Even reading the scriptures and praying her mind and heart would not settle, and her temper would not be tamed. Alannah went on with her life as she always had, and for two years life was good. She had God she had the love of a good man and she was finally happy - or so she thought. She still had her stormy moods, and she still dealt with those in the same way, she walked them off.
Timothie had finally gotten up the courage to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Granted she was only fourteen, Timothie was not a bum he was going to be the next Pastor of the Church. The most important thing to Alannah was love, and the two of them had enough of that to last them a lifetime. Her father refused Timothie and forbade Alannah from seeing him ever again. It took a long time for Alannah to get over the heartbreak of losing Timothie, she thought she might even run away with him, but his destiny was to stay in Dalkey, so Alannah became bitter. Alannah would still sneak out and she still paid the price for defying her father. Her moods maintained their darkened swings, and she became hurtful. After two years of dealing with heartbreak, nothing had changed in Alannah, except her will to leave had gotten stronger.
It was during one of her dark and "stormy" moods when she found herself down on the water's edge. She had met a mysterious sailor who offered her the world. He was tall, had dark wavy hair, and eyes that could look into your soul. He introduced himself as Nicolò Giovanni.
Alannah told Timothie about the new man that she had met, Timothie still very much in love with her begged Alannah to stop seeing him. Timothie warned Alannah that this stranger was up to no good, but Alannah was stubborn and headed no warnings. She kept going to meet Nicolò every night that she could. The more they met and talked the more she thought that she was falling for him. The two of them would sit and talk for hours, lying on the hill looking up at the stars. He would lay there next to her and caress her face and her arms and kiss her like there was no tomorrow. Alannah told him of her dreams, how she wanted to get away from everything, and that was when he told her that his ship left on the morrow for Germany, he offered to take her with him and Alannah jumped at the chance to get away.