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Her eyes widened as did herto speak but instead her jaw remained open in confusion

She shook her head, “I don’t understand”

He pulled a dark green fleecy blanket from the trunk near her feet He reached in very slowly and held it up for her, “Please co”

She looked at the war it She looked, realizing she had been to the courtyard surrounding her She knehere she was

“I hurt myself?” Still hazy she asked softly

He nodded raising his eyebrows, “Your answers are inside”

She looked to her right at the large ht her to She had loved it,up there She i out back She i her into his life It could have been their hoinations of a hopeful lost little girl Instead she welco wo his weathered soft hand and allowed him to cover her mostly naked body in the warm fleecy blanket She wrapped herself coravel hurt her feet She stepped gingerly, trying to find the path of least resistance

“Who are you?” She asked not looking back at hi them

“I am your family's man”

She played with the words in her mind The word 'man' struck her as odd She had questions but decided they should wait for her father

The front of the huge hos of an old forest scene The handles were golden colored, although she wouldn’t be surprised if they truly were gold Her father was odd in a way only rich people were allowed to be Gold door handles would be one of the lesser weird moments for her

The olderfor her to enter She walked through the threshold slowly, still worried about how she had landed in a trunk with nearly nothing on

She followed beside hi the hard stone floors Her father had a thing for granite She followed him to a back room she had not seen before Inside was a four-poster bed with extravagances all around it The furniture was dark cherry wood, suiting the Tudor home perfectly

She looked at the figure on the huge bed, squinting to see his face in the

A weak looking discolored individual she had never seen before lay on the huge bed Suddenly she realized it was her father The sickly looking version of him had replaced the robust handsome man

“Father?”

He turned his eyes to her, looking further disheartened, “Hanna, oh thank god you found her Roland” He spoke breathlessly It was as if he struggled to breath

“I did Sir and I will leave you t unless you need so further?”

Her father waved a sickly looking thin hand, “No please go and rest old man”

Roland chuckled bitterly, “Old am I? Then you Sir are ancient” He bowed and left the room silently

Hanna walked to her father and sat in the huge wooden rocking chair at his bedside She felt concern cross her face and struggled to look as if she didn’t care

His dark eyes glossed over, “I-I-I am s-s-so s-s-sorry Hanna” His wrinkled face treed in the few short months since her last visit

He s hu hiain his composure

“I have betrayed you in every way”

She frowned not speaking, terrified to ruin a moment she had waited her whole life for

“I don’t even have enough time now to explain the entirety of the situation to you” His voice grew grainy He cleared his throat again

"How are you this sick?" She couldn’t believe how old and haggard he looked

“I a it You were an accident, as was your hway ofto help, I left you there stranded I never kne to fix any of it I've tried to find a cure Hanna, I really have” His eyes watered, Hanna watched as he began to cry She felt distraught, not only for being called an accident but that he had waited until his last moments to reach out to her She couldn’t believe he hadn’t told her was ill

“I left you with theht she knew theht we knew them Now I see, I see what they are Of course now it is too late” He coughed as if the liquidhim inside, “You’ll need this, it's your only hope” He passed her a sheet of paper with rarades, or how bad she had done