Lorain Musfett dug her feet deep into the sand and smiled. She loved the ocean. On this day in particular she was grateful for the bounding surf and the soft sands, anywhere was better than back home with her screaming father and crying mother. Yeah, her family was dysfunctional, but so was every other family in her small ocean town of Gillbird, Maine. She had moved with her family to Gillbird after her sister, Molly, had died when she had wondered off into the barren deserts of the Nevada plains. The Game Warden who had found molly’s body had said that she must have starved to death as she wondered the shifting and endless wilderness. Lorain had only been four years old then, so her memory of it was blurred and deep down she was thankful that she was so young.

       Lorain looked up at the early Sunday morning sky. It was painted a deep blue, a color that mirrored the glistening Atlantic ocean waters. A light breeze picked up the salty splashes of the pounding waves and hurled them gently at the girl standing at its edge. She ran her hands back through her auburn hair. It twisted around her fingers and caught them, begging to be washed again. She had not had a proper shower in days, not that it would have done her any good in the first place.

       There was no one else on the beach, Lorain was alone, just the way she liked it. She took one look back at her small Victorian house, that looked to have been built long before Lorain came screaming into the world, then she took off running down the shoreline. Every footstep was another one toward freedom, toward anywhere but back to her home and to her family.

       There was a small island just off the coast, that Lorain had dreamed of swimming to. She pictured the way the waters would feel around her as she swam toward her island. It belonged to her after all, she had seen it and she had dreamed up the small castle that sat on its small hill looking out over the endless ocean. She had pictured her family calling to her from the other shore, telling her to come home to them, but she just waved and turned to go back to her kingdom. She had a red dragon too, named Pebbles and a pale unicorn named Shelly. They were her friends, they never yelled and never hit her. They were kind and spoke of all the days that they would spend with Lorain, basking in the summer sun and swimming in the cool, clear waters of the small cove that sat just outside the castle. It was Lorain’s kingdom, she had dreamed it and it was as real to her as the hardwood floor of her room at home scraping against her small feet and cutting them with its small, needle-like splinters.