The White Lady - Volume 5

The White Lady : Volume 5

Loreta and her father Denil lived in a meager house along the wharves. While Loreta's father earned his living working on the docks or sweeping up after the craftsmen in the Forge District, he would often earn extra coin during his days off or on weekends in the marketplace. He would always take Loreta with him. The two would walk through the marketplace and Denil would play tunes on his pipes to earn a few coins. The mellow sounds of the pipes echoing through the streets made many of the vendors smile. One tune that he played, a happy tune that sounded like raindrops splashing on the cobblestones, would always make Loreta laugh and dance. The little girl would dance around and the joy on her shining face was contagious. Loreta soon learned to hold her father's hat out to collect the coin people gave them when she danced to her father's song. It was a tough life, but it was hers, and the little girl knew nothing different.

Until the day that changed everything.

When the shouting and clanging and the ringing of the wharf bells came Denil hurried Loreta to a safe place under her tiny bed. He tucked a small bag full of apples and nuts and a canteen of water beside her, and gave her a warm blanket and her favorite doll. Then he soothed her fears and kissed her forehead and whispered that he loved her very much and to stay hidden under the bed until he returned. She watched as he put on what patchwork armor he owned, strapped his sword to his side, and slung his playing pipes over his shoulder before closing the door behind him.

Loreta hid under the bed a long time, until it was dark, and light, and then dark again. She ate her nuts and apples and drank from her small canteen until they were both gone. Chilled and cramped under the bed the frightened young girl wept and clung to her blanket, waiting and waiting and waiting for her father to come home. But he never did. Still, Loreta did what she'd been told and stayed under the bed until her little stomach ached with hunger and her throat was parched with thirst.

In the depths of the third night Loreta awoke in the darkness of her house, her eyes widening as she realized that what had awakened her from sleep were the haunting sounds of a playing pipe echoing through the streets. It sounded so much like Denil's playing that her little legs twitched with the overpowering urge to climb out from under her bed and run out of the house and just go! At that very moment, though, she heard the softest of swooshes and her dark bedroom was bathed in a nimbus of blue light. Loreta clapped her hand over her mouth to stop her squeak of fright and watched in frozen dread as the nimbus came closer to her hiding place. At long last a hand reached out to her, and as the hand touched her shoulder, all the girl's fears drained straight away. Loreta slipped out from under the bed and into the gentle embrace of a ghostly, shimmering Lady in white. The White Lady cradled the girl to her breast, soothing her silently with a touch like that of a mother's, something long lacking in the girl's life. Finally the Lady put her down, stood and extended her hand for Loreta to take.

Loreta and the Lady glided down the streets of the city, guided by the muted sounds of the pipes reverberating off the cobblestoned roads. No one saw the girl and the Lady - or if they did it was easily dismissed as the curls of the mists rising from the ground. When at long last Loreta approached the source of the piping and saw her father's form silhouetted in the moonlight, his playing pipes raised to his lips, Loreta let go of the White Lady's hand and squealed with delight as she ran into her father's arms.

Only when Denil held his daughter at arm's length, eyes vacant and with no hint of recognition shining in them, did the girl see the nimbus of blue appear once more in the air behind her father. The White Lady flowed into place behind the confused man. Her face was shrouded in haze, her expression unknown behind the swirling shimmer of her presence, but her arms and hands as they pierced the fabric of the air were startlingly clear. In the blink of an eye the White Lady's fingertips brushed across Denil's temples and Denil fell to his knees. The air shimmered and then returned to normal as Denil coughed, once, and his vision cleared. His smile and his laugh were enough to let Loreta know that, against all odds, her father was once again home.

Anyone who asked later would get nothing but a shrug of his shoulders from Denil and a small, secretive smile from Loreta. "It was easy to find my daddy. A lady in white showed me."