51003

1 files changed, 39 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/lbh.txt b/lbh.txt
index 69050c7..7674811 100644
--- a/lbh.txt
+++ b/lbh.txt
@@ -1189,7 +1189,7 @@ Kobayashi smiled at her, "I was lighting the lattern over by the stove, waiting
 
 "What? I never even saw you."
 
-He shrugged. "You never looked, I figured you could see in the dark. You found the rigging didn't you?"
+He shrugged. "You never looked."
 
 A flash lit up the sky and the first rumble of thunder drifted toward them. Tambo came running foward and he and Kobayashi dropped sounding lines and yelled out depths. The number came ever smaller, then sudden bigger as they entered the main channel of the river. Lulu helped her sister reef the sail and together with the current this slowed them considerably and they swung alongside a low flat island. Tambo jumped for shore and pulled them in and around the back. In the fading light Lulu could see it was only maybe ten feet above the river at it's tallest. A thick stand of oaks and pines stood in the middle of the island. It was there that she and her Aunt took two tarps and plently of line to try to construct a shelter of some kind. Kobayashi and her father dragged the lifeboat off the tk, flipped it over, and propped it between two trees. Lulu and Aunt Māra drapped a tarp over the upturned hull and began tying the tarp down to the base of the trees around them.
 
@@ -1815,6 +1815,8 @@ Lulu's father nodded at her. Her eyelids where heavy and she found herself havin
 
 ## Sails
 
+### Lulu spots ship
+
 Lulu woke from a dream where she was gliding over the water, slow and smooth like a pelican, alone, her wing tips skimming the waves and watching the schools the fish dart from her shadow. And then she was in her usual body, lying on a calico quilt on the sand. She sat up and stretched and shook Birdie, who swatted at her. 
 
 "Come on, Birdie, lets play what we were playing last night."
@@ -1841,6 +1843,8 @@ She ducked into the tent, Tambo and Kobayashi had a of sail cloth bag of their g
 
 ---
 
+### Birdie with her father
+
 "Do you know why I kept you behind?" Her father sat still drinking coffee, but she saw him glance frequently at the dunes behind her. 
 
 Birdie shook her head. She felt like she was going to explode. She understood what Anne had said once about battle. *Fear is different than being scared. Fear is feeling like you want to jump out of your skin and leave your body hehind*.
@@ -1965,7 +1969,7 @@ Even now somewhere out in that blackness her people were trying to slip out of t
 
 Aunt Māra getting away was the beginning of that plan and that had worked. So far so good. Birdie rolled over toward the wall of grass siding. She wished she could slip out the hidden door and disappear. But she could not leave her father.
 
----
+### Lulu on Delos escape
 
 It all happened so fast that Lulu never had a chance to feel anything. She and Henri were off down the trail headed for Delos before it really even hit her that Birdie was not with them. It wasn't until she was knee deep in pluff mud, helping Kobayashi push Delos into deeper water that it hit her, where was Birdie. It was like something in the center of her had switched off, a vast open space created where there had been none. She wasn't positive, but she was pretty sure she and Birdie had never been apart for more than a few hours. Even then, Birdie was out fishing, or Lulu was down the river at Kadiatu's, they were both here. And now they were not. 
 
@@ -1986,9 +1990,41 @@ She brought Delos out into the wide channel of current. She felt the boat slip a
 
 She turned Delos back into the middle of the river and squinted at the trees in the distance. They seemed so far away. Delos felt so exposed out here. She wanted to turn around and look, but she could not. Were there soldiers there on the shore watching them slide upriver. Had they captured her father and Birdie? She could not bring herself to turn around and look. It was better to wonder than to know that that had happened. There was nothing she could do anyway. She tried to force thoughts of her father and Birdie from her mind. Just focus on what you have to do. Take note of what's going on, because bad things may happen, but you can't react to them now. Never react, always act. Her father's words in her head. She tried. But somehow Birdie kept creeping back into her mind and she felt afraid. She shivered and tried to focus on the river, on the wind, the current, Henri's voice, but he sat silent in the bow. She wondered if he felt the great emptiness inside her that she felt. Is it different when you're a twin she wondered, or did everyone feel this way?
 
-Finally, after what seemed like hours, Delos drew near the trees that marked the inland border of the marsh. Then they slipped into the wider current of the river. Here the current was slower, the water deeper. Another hour brought them to the stand of flooded Cypress they'd prepared years ago in case they need to hide Delos. She brough the boat alongside the edge of the largest of the trees and Tambo and Kobayashi, exhausted from rowing, but running on that same adrenaline and fear that Lulu had used to pilot Delos, managed to secure Delos. They lowered the dingy over the side with a block and some tackle. Using a bow line, Tambo rowed the small boat further into the thicket of trees and then, wrapped the line around a large cypress, ran it back through the tackle, and slowly winched Delos into the tree grove. An hour later could have been paddling up river within twenty yards of Delos and not seen her. Lulu knew this because she took the dingy and paddled twenty yards out to fish for dinner and she had troubel finding her way bak the Delos with her three large catfish.
+Finally, after what seemed like hours, Delos drew near the trees that marked the inland border of the marsh. Then they slipped into the wider current of the river. Here the current was slower, the water deeper. Another hour brought them to the stand of flooded Cypress they'd prepared years ago in case they need to hide Delos. She brough the boat alongside the edge of the largest of the trees and Tambo and Kobayashi, exhausted from rowing, but running on that same adrenaline and fear that Lulu had used to pilot Delos, managed to secure Delos. They lowered the dingy over the side with a block and some tackle. Using a bow line, Tambo rowed the small boat further into the thicket of trees and then, wrapped the line around a large cypress, ran it back through the tackle, and slowly winched Delos into the tree grove. An hour later could have been paddling up river within twenty yards of Delos and not seen her. Lulu knew this because she took the dingy and paddled twenty yards out to fish for dinner and she had trouble finding her way back to Delos with her three catfish.
+
+Kobayashi cooked the catfish below deck, waiting until the sun had set and mist coming up off the river would mask any smoke that might drift up. They ate in silence, Tambo at the bow until Lulu had finished and she came up to relieve him. It was like standing watch, but not fun and exhilerating like that was. This was scary and nerve wracking and Lulu depserately wished she could close her eyes and everything would just go back to normal, that this was all a dream should wake from, still on the beach between her sister and brother, no ship on the horizon. But it was out there, the ship that is, somewhere out there. The question they all wanted answered was whether or not it was out there looking for them.
+
+They gave Lulu and Henri first watch. Tambo and Kobayashi hung their hammocks topside and slept, or tried, Lulu wasn't sure how anyone could possibly sleep right now. They rested anyway. She and Henri sat on the windlass, staring out at the darkness. 
+
+"Lu?"
+
+"Yeah?"
+
+"I wish Papa was here. I'm scared."
+
+Lulu sighed. She was scared too. She wished Papa was there too. They were never apart and she did not like it. "Tambo says he'll get away as soon as he can. But he has to talk to the man, otherwise we might have to leave the island." She saw her bother's face squeeze up into a frown.
+
+"But we are leaving the island. We already left the island. And tonight we're trying to get out to sea."
+
+"to go get help."
+
+"Why do we need help Lulu? We never need help, why do we need it now?"
+
+This stopped Lulu mid thought. She realized he was right and she had not even thought about it. She had simply accepted that they needed help. But why did they need help. And why were they hiding? If all her father was doing was talking to a man about pine trees, why did he want the ship hidden? And why did the man bring soldiers? Obviously there was more going on than Lulu had worked out. She'd been too busy and too caught up in her own fear and pain to think about the bigger picture. She'd failed what her Papa always said, detach, step back and take a look around. See the whole picture before you dive into your part in it.
+
+Not only had she not detached, spending far too much time worrying about the future rather than using the present to create future. Worse though, she had fail to look at the bigger picture and failed to ask questions... of herself, of Tambo, of anyone. She had accepted it all as it was handed to her. 
+
+"I don't know why we need help," she said finally.
+
+Henry scooted closer to her so their legs were touching. She could feel his fear. She put her arm around him and he laid his head against her arm. "What I do know, she said after a while, "is that we're going to make it out of here tonight and we're going to get help. We're going to do what we're supposed to do."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+She wasn't sure. She could just... feel it somehow. She could see it in a vague way, she could already see them at sea in the wind and sunlight. "I don't know how I know Henri, I just know that I know."
 
+Henry did not say anything, he just continued to lean against her. 
 
+Lulu watched the water in front of them shimmering black in the starlit night. Overhead the wispy cloud of stars her father called the great sail was glowing above them. Lulu felt herself relax. She felt the weight of her bother against her, warm and safe. She squeezed him tighter and said a prayer for them all.
 
 
 # Spring