THE CABIN WAS as Vetta remembered it. Even the two chairs placed opposite each other as if for an interview remained exactly where Truancy Mundane had placed them originally.
It gave the impression of unfinished business. When their quiet little talk had come to an end some nights ago and they parted, the room was magically frozen in time, awaiting their return.
Now she was back and the magic spell was about to be lifted.
Vetta stood there, unsure what might happen next, at the mercy of some unknown fate. Then she heard sounds from the trapdoor in the floor and braced herself as best she could.
The girl with blue hair appeared, leaping the last steps into the room with a dramatic flair that seemed important to her. She danced around the room briefly and Vetta watched this display of exuberance in silence.
'And so we meet again,' she said with a bow.
'Yes,' Vetta replied and gave the room a more considered perusal. Bundles of cloth, a few odd trinkets and some lengths of ropes hanging from the wooden walls suggested it was not a place where someone lived. Vetta remembered it was not Truancy's home. Was it then a store house for stolen things?
No. The Blue Hair Clan did not steal. Vetta believed this as earnestly as Truancy declared it. They borrowed, they traded and they admired. They did not steal.
They also searched and yearned and hungered. They were incomplete, at odds, troubled. At least this particular specimen appeared to be. Like a broken vase in need of fixing, a lost beach ball waiting to be found. What, Vetta thought, could she do to help?
Without warning she felt hands upon her, arms gripped firmly, and she was dragged to a chair to be planted unceremoniously upon it.
'I said sit,' Truancy declared with mock sternness.
'I am sorry,' Vetta replied, making herself more comfortable upon the chair. 'My thoughts misled me and I was inattentive. Please forgive me,' and she looked at the floor where a few pine cones lay scattered upon the bare boards.
'Forgive you? Of course I do you funny little thing. Friends always forgive each other.' Then she looked serious again. 'I am your friend, aren't I?'
'Yes,' Vetta said without hesitation. 'You bring me joy.'
'I do?' and Truancy laughed.
'Of course. Friendship is one of the five wellsprings of joy.'
'Oh, I see.'
She did see. It was part of her upbringing and she saw more than most. Only there were invisible things present too and this thought made her smile.