Red Bush by Johannes Johns

Author:Johannes Johns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Otztal Doggerland Groupe
Published: 2020-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

Had she missed a section? Olivia carefully flipped the rice paper back until she found an especially stiff page, in actuality several pages stuck together—gah, she was getting tired. She bit her lip and blew out in a steady stream. Her thumb easily found the thumb-hole in her mom’s pocket knife and she flicked the blade out with her right hand while staring, eye level, at the edge of the diary on the table. She painstakingly slithered the knife into a tiny pucker between the stuck leaves, prizing the pages apart, gently, gently, until she’d found and felt the sticky fibers softly give way. The sheets moved freely now and she’d done no damage. Ernie had taught her paper’s ways well.

Ah, continuity, now this was more like it.

The Pindar had left Africa and the Atlantic Ocean behind, kicking profitably around the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, the South China Sea, and then on to the East China Sea, carrying cargo for sultans, kings, wealthy merchants, and the occasional passenger. In the case of the latter, they delivered a stranded Imperial court-official on the last of his diplomatic and trade legation, back to China, done as a favor for a Sultan buddy.

There was more about the political scene and shifting boundaries of the era and Sally’s continued introspection: the weighing of the routine, her largely satisfying life commanding a well-run ship at sea versus wondering if she was missing something elsewhere. By her own admission, hers was an enviable position and she was well-suited to her calling, found it profoundly satisfying. But the appearance of Pig, its presence, its existence, had expanded her horizons, her working sense of the possible, making her question what was beyond those horizons. She wondered if Rosebeetle—still no first name—was entirely happy, well not unhappy, but, as Sally wrote, “Weary of the sea, in need of greater challenge and novelty.” Those two seemed to be on parallel tracks, thought Olivia as she read.

Ah, now she’d caught herself up in Sally’s narrative. Her eyes were dry and the lids heavy, her yawn unstifleable. If she wanted to get a run in before school—her training with Byron on hiatus until after Halloween and The Red Wood Revenger’s close—she should really go to bed. She marked her place, but flipped a few sheets ahead—fear of missing out? On what? She chided. Events that happened three-centuries ago? But there on the page, the word “Doodster” leapt out. This woke her up. Captain Otto Van Dirk’s ship had inexplicably caught up with the Pindar! As Sally wrote, “Capt. Van Dirk’s gift is his great ability to deal and trade with wicked men.” The Doodster was working for the next lord over to counter the influence of the Pindar, rangaku versus rangaku. Olivia skimmed ahead until the word “Cascadia” flashed before her tired eyes. Both ships had been caught in a massive typhoon, which had blown them both far, far across the ocean.

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