as well as her adventure outside the narrow confines of village life.

“All the more reason to spend time with her.” Her father turned to load the last crate of mechanical trinkets into the wagon’s bed, wincing slightly as his back protested. At fifty-three, he wasn’t as spry as he once was, a fact he stubbornly refused to acknowledge. “Three days to the fair, two days of selling, three days back. I’ll return with enough coin to buy those specialized tools you’ve been eyeing. Maybe even that imported compression gauge you’ve been dreaming about.”

She made one last attempt. “You don’t even know if the pass really exists. No one has been that way for years.”

He pulled the faded map out of his pocket and waved it at her.

“It exists. It’s clearly marked on this map.”

Looking at the stubborn set of his chin, she abandoned her attempt to talk him out of the trip. Instead, she started going through the supplies he was taking with him.

“You’ve packed enough food? And the thermal blanket?” she asked, mentally checking off her list. “I packed some of Agatha’s medicinal tea for your joints, too. It’s in the blue tin.”

“Yes, and yes.” He pulled her into a quick hug. “I’ll be back before you miss me.”

“I already miss you and you haven’t left yet,” she replied, forcing a smile as she helped him into the driver’s seat, adjusting his traveling cloak around his shoulders. “Promise you’ll be careful.”

“Always am.” He kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry so much. You’re too young for worry lines.”

The engine hummed to life, vibrating beneath her palm as she rested it on the wagon’s side. Her father checked the navigation system one last time, then waved cheerfully before steering the vehicle towards the outskirts of the village and the mountains that seemed to watch with ancient, patient eyes. A chill breeze swept down from them, carrying the scent of rain and the faintest touch of wildness. Of freedom.

She stood there until the wagon disappeared around a bend, her hand raised in farewell long after he was gone from sight. Only when the sound of the motor had faded completely did she lower her arm, the worry settling back into place. She’d checked and double-checked the engine, reinforced the wheels, and packed extra supplies, but even if the Vultor didn’t object to his presence, the mountains remained an unpredictable threat.

“Well, there goes Elias, off to peddle his contraptions again.”

The voice came from behind her, deliberately pitched loud enough to carry. She didn’t need to turn to know it was Mrs. Winters speaking to her constant companion, Mrs. Finch.

“And leaving his poor daughter to mind that dreadful shop all alone,” Mrs. Finch replied with exaggerated concern. “It’s not proper, not proper at all.”

“A grown woman in men’s clothes, covered in grease. No wonder she’s still unmarried.”

“And likely to stay that way,” Mrs. Finch added. “Though I hear Ned from the lumber mill asked her to the harvest dance last year.”

“Poor man must have been desperate.”

Ned was actually an old friend from her school days who’d always had a crush on her. He’d been a kind boy who’d grown into a kind man, but one whose interests didn’t extend beyond the village. She’d turned him down as gently as possible, and she’d been genuinely happy for him when he became engaged to Lydia Peterson.

That didn’t stop the words from stinging, but she kept her face blank and her posture relaxed, refusing to let the old biddies see that their comments had hit their mark. She turned slowly, fixing both women with a polite smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Good morning, Mrs. Winters, Mrs. Finch,” she called cheerfully. “Can I help you with something? Perhaps one of your ovens needs repair?”

The women exchanged glances, Mrs. Finch’s lips pursing like she’d bitten into something sour.

“No, thank you,” Mrs. Winters replied stiffly. “We were just passing by.”

“I see. Well, don’t let me keep you from your important business.”

She turned her back on them and strode toward the shop, well aware of their disapproving gazes tracking the oil stains on her coveralls and the tool rag holding back her unruly blonde curls.

“Such a shame,” Mrs. Winters’s voice drifted after her. “She could be quite pretty if she tried.”

“If only her mother had lived,” Mrs. Finch agreed. “No feminine influence at all.”

Her jaw tightened, but she kept walking. Their words were nothing she hadn’t heard a hundred times before—whispered at market days, muttered at village gatherings, clucked over at festivals. The disapproval of the village matrons was as predictable as the sunrise—just the background noise of village life, like the constant clucking of the neighbor’s chickens or the distant sound of the lumber mill. At least their whispers were honest, unlike Mayor Jacobson’s false smiles and calculated politeness.

The workshop stood to one side of their modest home, a sturdy stone building with large windows that let in ample light. She pushed open the heavy wooden door and inhaled deeply, breathing in the familiar scents of machine oil and metal. A half-dismantled irrigation pump sat on her workbench, surrounded by neatly arranged tools. Everything had its place, even if that place made sense only to her. Three more repair jobs waited in the corner, promised to anxious farmers before the week’s end.

“Let them talk,” she muttered. “I’d rather fix engines than gossip any day.”

She studied the irrigation pump’s corroded valve as she reached for her wrench, already mapping out the repair in her mind. The quiet of the shop settled around her, broken only by the ticking of the large clock her father had built. Normally, she found peace in this solitude, in the freedom to work without interruption, but today the silence seemed heavier somehow. The workshop suddenly felt too small, the walls pressing in around her. Sunlight streamed through the dusty windows, illuminating dancing motes in the air and highlighting the same tools she’d used thousands of times before.

She sighed, setting down her wrench with more force than necessary.

Was this it? Was this all her life would ever be? Fixing the same machines for the same people who whispered the same judgments behind her back?

She moved to the window, gazing out at the village. Outside, the village continued its predictable rhythm—Mrs. Harrow gossiping at the well, the blacksmith hammering at his forge, children playing the same games she’d played as a girl. Nothing ever changed here.

In the distance, the mountains loomed, wild and mysterious, hiding the northern villages—and the Vultor territories—behind their rugged peaks. Not just places, but possibilities. Challenges worthy of her skills.

Soon her father would be driving their precious wagon through lands where humans were still viewed with suspicion. The knot of worry tightened, but she forced herself to return to her workbench and pick up her tools. Work would keep her mind occupied. It always did.

But as she bent over the valve, her thoughts continued to drift. Was this all there was? Days spent fixing other people’s broken things, nights spent sketching designs that might never see completion, years passing in this village where she never quite fit in?

She glanced at her mother’s portrait hanging on the wall. Helena Fletcher had been brilliant—an engineer from Port Cantor who’d fallen in love with a small-town mechanic. She’d brought knowledge and books and dreams to the marriage, all of which she’d passed to Bella before illness took her fifteen years ago.

After that, her father had moved them back here, to this quiet village where technology was simple and life predictable.

Safe, her father called it.

Stifling, it sometimes felt.

“I’m not unhappy,” she told the portrait quietly. “I love the work. I love Papa. It’s just…”

Just what? She couldn’t quite name the restlessness that had been growing inside her lately. A hunger for something beyond fixing broken pumps and mending farm equipment. Beyond the disapproving glances and whispered criticisms.

She picked up a small mechanical toy they’d built for the fair—a delicate bird that flapped its wings when wound. The craftsmanship was excellent; her father had taught her well. But she’d learned everything he knew years ago.

There’s nothing new here.

The irrigation pump waited patiently on her bench, surrounded by farmers’ plows and simple kitchen appliances. She could fix them all in her sleep. When had the work that once fascinated her become so… routine?

She moved to her father’s desk and opened the drawer where he kept their small collection of technical manuals and pulled out “Advanced Mechanical Engineering,” a text from her mother’s library. The diagrams inside showed complex systems she’d never had the chance to work on—elegant solutions to problems she’d never encountered in this village.

The village bell tolled nine times, startling her from her thoughts. Customers would be arriving soon. Mrs. Winslow would be expecting her valve, and Mr. Cooper needed his irrigation timer by midday.

She straightened her shoulders and picked up her wrench again. Whatever lay beyond the village would have to wait. For now, there was work to be done.

But as she bent over her bench, she couldn’t help glancing once more towards the mountains, wondering what secrets they held and if she’d ever discover them for herself.