Marja must have fallen asleep. Anyway, she woke up as a wave sloshed over the boat wall and the ice-cold water sucked itself into her clothes. She shivered and searched with her eyes for something that was familiar to her, but she found nothing. Even the boat she was sitting in wasn't Freddie's motorboat. When the beggar came into her field of vision, she realized again where she was.

He stood at the sail, where Marjas had last seen him, before she fell asleep. This time, however, he was far from calm enough to take advantage of the wind to steer the boat; he fought against it. And the wind was a strong opponent.

For a split second Marja's frightened face caught his eyes and he smiled strainedly. "Good morning, sunshine," he pressed out, while the wind was still tearing at the sail of the boat and whipping the waves, whispering peacefully until just a moment ago, into the Gloria like fighting dogs. They bit themselves in the varnish and some even in the sail, they also attacked Marja, but she shook off the water as best she could.

The storm sent water down from above too, making it pour down on the heads of the travellers. The rainwater nested in their boat, flowed into all channels, swelling into an ever-deepening puddle.

"Don't just sit there, do something!", the beggar abruptly approached Marja. "Grab a bucket and scoop the damn water out of the boat. Jesus, do one always have to give extra instructions here?"

Startled, Marja jumped up, stroked a few soaked strands from her face that had clung to her skin and knelt into the water to pull out the bucket that was under the bench she had been sleeping on. She tried to scoop out as much water as possible, out into the storm grey sea, where water never bothered, but it was unmanageable. New water kept pouring into the boat, refusing to leave it while the beggar was still struggling with the storm.

"It's not getting any better, beggar!" Marja called out to him. The beggar did not look at her, called out something incomprehensible. "I'm sorry?" she asked again.

"Bastian! Please call me Bastian instead of beggar!" He used all his weight to hang himself into the sail in order to turn the boat around. Marja couldn't tell if he really succeeded. She only saw the dark grey, whipping waves, all with whitecaps, hitting each other and the Gloria.

The horizon was pitch-black, not a bright glimmer was in sight. A wave swashed over the wall of the boat again and tossed Marja back, so that she was thrown to the opposite side, where she clawed her fingernails into the railing, her legs tensed like a cramp. Fortunately, another wave did not reach her, otherwise it would probably have thrown her overboard.

Then Bastian called out again something that Marja did not understand. Only the word".... come!" at the end of the shout she could guess, the rest had perished in the raging of the water, as if he had been thrown out into the sea, where he was exposed to the unrestrained rage of the force of nature without protection.

Icy storm blew Marjas' wet strands through the air, both backwards and into her face, where the rain mixed with her own sweat dripping down her chin.

All of a sudden, the rain began to ease further and further without the sky brightening. In the end, it only dribbled, while the storm finally lost more and more of its strength. Bastian wiped a large part of the water from his face with the shreds of his top, and dirty drops of his pitch-black hair ran over it. Maybe it finally was some kind of shower, Marja thought and wanted to smile, but she didn't make it.

"Go back to sleep, Princess," Bastian calmed down, still breathing heavily. "I've got this under control."

"Marja", she muttered as her eyelids fell shut again and she sank tiredly on the bench. "My name is Marja..."

The landscape seemed a little barren here in the coastal area. The beach was full of rocks that had broken off the notched cliffs. Carefully Marja felt her way through without getting her foot stuck in a particularly insidious place. Bastian was still undecided in front of his boat, as if he could not believe where the storm had taken them.

Marja turned and glanced into his face covered with lines of worry. "We got off course pretty badly," he realized sadly and took another look at the threatening walls that marked the rocky beach. Freddie had often told her how dangerous the cliff could be. Rocks and large boulders loosened completely without warning and could bury them underneath.

Bastian skilfully jumped from stone to stone, but slipped once and then found stability, because his naked feet were still dripping wet from the water in the boat.

The sky had not brightened much, it seemed. But a thunderstorm would probably not come up for the time being, the cloud cover just hung over the barren landscape like its eternal protector from the outside world and although it did not let the sun through, the white sky was so thoroughly bright that Bastian had to shield it with one hand to see what he wanted to see in the distance. He stood a few meters away from Marja on a big rock, which overtopped the others a little and was peaked to the front like a lookout.

The worry lines had not disappeared from Bastian's forehead as he lowered his hand again and groped his way down between the stones from his observation platform.

"What is this place?" Marja asked and looked up the cliffs against the bright sky. Various grasses and smaller ground plants grew on top. She thought she recognized a deer or a similar animal grazing on the edge of the cliff and wanted to go up and chase it away before the rocks fell down again and took it with them.

Bastian followed her gaze with a cold expression. "Scotland. No -" he shook his head, "- it's too dangerous here. Come on, back on the boat. I'm trying to find my way to Green Island."

Unbelieving, Marja's gaze detached itself from the life-weary animal and looked at the beggar with almost as much bewilderment. "The Green Island? Ireland? What are we doing there?" Despite her confusion, she felt an unpleasant grumbling in her stomach as if it had completely contracted and therefore tore off a piece of the soft bread roll she had wisely foreseen.

"Oh, believe me, Marja," Bastian said while he was climbing back on the boat. "It's better for now if you do not know why I'm trying to avoid Scotland."

Marja would have loved to ask more, but instead she followed Bastian without speaking a word and decided to sleep even more. What could happen on the journey that required her to stay awake? Besides, she was still tired.

Marja was sure that they had still not reached the Land of the Singing Lights when she blinked into the bright light sleepily because a jolt had gone through the boat. Bastian jumped ashore and fastened it to a rock with a few skilful knots. Hopefully the wind didn't tear it too much.

Marja staggered a little, but finally she managed to climb out of the boat. Bastian looked around with a worried face. In front of them lay a forest in colours as green as Marja had not seen for a long time. Conifers and, much rarer, deciduous trees crowded into the sunlight and ivy ranked up the trunks at their feet. Various grasses grew on the forest floor, some bushes carried colourful berries and a squirrel jumped from branch to branch.

Marja took a few respectful steps forward and turned around as if she could not believe what she saw. "Where are we here?" she breathed, turned to Bastian, so quietly, in awe of the beauty of nature. And even the storm clouds hovering above them could not change anything about this beauty.

"On the Green Island, has sleep clouded your memory?" Bastian replied, pinching his eyes for the wind that blew coldly at them. Marja clung her hands to her black wool cap, which she had pulled over her ears so that she would not be carried away by the storm.

"And is that all right or bad?" She turned to Bastian and looked at him questioningly. He just shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe good, maybe bad," he said. "In any case, it is not our destination. I don't think your little girlfriend's around here. And there are no funereal lights either, as much as I waited for them the last time I was here. " Certainly -" he forced himself to smile as he looked at her, "- it is far better than Scotland."

Still it was rather bad, Marja thought and grimaced anxiously. Such a detour could only prolong her journey, and her family would have to spend even more sorrowful nights. Did they think of her? Anyway, Marja was thinking of them. She had dreamed about them. About her parents and Freddie and Mrs. Schröder as well. Only Kirka was missing. Kirka had just disappeared, even from her dreams.

Marja stroked the dark green leaves of a bush with her hand. They were covered in very thin fur and felt great on heir skin.

"I've read a lot about this place," Marja said as she sat down on the ground to take a closer look at some purple flowers. "Of miraculous creatures like unicorns and goblins with pots of gold. There are supposed to be fairies here, elves and dwarves. Is that true?"

Bastian leaned against a log. "I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. The last time I was here" - he stretched out his limbs, which had become stiff from the long journey - "I also went to a pub. The landlord told me, people who come here to visit would laugh at street signs or other hints that mystical creatures live here - residents don't."

Marja nodded slowly. Of course, the landlord wanted to make tourists curious about the mysticism of this country, but what if he meant it? What if all her books spoke the truth? Yes, then this journey would be a journey that would make her, Marja Eschbach, a real heroine of a novel.

She tore one of the flowers out in the hope that she would not be blamed and sniffed it. It smelled wonderful - of meadow and garden. Marja had always liked that very much.

"How long did the crossing actually take?" she asked casually. Bastian frowned broodingly. "One day, maybe a little longer. But you've been asleep most of the time. All you had to do was scoop a little water out of my boat."

"I was tired!", Marja defended herself embarrassingly touched. Bastian nodded. "Apparently, you were. "But you've had enough sleep now, haven't you, Marja?"

She smiled. She had almost forgotten how difficult it sometimes was for strangers to correctly pronounce the name Marja. Not like Maja. More like Maria. But Kirka had done it right, from the beginning. She probably already knew the name, although there were probably several ways to pronounce it.

Instinctively, Marja took a look at her wrist, but was suddenly caught up by reality when she remembered that she hadn't lashed her wristwatch around it for days. It would have been broken anyway in the icy water of the terrible storm that had afflicted the sea during their crossing, if not lost at all, because it was old and its seal was very loose. Bastian didn't want to ask her the time. Probably he would have just laughed at her and assured her that such everyday trivialities of "civilized" life at the place they could call their destination had no meaning.