Storm

 

 

We all go. Grandpa and Dad and Hannah and me.

The night’s darker now. The snow’s falling thicker and the wind’s begun to blow.

Dad and Grandpa didn’t want me to come, but I wouldn’t stay behind. Something’s shaken Dad out of his don’t-fight, don’t-talk mode. He was angrier than I’ve ever seen him.

“You don’t talk to strangers,” he said. “Never. What part of never don’t you understand?”

“He’s not a stranger!” I said. “We’re friends.”

“No,” said Dad. He slammed his hand down on the table. “Christ, Molly! Don’t you know how important that is?”

I started to cry.

“Hey,” said Grandpa. “Hey, Toby.” He put his hand on Dad’s arm. “Let’s wait and see, eh? See what’s there.”

But Dad pulled his arm away.

“You have no right to say anything in this conversation,” he said to Grandpa. “Nothing! I haven’t even begun on what I think of you.”

Once I’d started to cry, I couldn’t stop.

“He’s sick,” I said. I wouldn’t look at Dad. “He’s sick and he could be dying and all you’re doing is fighting.”

 

So now here are, walking through the snow.

The trees are making noises, like voices.

Hurry. Hurry, or it’ll be too late.

I’m so frightened I can hardly breathe.

Hurry, say the trees. Hurry.

I have this huge, wrong feeling. There’s something strange about tonight. The world doesn’t quite fit on top of itself. The edges are shifting. If we don’t get there soon, something terrible will happen.

Hurry, say the trees.

Dad and Grandpa are fussing with the gate. Grandpa’s opening it. How odd that all that time I’ve been climbing over it, it was openable after all.

I run through into the field.

“Hey, Moll—” calls Grandpa, but I can’t stop. I stumble through the snow to the barn.

Now.

There’s a crack. Thunder. Lightning tears the sky in two. We’re the centre of the storm again.

I fall through the door, into the barn. Lightning flares and for a moment it shows a picture – two men, one tall and horned, standing, the other lying face down on the ground. The standing man has his fist raised in the air. There’s something unnatural about his stillness, and the way the other lies. And then the lightning’s gone and the barn is empty, save for the boom of thunder around us.

I know, without the tiniest piece of doubt, that my man isn’t here any more.

I am filled with terror.

And then the storm comes.