added more of chapter 2

1 files changed, 57 insertions, 2 deletions

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@@ -151,6 +151,61 @@ She lay back in the sand and stared up at the stars. They began to fade as the p
 
 Her father came walking up from the ocean swinging his arms and stretching his back. He saw that she was awake and plopped down in the sand next to her. His beard was still wet and droplet of salt water sprayed her as he sat down. They did not say anything, the just sat together and watched the dawn paint the sky in front of them. 
 
-Birdie's people were sea gypsies, Alban, was what her father called himself. Got lost on our way to the old valuta grounds her father would say, chuckling. Birdie still wasn't quite sure what this meant, but she did still remember the forests, or thought she did, or perhaps her parents stpories had worked their way into her head until they became her memories too, lodged there as if she had seen them with her own eyes. But memories of trees where it was always cool and soft breezes blew did not help her here, in this land of swelter and slow burning kilns
+Birdie's people were sea gypsies, Alban, was what her father called himself. Got lost on our way to the old valuta grounds her father would say, chuckling. Birdie still wasn't quite sure what this meant. He never elaborated. He was a man of few words, comfortable with silence and he expected everyone else to be comfortable with it as well, especially his. The low landers, as he called anyone who wasn't of the sea, which made no sense to Birdie, but did apparently to at least to her father, talk to hear something, talk about what they don't even know until their half way through talking about it, he said. I know I am the only one of my people you have to judge by, but we are not that way. If there is something to say, say it. But mark your words Birdie, pay attention to them, think on them, choose them well, find the best ones you can and don't speak until you have found them. The low landers think they can learn by talking, by asking questions, but you must listen first. Listen and watch the world around you. If you have a question, ask it first of yourself, see what answers you can come to and once you have those ask someone else and see what answers they have. This is how you learn.
 
-When you drink or eat something you do not just drink the liquid or eat the flesh of the thing, you consume it's spirit as well. Different things have different spirits. The spirit in the rum, it is not a good spirit. Some it comes to very strongly, it takes them and makes them do as it wishes, sends them nowhere but in search of more of itself. Others it visits and then leaves, it all depends. Some days it visits me and leave, some days it visits me and wants to stay even after I no longer want it, so I decided one day to let it in my no more. It is not the way of our people I do not think. I do not know, we did not have it back home. There was Vodka, but that was a think of the lowlanders. We did not drink it. It we knew had a strong spirit. For us there is the sea, it has the strong spirit of anything, I would rather stand on it's shore for one minute and task it's salt air than have a lifetime of rum. That is the spirit I want to visit with, the spirit that moves me. 
+Her father sat silent now beside her. She wondered where he was. Was he here, next to her? Was he on some other shore? As if reading her mind he turned to her and smiled. It will be good day, he said in a whisper. And then he rose and walked down and ducked into the hut. Lulu sat up. I was dreaming of pine trees. Birdie glanced at her. She too had dreamed of pines. She wondered if they both were thinking of burning stumps or if there was something more. Birdie still remembered the northern forests, or thought she did, or perhaps her parents stories had worked their way into her head until they became her memories and dreams too, lodged there as if she had seen them with her own eyes and now she dreamed of her imagined memories, layers and layers of story peeling back to reveal at the end... what?
+
+She stood up. I'm going to get some food. She skipped down the slope, feet squeaking in the dry sand. Memories of cold salt air, oceans crossings, fog and pines, where it was always cool, and soft breezes blew did not help her here, in this land of swelter and storm and slow burning kilns. What she wouldn't give for a cool dry breeze stirring the pines of some rocky northern shore. 
+
+She stood up and wiggled her feet, letting them sink into the sand up to her ankles. She stood, rooted like a sago, feeling the first warm orange rays, savoring the brief moments when it seems like perhaps it would not be murderously hot by mid morning. Then she uprooted herself and walked down the slope toward the thatched hut into which her father had disappeared only moments earlier. Inside it was dark, she blinked as her eyes adjusted to reveal the thin slivers of light from the windows, the rathers, hung with dried fish and herbs, roots and tubers she and Lilah had dug weeks before. Plants Tamba had shown them that he and his people had learned from the Edisto. There was plenty to eat in the mashes and pine forests if you knew where to look. Still the hutt smelled as it always did, of the sea and fish. There was fishy smell inside that rarely left since most of what the family ate came from the sea, fish, clams, mussels, oysters as bit as Birdie's head, seaweed and tk, tk and tk, there was always a bit of the sea in the stew pot. This morning it smelled of dried fish and onions. Her mother smiled at her, asked about her dreams while she ladled the leftover stew into Birdie's bowl, a coconut shell sanded and polished smooth, carved with a scene of mermaid rising from a clam shell, something her father had seen in London. It was in fact the one and only story of London he had ever told her. 
+
+She took her bowl and stepped out into the shade of the porch her father had built. She sat on a stump and ate. The more she ate the hungrier she felt and before long whe went back inside for anoter bowl. That's my firl said her father, ladeling another bowl for her. Lilah stepped in fater her . Henri still pretended to sleep in the far corner of the hut where he slept with his mother. He was still very much a Mama's boy, probably always would be Birdie figured. 
+
+"You girls ready to tend some fires today? Her father raised his eyebrows at them," but it was not a question.
+
+"Yes papa," they mumbled between gulps of stew. The bolted a soon as they were done, walking together down to the shore to wash their bowls in the surf and sand. 
+
+Birdie stopped at the shore. Lulu knlt and let the rushing water of the wave fill her bowl and pull the bit of fish at the bottom back out the sea. Birdie watched but she made no move to wash her own bowl. She stared out at the sea where she though she saw something white on the horizen, someting that might be a topsail coming into view. 
+
+Lou, what is that?
+
+Lulu stood up, she was shorter than Birdie by half a head, but she saw it too. "Sail?"
+
+They looked at each other and smiled. A way out of tending the lins. Birdie quickly washed her bowl and they turned and ran back up to camp. Laughing and shouting sail. Her father turned and squinted out at the sea. He hnned and went inside, returning with he spyglass. He trained it on the speck still wavering at the norizen. 
+
+"Topsail, moving southeast." He handed Birdie the glass and she climbed up the nearest dune to get a better look.  Southeast was no good, that meant it was headed away from them, but that made no sense, they should have spotted it earlier if it was coming out of Charles town. They've have seen it well and clear when she rounded cape and turned north, headed for London or tk or tk. The only boats that ever headed southeast were... she glanced over at her father. He was watching her, closely, she could see him smile, she watched him watch her figure it out. Raiders. It was a coasting ship that had drifted too close and, probably unbeknowst to its captain and crew, had been spotted. Word would spread south. Not from there camp, her father never passed sea gossip on as he called it, it was one of the reasons raiders came to their shore, but this one obviously wasn't, which ruined Birdie's hopes of something to do other than feeding kilns. She walked back over to her father and passed the glass to Lulu.
+
+"We'll wait a bit on the fires. We've nothing to trade, don't want to send up anything that might be taken as a signal." 
+
+Birdie nodded. She screwed up her courage inside and said quickly before she lost her nerve, "Papa, can Lulu and I play at the Arkhangelsk until you need us?"
+
+Her father looked at her darkly, but then he smiled. "What gave you the idea that there was ever a time when I did not need you? I always need you Birdie, at my side, we are jouned at the hip. He clasped a huge hand on her shoulder and pulled her tight agaist his lef and attempted to take a step forward, swinging her alone with him. She laghed and tried to pull away, but his grip was strong, she remained pinned against his leg and he took another, stiff-legged step, swinging her along again. He walked her like that, laughing as they went all the way over to where Lulu stood oblivious to the bpoth of them, watching the saile through the glass. "She's tacking toward us."
+
+Her father stopped and took the glass from her.
+
+Hey. 
+
+I want to see.
+
+He stared for a while. Indeed she is. Okay girls, you may play, I will fetch you when it's time.
+
+
+
+
+Details on the day of lighting the kilns, games the kids play, treats they eat, the last bit of gum chichle. Then the fishing 
+
+When you drink or eat something you do not just drink the liquid or eat the flesh of the thing, you consume it's spirit as well. Different things have different spirits. The spirit in the rum, it is not a good spirit. Some it comes to very strongly, it takes them and makes them do as it wishes, sends them nowhere but in search of more of itself. Others it visits and then leaves, it all depends. Some days it visits me and leave, some days it visits me and wants to stay even after I no longer want it, so I decided one day to let it in my no more. It is not the way of our people I do not think. I do not know, we did not have it back home. There was Vodka, but that was a think of the lowlanders. We did not drink it. It we knew had a strong spirit. For us there is the sea, it has the strong spirit of anything, I would rather stand on it's shore for one minute and task it's salt air than have a lifetime of rum. That is the spirit I want to spend my time with.
+
+Her Papa was a quiet man, prone to grunts and nods in lieu of the sort of comforting, I heard you type of comments most people make. He was often absorbed in a task to the degree that he seemed utterly unaware of the world around him and yet sometimes Lulu would notice that he was also watching her, watching her sister and not in fact missing anything that was going on around him at all, that he was in fact more aware of what she was doing than she was. She would pause and think about this sometimes and try to focus herself more fully on what she was doing, if she sould not take in the whole world around her like her father she could at least, she reasoned, pay closer attention to what she was doing.
+
+Thsi time of year that meant gather grasses and helping tend the fires of the kilns. The family had three kilns which burned around the clock for weeks as the stumps slowly burned down and the sap dripped slowly down to fill the buckets below. It was a hot, dangerous time of boil liquids, burning fires and other hazards which Lulu dreaded. No one had ever been burned too badly, though her father had once scalded his hand badly enough that the skin had come off. He made sure that the children did not handle the sap until it had cooled to a less scaulding temperture.
+
+The sago palm fronds clattered in the wind, a clicking ticking sound like the women's shoes on the plank sidewalks of Charles town.
+
+He father pulled the sail in toight, the boat heaved away from them, but her father leaned back against he gunwale slightly until to reached a balance point that balanced speed and awkwardness, the boat lept across the waves and out beyond the surf line of the sand bar to smoother water. The wind was blowing offshore, a storm from the west would be here tomorrow her father said. 
+
+Her father spun the little boat into the wind, dropped the sail and walked toward the bow to get the net. Birdie sprang up and followed. They heaved the net over the side, letting the drift of the current carry them away from it, spreading it out. Once it was out her father used and oar to bring the boat about to where he wanted it and then he yanked the tk line , shooting the halyard and the sail back up. It caught the wind the minute it was up and tighted the lines of the net, pulling them and the net back toward shore. Birdie leaned over the gunwale and watch as fish swam by and were pulled into the net. 
+
+By the time the neared the surfline again the net was choked with fish. She helped her father pull it in, though it became so heavy that eventually her effort was of little use. Her father wrapped the line around the mast and pulled the net, chock full of writhing fish up against the hull, fell off the wind as the boat came into the break of the sand bar and then, timing it with a wave, surfed the craft expertly over the sand bar and into the more sheltered inner waters where he began to paddle it in the shore.
+
+Hoisting the net, cleanign the fish and drying them. more description of their time at sea, her father smoking, talking of the sea, the old country perhaps, some kind of tradition.