Chapter 5
THE STORM broke with a few claps of thunder that made the ground shake. A sharp burst of rain halted the drifting sand. The wind stopped as suddenly as it had come. The sky cleared with crisp clouds and even a few patches of blue. The rain had made the sand wet and easier to walk on. The magic had vanished from the air.
Coming over the crest of a particularly tall dune, Johanna spotted a dark row of forest on the horizon, a wonderful sight after all that loose sand and the dunes.
A quick look over her shoulder revealed an untouched landscape of white sand dunes with a few gnarly pine trees. The wind had erased all their tracks.
After crossing a few more dunes, they came to a small village, nested in an alcove between sand dunes that smothered a landscape of heather and small
