Devon shook his head. He didn't like it but it made sense. Both the parts about the money and finding another way. If he was caught he'd want her to do the same thing. They wouldn't get caught. He told himself. They couldn't afford it.

The sun shined brightly overhead. He squinted against it. "I heard a story once about a secret trade route." Devon looked down at his friend. "It was a while ago so I don't know if it still goes by there, but I think it might be worth checking out."

There had been a traveller once, out at the Night farm. He had been an older man, in his late fourties. His hair was greying but his voice was still firm and sure. He had asked a younger Devon about a ship. A pirate ship. The man said it had a birth around this area and he needed to find it. He had wanted to know if Devon had heard of it.

The young boy had been egear to hear about the pirate ship and offered to trade his answer for a story. The man had happily obligied. Looking back, Devon knew the man knew he had never heard about the pirate ship. He didn't know why the man agreed. Perhaps he had seen something in the boy and took pity on him. Whatever the case the older man had told him a story of an honorable man, wronged by the government.

The wronged man only wanted what was his, but the government didn't want him to have it. So the man rebelled and stole a ship and became a pirate captain. He gathered a crew and they sailed the open skies. They saved important items that the government would have destroyed. They smuggled goods and people and even money. Where ever they went, they messed with the government.

Devon later understood the man had dressed the story up for a kid. Nothing was a glamerous as it seems. However if the story did have any truth, there should be a smuggling route just beyong the lake, in the hills where the villagers didn't go. That was where they could go.

"You see those hills on the other side of the lake?" Devon pointed. "I think that's out be best of getting out of here."