Free Emily Windsnap and the Land of the Midnight Sun by Liz Kessler

speak. “In fact, I don’t want to talk to you about anything except the mission. Let’s just get on with the job we’re here to do — and forget about everything else. OK?”
    Aaron just stared at me. I wondered what he was thinking. If he argued with me now, if he begged me to listen, told me it was all a big mistake, I would forgive him on the spot. If he didn’t — well, that would just confirm I was doing the right thing.
    Aaron sighed heavily. “OK,” he said.
    I hid my desperate disappointment. It was settled, then. I hadn’t gotten it wrong. Aaron
had
kissed me for a bet and it
had
meant nothing to him. Well, it was a good thing I knew. It was time to put it behind me and get on with our mission.
    “Good,” I said, clipping any emotion from my voice. “Now, follow me. I think I’ve found a way through the mountain.”

    We crept through the tunnel. Aaron led the way. The farther we went, the darker it got. If it hadn’t been for what had just happened, I would have held his hand but as it was, I kept my distance, zipped my mouth as tight as my coat, and plodded on through the damp, cold blackness.
    Just as I was beginning to wonder if we should give up and turn around, Aaron’s voice echoed back to me.
    “Look!”
    I peered into the murky darkness. What was I supposed to be looking at?
    “Ahead!” Aaron called. “Light.”
    He was right. I could just about see a tiny pinprick of light. Hope spurred us on and we sped up, trudging through the watery, echoey tunnel.
    Gradually, the pinprick of light turned into a small circle. Then it grew to the size of a basketball. Eventually, it opened up so much that we could see out. We’d done it! We’d gotten through the mountain!
    Once we were nearly out in the open again, Aaron turned to me. “We did it!” he said, coming toward me with his arms wide open.
    “What are you doing?” I said, folding my arms.
    He dropped his arms. “I thought we —”
    “Well, you thought wrong!” I snapped. “You think I’m just going to forget everything you’ve told me and go running into your arms as though it never happened? As though I’d
ever
trust you again?”
    Aaron just stood looking at me, his cheeks red as though I’d slapped him. I had to remind myself that
he
was the one in the wrong here, not me.
    “Let’s just get on with what we’re here to do,” I said more gently. “And forget the rest of it for now. OK?”
    Aaron nodded glumly. “OK.”
    We picked our way across the last bit of rocky ground at the tunnel’s entrance, to come out into the daylight. I rubbed my eyes and looked around.
    The view was utterly breathtaking. All around us, mountains stood majestically in the bright light of the afternoon. Their tops were sprinkled with snow, as though someone had carelessly tipped sugar all over them.
    A low cloud cut the top off one of the mountains, sitting above it like a hat. Another had waterfalls tumbling from about halfway up, where the snow ended, all the way down, splitting into five different channels so sharp and white they looked like forked lightning.
    And in the center of the ring of peaks — a lake.
    Around the base of all the mountains, the color of the rock was different. The whole bottom section was a deep reddish-brown. It looked like a tidemark, like the lake used to be much higher than it was now.
    We took a few steps toward the lake. I’d never seen such still water in my life. If someone had told me that it was actually a round mirror and not a lake at all, I would have believed them. Not a thing moved. The water lay silent; the mountains stood hushed and protective around it.
    High up, an eagle flew from a tree and came swooping toward us, as if checking on intruders. It came so close I saw its beady black eyes — and then it whooshed away again and the silence returned.
    I took a few more steps toward the edge of the lake and looked down. The mountains looked back up at me; the clouds floated perfectly still around