Following the North Star

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Tessa screamed as she felt her feet lift off the ground. Fear overwhelmed her, and then pain as she slammed into a mailbox, ripped from its post by the powerful winds. The air was knocked from her lungs, and she started to lose consciousness. As she sank into darkness, she caught a glimpse of her family members, her father and brothers, whirling around and around inside the giant funnel cloud.

Tessa awoke to calm. She attempted to sit up, as she was sprawled face-down in mud, but she was unable to move her right arm, and she assumed it was stuck in the deep muck. Of all the emotions racing through her mind, confusion was the most prominent. Where am I? She wondered. Tessa finally managed to roll left onto her back, giving her a perfect view of the flooded landscape around her. To her left, a grove of birch trees stood dripping. To her right, an ominous boggy cobblestone path led into the distance. But it was what lay in front of her that caught her attention. Directly in front of the confused little girl was an enormous beast. It was easily the size of a house, with a gruesome lion head sprouting from its neck, asleep, and a goat head lay next to it, also in a deep slumber. Its skin was a hideous combination of golden fur and sickly green scales; two of its feet lion paws, the other two goat hooves. But the most terrifying thing about the beast was its tail. Sprouting out of the end of the scaly apparatus was the head of a cobra. Its huge fangs were so large they couldn't be contained in the reptile's mouth. Since the beast had no eyelids, even when resting, the cobra appeared to be staring intensely at her, looking straight into her soul. She shuddered at the idea of foreigners invading her conscious.

Tessa remembered reading about something like this gruesome creature in school, in a mythology book. Back with my family, she thought, a wave of homesickness passed over her. Shaking the depressing emotion from her mind, she thought about the name of the creature sleeping in front of her. Was it manticore? No, manticores have wings. Hmmm... Oh! Chimera! That was right - a chimera was wingless. And it had three heads - a lion, goat, and cobra. She delved deeper into her memories, trying to remember at least some attributes of the chimera. Ahah! One small memory wormed its way into her mind. The lion head breathes fire, and the goat head has wicked sharp teeth. But what about the cobra? She couldn't decide if the snake had a special feature or if it was just a cobra, so she assumed that it was probably poisonous.

With the sleeping chimera deciphered, she started to think about a way to escape. That's when she noticed what was really wrong about her right arm. Clamped upon her arm from shoulder to wrist was a gleaming steel cuff. A chain of polished steel links lead away from it, straight under the chimera. Oh no, she thought. This isn't good at all.