Child of the Storm

by R. B. Stewart

  When she figured she’d seen enough to see the patterns, she closed her eyes and listened. She listened right past the sounds of the city; listening for something else until she figured she had heard it. Then she put her attention on feeling what the air had to say. She rubbed it between her fingers and sensed how it lay against her skin like some fine material or something coarse.

  It was all stitched together, the sight and smell and feel of the air. It was like some grand, picturous quilt. And there was a story to that quilt, where she could see what was now, and she could imagine how it had come to be so. And maybe she could imagine how things might go with the weather of that day.

  Celeste laid aside her seeing and her hearing and her feeling of the air, and she brought out her imagination, to see what it would make of all that was seen, heard and felt. And through it all, the bear was at her right hand, but quiet and watchful. That was long work, and almost too long for a day, given what she hoped to do. By the time she was ready, the notions of clouds were in the process of becoming clouds indeed, but they would be a rabble of clouds and none with anything more than rain. And there would be little enough of that, but enough maybe for somewhere here and somewhere there, but none at all somewhere else. She opened her eyes for just long enough to see that the clouds were not so far into becoming that a suggestion couldn’t be made. Then she closed her eyes again. She reached out along those faint threads that fashioned the day’s weather in that tiny portion of the world, and she dropped a word into it, like a grain of sand dropped in a pool that sets off ripples that none could see. And that was all she could do.

  The clouds formed in the unstable heat of the afternoon, before the sun could set and the night could bring a settling of the air again. Celeste watched them build; a cloud to her west and more to her east. Little floating islands rushing inland. She watched them until they were gone and the sun set and the stars burned in the clear sky. The frogs and crickets sang, and Celeste went inside to eat and then to sleep. It had not been a long or hard day, but she was tired.

  The next morning found Dubois’ less distracted by the private concerns of Annie and George. Annie strode back and forth among the staff preparing to feed the ovens, an air of triumph about her.

  “Millie’s party went well?” Celeste asked. “No rain to speak of?”

  “Clouds in sight, but none overhead,” Annie replied. “Thank goodness for that.”

  George was standing by, directing a new hire, but he paused to follow the conversation. “Then I got the rain you were fearing, and thank goodness for that too.”

  Celeste rocked back against a table and enjoyed the news of what she took to be her own efforts rewarded. Secret efforts. But when she looked around at George, she found he was looking at her in a most peculiar way—an expression she couldn’t read. She raised her eyebrows at him and he nodded.

  Those stirring of leaves and shepherding of clouds turned Celeste’s mission into a quiet obsession. Not that she neglected the bakery or those closest to her. Nor did it break that thread of postings between her and Jonathan Hogue. But when and where she could, she turned a deaf ear to the tedious things that would have filled up her mind had she let them. She let go of some things, but she didn’t neglect her artwork, since for her, it was just one more tool in her work of touching the elements; an essential part of that touching. Watercolor paintings covered the walls of the house and drawings filled book after book. New Orleans rolled along with all its multitude of doings, and she wished it well and left it to its never ending business. If she had her way, and she meant to, it would keep on as it had been forever and untroubled.

  Eight years had passed since Audrey. Bread flowed out from ovens and word flowed in from Hattiesburg; good word of stability and happiness for the twins that had known little of either at the hands of Audrey.

  Betsy

  Stars wheeled and crickets sang. Folks might be walking past, but the porch was dark and she sat hidden from all eyes, except for those of the bear when Celeste slipped across the border between the worlds. Celeste was dreaming intently, reaching out, far along her web.

  She sat on the porch, but her dreaming eyes looked out on a dry vastness as foreign to her waking eyes that knew lush greenness, as a deep forest would seem to those living in that far away desert. A woman stood in the midst of it, alone and filled with an anger that might have come from the east side of a storm. She was shouting. Shouting to the sky and the sands. And the force of her voice stirred up the heavens and the desert and the two mingled and churned, surging away from her and toward the distant ocean. Her voice carried on and on, rising and churning the earth and then the ocean below.

  Celeste couldn’t understand what words the woman shouted. Maybe they were words of magic that only the elements could understand and Celeste hadn’t mastered fully. Maybe it was the language of the mystères served by Aurore. She knew she was dreaming by then, and the vision had delivered whatever message it had meant to leave with her, and it faded away. She let it go; knowing that to stop its going was an impossible thing. She could change it, but that would change the meaning.

  “You sense something?” the bear said.

  “All of this reaching out along the threads of weather may have touched things I’m not aware of—things bigger and more complicated than the stirring of a breeze. Like I’m a child talking to my elders about worldly matters.”

  “You’ve reached out, and something is reaching back,” suggested the bear.

  “Maybe so. Or maybe it’s nothing but a dream.” Celeste looked up into the enormous, star filled sky of the bear’s world, now folded over them to replace Celeste’s vision. “Maybe just a dream. Only it doesn’t feel that way.”

  Annie told her she was getting a bit old for her bicycle riding, especially at the crack of dawn, but she wasn’t ready to give up coming into the bakery, and she didn’t intend to walk all that way. Today was one such day in particular she needed to be there and needed information that had nothing to do with baking. The thought of calling in never occurred to her.

  She found Annie first of all. “Heard anything on the weather?”

  “Hot,” Annie laughed. “What are you planning?”

  “Nothing. Just wondered if there were any storms in the Gulf.”

  “Not that I’ve heard.”

  She found George. He was always more plugged into the news.

  “There’s one out there alright,” he said. “Don’t any of you watch TV? They’re calling this one Betsy and looks like it’s going for Florida. Maybe the Keys. For a while there it was just wandering in the ocean like it was lost.”

  “Or looking for something,” Celeste muttered.

  “You want me to keep you posted on this hurricane, in case she takes a turn our way?”

  “Yes I do.”

  A day later, George found Celeste to bring her up to date on developments. She was seated behind the small desk in the cramped office of the bakery, transferring papers from the desk’s filing drawer into what had once been a small suitcase but was now something else, because Celeste needed it for something else.

  “It’s in the Gulf,” George said. “Sounds like she beat up the south end of Florida pretty bad.”

  “And where is she going now,” she asked.

  “They can’t say for sure.” George said, watching Celeste sort and re-file. “Can’t know so soon. Could hit Texas or even as far east as the panhandle, but it’s big and getting bigger; hundreds of miles across and a great big eye looking for land somewhere. But if I had my guess, I’d say she’s coming here.”

  Celeste looked up. “Why here?”

  “Because of you.”

  “Why because of me?”

  He bowed up. “Because you know it’s coming here. I don’t know how it is you know, but you do. Like you know about a lot of things that no one knows how you know, but you know it anyway. You see it coming. You always know when the rain’s going to cut loose just before it does. And here you are gathe
ring things from a drawer down low so it won’t get lost in a flood.”

  Celeste spread her long fingers across the top of the case. That was exactly what she was doing. And he was right about all of it. She did know it was coming. “Don’t be silly,” she said, then added. “When would it get here?”

  “If it keeps going like it’s going, then it’ll be tomorrow night or so. They’re already telling folks to get ready, just in case. Telling those who bother to watch TV. Soon, maybe they’ll tell folks to leave.”

  “And go where,” Celeste asked. “How easy would it be for you to pick up and go somewhere else? You don’t have family inland.”

  “No ma’am. Everyone I know is right around here. But at least your old aunt’s house is a little higher spot in the pond, for what that’s worth.”

  Celeste sighed heavily. “Tomorrow we’ll know, I guess. I’ll tell everyone we’ll be closed tomorrow if Betsy comes this way. Anyone who has somewhere else to go ought to head out if they want to. Before it gets too late.”

  She could hear voices outside as the shop opened.

  “Tell everyone in the shop to share out whatever goes unsold.”

  Betsy was a monster. By the following evening, it was certain that she was drawing in on New Orleans or would pass very near. George told Celeste that men in planes had tried to kill Betsy off while she was still far out to sea and growing; showering her with ice crystals or some such thing like sorcerers spreading magic dust, only it didn’t work. Maybe it made things worse, and now she was intent on striking back. Yet there Celeste sat on her porch watching the sky to the south and the east, and pondering her own desire to touch the storm before it could reach the city.

  Dubois’ closed and Celeste urged anyone who could get inland to do so. Odette was too old and stubborn to go. Still, she couldn’t leave her to fend for herself, but feared she might call Betsy down on her aunt’s home by going there—so she worked it another way. She convinced Odette that she wanted to get George and his new family, including one little baby girl, somewhere safer than where they were. It was a chance she took, knowing Odette’s reservations about children, but she counted on her aunt’s pride in being of help, even now. Better to propose it that way than to tell her she was sending someone over to watch over her during the storm. Fortunately, it worked.

  A mosquito landed on her arm and she slapped it flat, her hand showing a smudge of blood that might have once been her own. Like that tiny mosquito, Betsy was a thing of the air, born of the water, and she would call air and water to her purpose, driving the Gulf into the wetlands and lakes. For a day or even a span of hours, Betsy could fill them to overflowing and set them pounding against the town walls like invaders bent on plunder. And how would those walls manage against such a pounding? Feet of clay. And what of Mr. Douglas and his parade route for a storm. What of Mr. Go?

  A light came on in the house across the street, leaking out from gaps in the boards set across the windows, and then the old woman who lived there came out onto her porch, saw Celeste and waved to her. Celeste rose and crossed the street to have a word.

  “So you mean to stay, Miss Dubois?” her neighbor asked.

  “I do, Miss Dee. I have the bakery to worry about, and most of my folks who work there haven’t anywhere else to go either, so I suppose we’ll stay put and hope for the best.”

  “They expect it’ll be bad tonight,” the old woman said as her old fingers plucked nervously at the arm of her rocking chair. “Guess I ought to bring this in. Wouldn’t want to lose it to the wind.”

  “I’ll carry it in for you.” Celeste looked at the boards over the windows and thought how poorly they’d been secured. Had she done it herself or did someone do it for her? If she had paid, she had overpaid. Celeste knew her own house was safer and even stood a little higher than the old woman’s, but to take her in might only put her in greater danger. On the other hand, Betsy was so big.

  I’ll be more at peace through this night if she’s somewhere away from here, Celeste thought as they carried the rocking chair inside; the old woman offering what amounted to the ceremonial sort of help that dignitaries bring to a wreath laying. It’s hard to give up doing for yourself. Time’s short and I need to find someone to take her in. Someone to come collect her, she thought, and scolded herself for not thinking of her neighbor sooner than this, the brink of storm fall.

  Like an answer to her call for help, they heard the rumble of an engine and saw the La Salle pull up in front of Celeste’s house.

  “Excuse me a minute,” Celeste said to her neighbor. “It’s a friend of mine that I need to have a word with, but I’ll be back shortly.”

  Aurore met her in the street and took Celeste’s hands in her own. Her grip was firm and urgent. “I’d hoped to find you off to higher ground.”

  “There’s none of that around here.”

  “You mean to stay then.”

  Celeste had shared so many secrets with her old friend and never been ridiculed, but she studied Aurore’s face most deeply before choosing how she would reply. “This magic and healing you do with the mystères. What might you do against a thing such as Betsy?”

  Aurore held her friend’s hands all the tighter and searched her face as Celeste searched hers. “I might call on Agoueh for help, but his concern is more for those who travel the seas, not those of us on land threatened by a storm of the Gulf. I might call on all manner of mysteries of Voodoo and not-Voodoo. But I would think long and deep about testing myself against a storm such as this one, friend. Powers, you most certainly have. I see that more clearly than even you may see, but this storm has it’s Powers too.”

  “She’s turned about before,” Celeste said. “She might turn again—if she could be persuaded.”

  “Yes, she turned about in search of her way, back when she was still a young storm, looking for her path. But she’s found that now and means to follow it.”

  “My house is strong,” Celeste said. “I’ll be as safe here as I will be anywhere, and what if I could shift her away?”

  “And send her where? Who would you set her on? Would you have her strike down those poor people to your east or to your west? People who might be resting at peace, believing they were safe?” She softened then, and added. “I don’t think you’re ready, friend. Not yet.”

  That shook Celeste, but her friend held her hands firmly, supporting her. Celeste looked across the street to where her neighbor stood waiting on that faltering front porch of hers.

  “My house is strong and hers isn’t,” Celeste said. “I don’t think she’ll survive the night alone and she’ll be so frightened. I’ll let the storm come and see what it means to bring or to take away, but I can’t do that and protect an old woman as well.”

  Aurore smiled and released her hands. “I’ll take her in, if you think she’ll be any less frightened of a Voodoo Queen than a hurricane. But if the streets allow, I’ll be back here come the morning to check on you. Promise me you won’t let the storm take back what it brought to your mother that day.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  The old woman went away with Aurore. She was distressed that Celeste would not come along, but whether it was out of concern for Celeste or uncertainty over the Voodoo Queen, it was hard to tell. The nightmare would have been to face Betsy alone. Celeste rested easier with her neighbor and her friend safely away.

  Cleaning

  Clouds surged overhead like dark heralds. The street was empty. She went inside and secured her door as best she could. At some point the power would most likely go out, so she prepared something to eat and sat at the table with memories of her parents as she stared at the stark walls. All of her paintings and drawings were packed away into the attic—her refuge. The floor of the house stood a few feet below the level of the Gulf, but how far below, she couldn’t say. Lower than the ground by the river. All around the room boxes and baskets of things sat on the tallest furniture she could find for them. She could do nothing more than that.r />
  She finished eating and cleared away the dishes again. There were a lot of them as it turned out. She had eaten more at a sitting than she would normally eat all day, but she put it down to nerves or the changes in the air brought by the storm.

  You aren’t ready. Isn’t that what Aurore said?

  The rain drummed against the siding and the boarded up windows and lightning flashed between the gaps, followed by explosive thunder near and far that rattled the light fixture and the dishes in the cupboard. Outside, the night belonged to the storm and it whirled and pounded wherever it wished. Even so, the worst of it was hours off. She went to her room and lay on the bare mattress, hoping to sleep even for an hour before the true test could begin. The lightning and thunder were loud, but she hoped she could rest in spite of it. For a little while she looked about the room as the lightning danced and the wind raced like rapids between the houses. She looked from the bare walls and the boarded windows, to the ladder she had propped against the wall leading up to the little square of an opening in the ceiling—the escape hatch to her attic getaway. There were nails holding that ladder fast to the floor and to the rafter above. She wasn’t very good with a hammer, but she was good enough. Everything was as she thought it should be.

  She had been born out of a storm and she had been up the Climbing Oak as a tornado grabbed for her. She had seen Audrey’s distant towering clouds and the aftermath of her passing, but this would be her first time so near the heart of one. She needed to feel the storm. She needed to listen to its voice and sense its make and measure. But fear might wrap her up and make her deaf and numb to all Betsy had to say and show.