Chapter 9
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The next time he fell asleep his dreams returned him to the travelling carnival, to his position beside Karl as their caravan rattled and squeaked past vast fields of barley and paddocks of grazing livestock. How fresh and clean the country air smelt, and when he looked up he could see great islands of pure white cloud drifting across a sky as big and blue as the ocean.
The sound of a horse slowing to a trot beside him lured his attention away from the scenery.
“Good weather, Nathan.”
At first glance there was nothing unusual about the beautiful girl sitting side-saddle on the silver stallion, but almost immediately Nathan noticed the glint of sunlight on the scales of her magnificent tail that sat curled over the saddle horn and draped down over the horse on the far side. Yet surprisingly the sight of a mermaid on a horse didn’t strike him as being the slightest bit bizarre.