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Growing up, my father always told me about the mysterious Alba.  We lived in Chanda.  More specifically, Aine, Chanda.  Aine was an island that was nearly entirely sand.  There were many other islands connecting to the main one, but you had to sail to others.  Surrounding the islands was a vast ocean that stretched for as far as you could see.  My father told me not to sail too far out on the ocean, though.  Everyone who went over the horizon never returned.

There was a forest of palm trees at one end of the main island.  Everyone I met told me to never enter the forest.  My father explained that that was where the entrance Alba was.  No one from Chanda could cross over into Alba, and no one from Alba could cross into Chanda.

Alba was a land of snow and ice.  That was all anyone knew of it.  A myth had spread that once upon a time, Alba and Chanda were one kingdom.  Most people believed this couldn’t possibly be true.  We lived in the scorching heat, and Alba had temperatures as low as it could get.

My father and I lived in a small hut on the outskirts of town.  I was often made fun of by other kids for my abnormally blonde hair.  Of course, there were other children with hair even blonder than mine.  But no one else had both tanned skin and blonde hair.  And that made me different.  It became apparent to me that people didn’t like different.  So, I avoided everyone.

Sometimes I would wander through the village and see all the dark-haired, dark-skinned people and wonder why I wasn’t like them.  Other times I would see the people with skin as pale as the inside of a coconut and chalk white hair and wonder what had made me different from them too.  My father would always just tell me I was special.  I couldn’t understand how being an outcast made me special.

I had never met my mother.  She died while bringing me into this world.  Some days I wasn’t so sure it had been a worthy sacrifice.  No one liked me anyways.  No one but my father.

He was a very tanned man.  He had the darkest hair and the darkest eyes.  I wish I had looked like him.  I idolized him.  And for good reason.  He was the only person who was ever kind to me.

But one day, he left me.  His dying words to me were: “Odelle, under the old palm tree, there is a chest.  Dig it up.  Find it.  In it are everything you need to go…”

I’m sure he probably had more to say, but his body had given up on him.  I gave myself one day to mourn before I found a shovel and started digging.  That palm tree turned out to be older than I’d expected.  It had collapsed the moment I shoved the shovel into the sand.  I stared at the tree dumbly for a few moments before beginning to dig.

A few feet down, I found the chest.  Inside it was a box, and on top of that box was an envelope.  The front of it read, “Odelle.”  I ripped it open.  Inside the envelope was a letter.

“Odelle, you are special.”  It was written in my father’s crisp handwriting.  This is what he wanted me to see?  I flipped the piece of paper over.  Ah, there was more. “Take the box, go into the forest.  Be safe.  Find the solution.”

I was shaking now.  Go into the forest?  The one everyone said to never even approach?  I had no clue why he’d tell me to do that, but I trusted my father.  He had always seemed to have the answer to everything.

I carefully folded the letter up and put it back in the envelope.  Then I opened the box.  Inside was a fur coat, a pair of fur pants, and some fur boots.  He really wanted me to go to Alba, didn’t he?  I swallowed.  Under the items was a map.  I recognized one half of the map as Chanda.  The other half must be…Alba.  The map was clearly old and worn.  Had someone once used this?

I decided to try on the outfit.  Not only did it fit perfectly, but to my surprise, it didn’t alter my body temperature in the slightest.  Everyone had always told me the reason we wore such thin clothing was because we would overheat if we wore anything more.  It appeared they were wrong.

I returned to the hut with the map and the letter.  It seemed pointless to keep the box or the chest.  There was one thing I needed to do before I left.  I searched the entire hut top to bottom for anything of value I could find.

When I had finally given up hope on finding anything, I found one thing.  My mother’s amber necklace.  I laced it around my neck and headed for the door.  I looked around my tiny hut.  I would miss this place.  Hopefully, no one decided to come ransack it while I was gone.  The likelihood of it was small.  No one ever came out here.

I sighed and stepped outside, shutting the door behind me.  It was time to go.

——————–

The journey to the forest took nearly a whole day.  By the time I had reached the outskirts of it, the sun was already setting over the horizon. I decided to set up camp for the night.  There was nearly nothing out here.  Just miles upon miles of sand.  I opened the bag I’d brought along with me.  All it had was a day’s worth of bread, a coconut, an apple, and my knife.  I used my knife to pry open the coconut.  Why hadn’t I drunk something earlier?

Once I satisfied my thirst, I reached into my bag again to grab the loaf of bread.  Instead, my hand hit a hard piece of wood.  What on earth?  I pulled it out.  Sure enough, it was a piece of wood.  How had it gotten in there?  It certainly hadn’t been in there a moment ago.  I reached in my bag again.  This time I drew out a box of matches.  I stared at them dumbly for a moment before accepting that my bag was materializing things and shoved the piece of wood into the sand.  Then I lit a match and used it to start a fire.

At this point, I was starting to get tired, so I lay out by the fire and closed my eyes.  It smelled different out here.  Back at the village, the air smelled like hot asphalt and flames.  Here…the air was crisp.  It was pleasant.  I fell asleep to the sound of the fire crackling and the wind blowing in my ears.

The fire was dead by the time I awoke in the morning.  The piece of wood had completely burned down, so I decided I’d leave it there.  I unearthed the map from my bag, noting how close I was to the edge of the forest.  There didn’t seem to be a defined way to get through to the other side, so I replaced the map and stepped into the forest.

The forest wasn’t as thick as I had expected it to be, but once I was at the dividing line, I knew.  In front of me was a wide stretch of white.  Under my feet was sand.  In front of me were trees that were white with the occasional tan streak across them.  Around me were palm trees.  This was it.  I had found the mystical Alba.

I looked around me.  I noticed something curious.  There was a little white animal sitting next to a tree.  I had never seen such a fascinating animal.  It looked similar to the fennec foxes we had back in the village, but this animal had much smaller ears.  And unlike the fennec foxes, this animal seemed very calm.

It looked up at me then, and it sat up.  It trotted over to the very edge of the white and reseated itself.  It stared up at me expectantly.  Like it was urging me to step over the invisible line.  So, I did.