A Walk on the Water

"You must be Alannah, the Señora's young guest," he said in heavy Italian accent. "I am Patrick, the caretaker. What is it that brings you to this area of the Chateau, ar you exploring?" He closed the heavy door behind him with a deep resonating thud, he locked the door up tight by placing a rather large looking padlocked through the holes.

Alannah smiled and said "Yes sir, is that some sort of reservoir?" Alannah asked him.

The man raised an eyebrow, humorously. "Is another kind that I am not aware of jeune femme ? But yes, this is the reservoir that provides the running water to the Chateau, and also the water for irrigation. The mill pumps water up from the lake and into the reservoir, and the water runs downhill once more whenever the lines are opened." He said explaining how the water mill works, he paused to give her a questioning look. "Have you decided to stay? Or will you be leaving for Port Lira soon?"

Alannah looked at him with an absent expression, as if she was taking her tim to carfeully respond to his question. "I am not yet certain what I shall do. I don't know anything about Port Lira and my friend Nicolò is working her now. I would like to go to Port Lira and explore, to see if it is worth my leving the beauty of this countryside."

Patrick raised an eyebrow. "Why haven't you gone to have a look then? What are you afraid of my dear?"

"Have a look?" Alannah echoed, looking about almost with regret in her tone.

"Come," Patrick said, "I will turn off the pump and show you."

Alannah stopped momentarily to put her sandals back on, as it appeared that they would no longer be walking on the softness of the grass. She then followed him onto a narrow trail that unless you were looking for it you wouldn't even know it was there. The trail cut into the trees very close between the mill and dense forest that grew behind it. They went up a steep and winding path that wound its way through the trees, until it ended at a field deeply wooded at first, but the more they walked out toward the field the more it thinned out. Alannah found herself standing at the top of a series of green hills that rolled across the country side, they appeared full of life and swaths of trees and shrubs which had been planted on the hills to help prevent erosion from the mighty river below. At the bottom of the rolling hillsides was a bay - filled to the brim with marinas and buildings that appeared to be almost as the Chateau itself. In the center of this bustling community was a much smaller cove surrounded by houses.