by Sandra Elsa
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She had no way of knowing how long she'd been asleep when a sharp tug awakened her. She sat up, disoriented, seeking what roused her from her slumber. Johann slept soundly; there was nobody else in the small room. Lying down, she closed her eyes again and found herself back at Johann's house. A pounding in her head correlated with the knocking on the door in her vision. This went on for almost five minutes. In her vision a hefty curly haired giant kicked the front door in. There stood Garec, along with three of his men.
They seemed reluctant to enter the house, but Garec finally strode over the threshold and prodded at the pile of blankets Johann had left on the couch. The others followed and checked the bedrooms. "She's not here," one of the men said, as clearly as though she were in the same room.
"Neither is the old man," growled Garec. "What would drive that old-timer to take off with a sixteen year old girl? She must be as good as I've been imagining. Pretty little thing. I haven't been able to get her out of my head."
They took a last look around the house and with nervous glances over their shoulders before they left, closed the door behind them.
Pink lay still, not quite sure if she was awake or asleep. Across the room, Johann awoke and sat up. He looked straight over where she lay. "The web at the house just broke," he said, noting her open eyes.
"I thought so," Pink responded, doubt coloring her voice.
Johann stared at her, his intense gaze prodding her to explain herself.
"It was like I was there,” she said. “I could see and hear them. They believe that you're with me." She stopped, her face flushed warmly.
Looking at her in the dim light Johann said grimly, "It's like that is it? Well you've nothing to worry about from me, no matter what those men believe. I'm not like them. To me, you’re the granddaughter I should have raised." With a laugh, he added, "That’s a delightful shade of red you're wearing."
The blood suffusing her cheeks burned hotter. Embarrassed, she explained, "That's where I got the name Pink from. I'm afraid when I was younger, whenever somebody mentioned my name I would turn pink from the roots of my hair to my little toes. My brothers all took to calling me Pink and it stuck."
In all her time with him, she never mentioned her family, except for the stepfather who sold her into slavery. She saw the light of interest glow in his hazel eyes. "What name were you born with?" He quested gently for details.
"You have to promise not to laugh. It’s pretentious, and doesn’t fit me at all."
"I promise. It can't be as bad as all that."
"My daddy used to call me Bella, short for Bellana. In the language of one of his ports of call, it meant beautiful girl. I'm sure to daddy I was beautiful...” Shyly, she closed down, hesitant to say anything more about herself, even to this man who had shown her nothing but warmth and understanding.
"Hardly pretentious,” Johann told her, ignoring her reaction to talking about herself. “Do you think Garec wants you because you're plain?” He smiled at her discomfiture. “If we bought you a fancy dress and tamed that wild hair of yours you could fit in any Royal Court. And I know what I’m saying, I've spent enough time in the Court of Ronan."
Pink’s jaw dropped. She would never have expected the compassionate old hermit to have been at Court. Grateful for his kind words she continued, "Daddy used to call me his beautiful princess. Momma would laugh at him and tell him not to swell my head. Life was good at home until daddy didn't come back from one of his voyages.” Pink sat twisting a copper curl around a finger, remembering the joy of her father’s love, and the grief of his final voyage.
“He was a sailor. Not a captain or a merchant or anything grand, just a sailor, with a loving family. His ship departed for Ousta in the spring of my sixth year and when it sailed back into port two weeks late, half the men were gone. Daddy was one of the missing.” Pink’s voice broke. Tears fell.
“The mainsail of the ship was shredded and the hull was scarred with burn marks.” Pink’s shoulders shook as she mopped at tears with a sleeve. “Most of the men that survived, refused to go back out. Everybody considered me too young to be told what happened. Momma‘s tears and the condition of the ship told me all I needed to know.”
Her voice quavered as she recounted the loss of her father.
"I'm not sure anybody ever knew what happened. The sailors that returned wouldn’t talk about it. Rumor had it, the Cludon, Daddy's ship, was jinxed. She sailed twice after that time. The first time she turned back because of a terrible storm. The second time the sailors almost died sitting for weeks on a calm sea without a breath of wind.” The shuddering stopped as she recounted the ill fate of the ship. “When they returned from the second journey the Captain took her out of the main shipping lanes, a mile or two off shore and burned her.” As Pink spoke, she seemed to go into a trance. When she brought herself back to the present, Johann gave her a peculiar look.
"After Daddy didn't come home, nobody called me Bella anymore.” The sleeve wiped at her nose. “Since my stepfather sold me into slavery, I almost forgot I had a name other than Pink.”
Yawning, she rolled on her back, anxious to steer the conversation away from herself. She stared at the globe of wizard’s light and asked, "Why was I there, when Garec broke your web?"
The globe of light responded to Johann’s mood, darkening just a bit. “I would like to know the answer to that myself. My magic should have awakened me when they entered the house.” Confusion deepened the lines in his weathered face. “Instead it felt as though they had broken the web a second time, as they were leaving. Perhaps I was too exhausted to notice it the first time."
"They were leaving when you awoke," she told him.
"Well we won't find answers tonight. We know where they are. I suggest we get some sleep." He lay back down, but Pink could tell she was not alone in her inability to sleep.