Prologue
Sometimes I really cannot get rid of some bits of life. Astonishing ones, heartbreaking days, happy times. Like the day when mom passed away, like the day our Vanilla Shop welcomed the first group of buyers, like the day when dad promised to bring buckets of specialties, like the day when most of the sailors came back saying they came across a great lots of disasters and tried to hide the truth that my dad might never gonna come home. And the freshest piece of life recalls so often, making me sick to pursue it. The day I met Evan.
It was a rainy night in the end of the winter. I was doing some reading when granny cleaned up the table. Peaceful as usual, I thought.
It was hard to say when the rain stopped. But before I had noticed it, I heard a noise sounded like something had hit the front door.
That sound made me jump. And from granny's look I saw that I didn't miss anything. It was pretty late, and most of the families in Shores must be about to go bed. Who would that be?
I hesitantly went for the door, and grandpa hobbled downstairs to stop me. He went to the deposit room for some weapons to defend. Armed with an old rifle, he came back, an unspeakable smell of damp wood clinging to him.
He loaded the gun and stepped forward to get the door. Doubting whether that gun could still work, I followed immediately, worrying about what might burst in.
With a shriek of the rusty hinges, the door opened all in a sudden. A girl fell on the pat at the door, her hair soaked wet, her face pale like a sheet of paper, and her body trembling all over. A wreck of a terrible winter.
Granny went for the stock to make some hot drinking, and grandpa hanged the rifle on the hook used to keep the coats. I managed to drag the poor girl into the livingroom, and sat on the floor to check her body. It was evident to figure out that she was having a fever, no breaks of the body. This made the treatment easily to give.
I ran upstairs to fetch the dried ginger storage and poured several pieces into the pot on the stock. I swiftly washed up a bowl and filled it with the steaming liquid in the pot. At least this stuff would warm her up.
I kneed down to the floor and soothed:"Drink this. It will get rid of the cold and wet."
She grabbed that bowl tightly, mouth half-opened, as if tasting the scent uprising.
"Watch out, it was just boiled." I warned. Fearing for the hot liquid might hurt her throat.
"I hope to get some warmth." She whispered soberly and curled up slowly, managing to let every parts of her body to get close enough to the bowl and receive its warmth.
Granny took a towel and a roll of old blanket. I dried her hair and offered the blanket. She refused it, saying something like"I will get mud on it".
"Then go and take a bath." I suggested encouragingly.
"I am just for some food and a night's shelter, don't bother boiling water please."She replied simply.
It's not like something from a tramp. But wherever she would go, she could have got killed for the cough she was having. So I just sat back and waited her to sip the liquid.
