Chapter6
AN. Why did my parents want 2 mve bk 2 this stupid, damp little island? i was born in Texas and the only good thing about England is that you get snow – about once a year in a pitiful drizzle that is no good to anyone! All it ever seems 2 do here is RAIN! GRRRRRRRRRRR!
Well as u cn c i am still uploading chps thnks 2 Lady-of-Sea's encouraging rev so thnks 2 u cos i wznt sure if I would bother. Also thnks 2 10inchspider (lol!) lv the name! r u sure ur nt 1madcat in disguise cos she sid xactly the same thing. Well there's this strange thing called time, i guess i didn't explain it verywell but for everyone who also got confused the 'cat things' they work in packs or prides or wt ever u wnt 2 call thm lke lions do an thz why theirs a lot of them, don't worry if still don't undrstnd cos its nt vry imprtnt so tht's ok. But anywy thnks loads 2 u 2 cos nbdy else has bothered 2 rev xept my friends so finger up 2 thse who cnt be bothered. I carve ur names in gold 10inchspider and Lady-of-Sea!
Just over one month later.
Mirrendi had lived Greece all her life in a tiny little village by the coast and she was now married to a farmer called Feirthran Pentacouast and together they had set up a bakery which she now ran. Her brother had become some kind of explorer and her sister lived in Athens serving the King or something fancy, Mirrendi was quite happy with her small uneventful life. Mirrendi also had twin daughters of ten years old that were playing down on the shingle beach. They were old enough to look after themselves she thought.
It was early in the morning and Feirthran was having a lie in after rushing around last night trying to get all the chickens in their huts early before the storm hit. It had been a big storm and the twins insisted they had seen a small boat being smashed against the rocks a little further down the beach from them.
"What gruesome imaginations they have," she thought, "No one would have gone out in that weather, it would be suicide! If you went out far enough to fish there is alongshore current that with the wind from the storm blowing you inland you'd quickly get thrown against the rocks!" She smiled, putting the finished loaf on the sunny windowsill to rise before she baked it. The twins were probably scampering all over the rocks right now looking for their imaginary wreak. She took down the bread she had left to rise earlier and put it in the oven. Suddenly she heard pounding feet and the twins burst into the kitchen, their faces flushed with excitement, their dark hair flying everywhere.
"Mum, mum, mum, mum!" Yelled the first one into the kitchen, Giabeirai. "Guess what we found!"
"There was a wreck!" Exclaimed the other, Hiarettet. "And a dead body!"
"It wasn't dead!" Countered Giabeirai, "It was still breathing!"
"No it wasn't, it was a dead body!"
"Wasn't!"
"Was!"
"Wasn't!"
"WAS!"
"WASN'T!"
"WAS!"
"Calm down!" Mirrendi intervened before it got worse, "I guess you'd better show me then." She sighed wondering what the two had found this time. She wrote a quick note to her husband encase he got up before she was back, took her apron off and walked off down to the beach with the twins scampering around her trying to get her to hurry up and pulling on her arms.
She trudged along the beach with the harsh hot wind pulling through her hair and tugging on her cloths. Bits of hot sand kept finding their way into her shoes and blouse and even her skirt, she could not understand how the twins liked playing in this. They rounded the headland to where the rocks started. Mirrendi gasped.
"See mum! We told you there was a wreak!" Hiarettet said proudly. High on the jagged black rocks was beached the splintered remains of a small boat, it was a strange boat, the tatters of sail was a curious brown and the wood unpainted and pale through the caked salt and brine except for a few bits that seemed to have carving on them.
"So where's this dead body then?" Mirrendi asked nervously.
"It wasn't dead." Muttered Giabeirai sullenly as the two of them began to climb over the sharp rocks with well practised ease. Mirrendi wisely followed behind where they went as she knew the slippery wet rocks were quite hazardous. The two jumped down over the top of a jagged protrusion that was like a small mountain range into a gully with sand at the bottom. Lying at a strange angle was a body face down in the sand. It was a tall muscular woman with bright golden-red hair and strange coarse clothes. Mirrendi clambered over to her.
"Hiarettet," Mirrendi turned to her daughters, "run back to the house and fetch your father and Mr Heltac the doctor, tell him to bring his equipment and a stretcher, quickly!" With a nod Hiarettet sprang back up the rocks, over the rim and out of sight.
"Right," Mirrendi turned back to assess the body, "It looks like the mast has trapped her legs and probably broken some of her ribs. Giabeirai, if you climb around there and grab that end let's see if we can lift it away and turn her over." Giabeirai climbed over the rocks to behind the body and wriggled her end free and together they managed to lift it away and dumped it on the sand. Slowly and as gently as possible they rolled her over.
"She's still breathing." Mirrendi sighed in relief. "But it looks like that when the mast broke away she was hit by a flying splinter. It doesn't look good, she might lose her left eye."
A minute later Hiarettet returned with tall Feirthran easily keeping up and fat Mr Heltac puffing and wheezing behind, he was a good man and a good doctor for all that though. Mr Heltac when he had finally fumbled his way, with a lot of help, into the gully drew a sharp breath in through his teeth.
"She's got very battered. I wonder why she was out there last night, doesn't look like she's from these parts." He bent down to examine her more closely. "Looks like a broken left leg and some fractured ribs. The cut on her face is the most concerning, it's shallow but I don't know if I can save that eye." He stood. "Let's get her up to your house Mr Pentacouast, yours is closest." He turned to Feirthran, "If you could slide the stretcher under her and I'll lift first her legs then her torso and Mrs Pentacouast if you could please support her head in case of further damage I think Mr Pentacouast and I can carry her up."
They did as he said although getting the stretcher over the rocks was tricky although with Gaibeirai and Hiarettet navigation and Mirrendi helping the overweight Mr Heltac they got there. The stranger was lying on the kitchen table that had been cleared to make space, Mr Heltac had strapped up her left leg and bandaged her torso. She had an amazing collection of scars they speculated on how she might had got them, Mr Heltac insisted that she had distinct burns, arrow wounds and a sword wound cutting from her cheek to her abdomen, Mirendi could not tell the difference between one scar and the next but even Mr Heltac was puzzled by the marks on her right hand. Then he did what he could for her face, "Keep it clean but I doubt it can be save, I'll come back every evening and see how it's doing but I probably will need to remove it." And then he left The two of them to look after her. They took her up to the spare room Mirrendi's father used to live in at the front of the house looking out over the sea before he died. She hoped the stranger would pull through.
Mirrendi sat up with her through the night in case she regained consciousness. At times she ranted and even screamed in her sleep in a totally alien language or even in grunts and whistles. She kept a bowl of cool water and a cloth by the bed and tried to sooth her when it was worse although it was difficult not to get hit. Her hand was constantly clenched around a small wooden box of a strange beautiful red wood.
"What has the poor woman lived through that makes her scream so?" Mirrendi wondered, "It must have been terrible."
Eventually the stranger slept soundly and her hand relaxed around the box thought it never left it. The first time Mirrendi tried to slip it out from her hand the woman had cried out and her other arm had swung around fetching Mirrendi a blow on the cheek, but a little while later Mirrendi managed to ease it from her long fingers. Inside she found a piece of charred wood, a lock of glossy copper hair and one of coal block and two tiny sketches in charcoal on a strange pale bark. Mirrendi knew she had pried into something very private and carefully put the box back. Mirrendi wondered who those people were and what had happened to them. It was probably intertwined with the woman's mysterious appearance and probably terrifying past, although Mirrendi did not know. Mirrendi wiped the strangers face once more with the damp cloth and settled back down to watch her, she seemed to be sleeping soundly now.
Amonsovn woke to pain. Her chest and her left leg hurt with a terrible ache that increased to lancing spasms when she shifted even a tiny bit and her left eye and cheek hurt like the flames of hell were tearing through them and the eye would not open. She peeled open her right eye, even this was a stiff and painful manoeuvre, she was in a strange bright white room which was cluttered with odds and ends which she had never seen the like of before. The thing she was lying on was also alien to her, it was a rectangle raised off the ground, it was soft, and over her were a few strange, thin coverings. Over in a chair by the only window in the room a small thin woman was dozing with her black hair hiding most of her face and drifting back and forth in the breeze created by her gentle breathing. Amonsovn tried to sit up but fell back with a gasp as sharp pain lanced through her chest. The woman's eyes flickered open, they were a dark hazel brown. Amonsovn had never seen someone with such a dark complexion. The woman stood with a smile, she was really quite pretty Amonsovn noticed, the woman opened her mouth and admitted some strange sounds:
"Good morning."
"Who are you?" Amonsovn asked in confusion, "Where am I? What happened?" The woman shook her head with a rueful smile.
"I'm sorry, I cannot understand you." She said although this was lost on Amonsovn who looked on, perplexed, as the woman threw wide the shutters on the window. Morning sunlight streamed in. the woman looked out over the sea, shimmering in the light and sending golden shards sparkling everywhere, she seemed to be deep in thought. The woman smiled again and turned away from the window. She held up her hand and pointed at her self.
"Mirrendi." The woman said. Amonsovn stared at her. The woman did it again. Comprehension spread on Amonsovns face and she too smiled.
"Mig-en-dik." Amonsovn tried, the foreign syllables feeling slippery and strange on her tongue.
"Mih-rrrren-deee." The other woman said slowly.
"Mig-rrrreighn-deeeih" Amonsovn tried. The woman smiled and pointed at Amonsovn, "You?" She asked. Amonsovn had the idea now.
"Amonsovn." She said
"Age-moon-soog-veg-en." Mirrendi tried haltingly.
"Aah-monn-sooo-vnnn." Amonsovn repeated slower.
"Aah-moon-sooo-voon." Mirrendi tried again. Amonsovn gave her an encouraging smile, it was close enough, the woman looked pleased anyway. Just then the door opened and a tall dark man with dark brown hair and eyes came in, he was not actually as tall as Amonsovn.
"How's she doing?" He asked although this just passed over her head as senseless jabber.
"Well, she got quite a bit of sleep last night but I think a lot of the time she was unconscious or in terrible nightmares. You should have heard her! She screamed and shouted in her strange language and managed to fetch me several blows including the one on my cheek."
"I did hear her and there's a nice purple bruise coming up on your cheek. How's her eye?" Mirrendi winced.
"Not good, I'll bathe it again this morning but I'm afraid there's not going to be a lot we can do about it."
"What are you talking about," Amonsovn asked in confusion, "you sound worried, are you talking about me, I wish I could understand you!" The two people looked over in response to her anguished comments.
"Goodness that is a strange language." Feirthran remarked. "Do you have any idea of who she is?"
"She says her name is, Agy-moon-sog-voom." Mirrendi tried.
"Aah-monn-sooooo-vnnn." Amonsovn corrected. The three spent awhile trying to say each others names and trying to explain why both their last names were Pentacouast, eventually Amonsovn had a rough idea and they left her to rest.
Mirrendi and Feirthran were sitting in their livening room area that night after the twins had been sent to bed, they had refused to let the two disturb the stranger and this had upset them. The kitchen and the living room area were in the same room, it was a long rectangle with the kitchen at one end, the living area at the other and a big range like fire in the middle so it could be cooked over and sat by in the evening. They had a small dinning room for when they had guests but mostly they ate at the table opposite the fire. There were a reasonably well off family, not rich and not poor. They were happy with that although Mirrendi's siblings were both in eager to gain power in their own ways. Mirrendi and Feirthran were sitting together on a sofa sort of thing.
"She's very different, isn't she?" Said Feirthran breaking the calm silence, "She's incredibly tall, taller than me, and her hair, bright shimmering gold! Some people have blond hair but hers is not like that, it's gold. And her eyes, I've seen people with red eyes and even people with bluish eyes but hers are so light they could be white or yellow!"
"Yes," agreed Mirrendi, "and her accent, she doesn't say rh, she says Rrrrrhr, she purrs it and anything she says even something like Pentacouast comes out strange, silky and foreign."
"Maybe she came from the far north, they say the people up there are very pale and tall," Feirthran commented, "but they say the people up there have pale skin as well, hers is dark and weather beaten."
"Then perhaps she came from over the sea," Mirrendi wondered, "all the people found over there are said to be so dark they look black, she's not that dark but maybe if you kept going you might find people like her. I'll talk to my brother about it, he said he might be back some time around now, he knows all sorts of different types of people from his travels. Maybe some day the stranger will tell us herself."
"Yes, maybe." Answered Feirthran thoughtfully.
AN. Soooooooooooooooo tiered still, can't think what's come over me. Must keep typing, must keep… :yawn:DAMN! Well before i die I wnt u 2 clk on the submit review sign and tell me wat u think.
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