The Blue Seal of Trinity Cove by Linda Maree Malcolm Page A

their growls becoming louder and more menacing with each passing moment. The men backed away slowly and then one by one started to run back in the direction they had come. The last one shouted, “You’ll be sorry for this, mister. We’ll be back. You’ll see.”

    The dogs settled themselves on the porch of the shack, staring in the direction the men had gone and happy to wait it out. The leader of the dogs stayed on alert while the others put their heads down and got some sleep. The man went inside and told Wanda to sit at the table and he offered her some stew which she ate voraciously. He watched her as she ate and feeling his eyes on her, she slowed down and tried to appear as if she had used a spoon to eat every day of her life, which was an untruth. This was the first time she had ever set eyes on a spoon and she felt awkward.
    She watched him too. He packed his pipe and smoked it, blowing the smoke into the fire. It seemed to relax him to be able to smoke but still he held his eyes on her.
    â€œWhat’s your name, lass?” he finally asked.
    â€œWanda,” she said in her own language, touching her collar bone, intuitively sensing he asked for personal information about her.
    He rubbed at his eyes and held his head down for the longest time and Wanda worried that she may have offended him or that her language was somehow disturbing to him. With his hands covering his eyes she watched as his whole body started to convulse. She realised that he was crying. She looked to the door. Maybe she had made a mistake to come here and now it was time to leave. Quietly, she stood up and backed toward the door. She took deep breaths in preparation for the running that she would have to do to reach the gorge. He looked up at that point and seeing that she was about to leave, he stood up and wiped his eyes and asked her to sit back down again.
    â€œI’m sorry, lass,” he said, suddenly realising how disturbing to her his behaviour must have been. “Please, sit down and finish your lunch and don’t let a silly old fool like me bother you none.” He touched her on her arm and pointed toward the table. “It’s just that you remind me of my own little lassie,” he said, and he took the photo off the mantle and handed it to her. “My lovely wife, God rest her soul, and I, came out here some years back to live. Life was going to be grand; we were going to build a homestead. This was going to be the biggest farm around these parts. We had so many dreams, the two of us. But then when the little one came into the world I lost her – and well … life just wasn’t the same after that,” he stared out of the window as if in a dream.
    Wanda could tell that the story was still too painful for him to remember. Even though she didn’t understand exactly what he was saying she was aware of his great distress.
    â€œAnd then I lost her too,” he said, choking back fresh new tears and making and unmaking fists with his hands. He pointed to the little girl in the photo, “One night she just up and disappeared in the middle of the night and I never saw her again. I spent months looking for her – but she was gone. No-one’s clapped eyes on her since …”
    Wanda stared at the photo for some time as a new thought – a memory actually – was forming in her mind. She locked eyes with the man as new words that she had been unaware she knew suddenly appeared in her mind. At the same time, he frowned at her as if something had just occurred to him as well.
    â€œWhere did you say you were from, lass?” he asked.
    â€œDadda,” Wanda said, pointing to the photo and wondering how this new word had come out of her mouth. The man sprang from his chair and stood motionless next to the fire.
    â€œDadda,” Wanda said again with more emphasis and stood up as well, feeling equally as shocked. And then she felt quite dizzy as a torrent