"I was left to the tender mercies of the nurse who took a few gallonsof blood before taping over the well she had drilled and telling menot to remove ...the tape for at least a year. Or was it an hour? Would Ileak to death if I did, I wondered!The drive home was in silence. We got indoors and Mum put the kettleon for a cuppa.I couldn't keep it in any longer!"What did she mean by support, Mum? Have I got to see a trickcyclistor something?"A quick smile flashed over he face."Er.. Not that kind of. ’ Alyssa smiled back at Penny and said, ‘Well everyone is very welcoming around here, so I’m sure you’ll have no trouble settling in. Yes, we’re all very welcoming, especially us girls.’ There was a slight undertone to Alyssa’s final statement Penny didn’t quite get, a faint broadening of her smile suggesting she was trying to hint at something more. Still, Alyssa seemed friendly, and Penny didn’t give it a second thought. Instead, she reciprocated Alyssa’s welcome, ‘When Mark and I are. After that, he had been handed from one family to the next until he was ten years old. He was tall then for his age and he began to beat up on children who taunted him. The village then decided that the ungrateful boy must leave and Erwin took him in, in his hut in the middle of the forest.For eight more years, Erwin raised the boy as best he could, teaching him the delicate craft of turning wood into coal. The man and the boy lived and worked alone. Nobody ever visited except for the Baron's. I have no talent for war, no talent for hunting, and I make a poor excuse for a drunk. Years ago I reached the point where even lechery was boring." Carefully he topped off his wine, then he belched."I kept asking myself why I continued. Why did I bother?" He smiled, but it wasn't a pretty smile. "I am too great a coward to end my life. There must be something more, but what is it? And then I realized the problem was my desires. If I stopped wanting more, then I wouldn't miss it. The simpler,.