Chapter 5: The Storm

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The rain came down, cold and mean, like a drunkard's rage. A fierce wind slashed at them, pushing and pulling at them, nearly knocking them down whenever a sudden gust hit. April's blanket served well as a mobile tent. It was amazingly impervious to the rain. Cy didn’t know how it, like April, had come to be in the forest, but he wasn't one to question the good fortune of having it.

 

April toiled along, slogging through the muddy fields, visibly exhausted. She still smiled at Cy from time to time, but it was a weary smile, one that obviously took more and more effort to summon as they walked along. Cy peered through the slanting rain, looking for the welcoming glow he had expected to see coming from the windows of the farm house he sought.

 

"We should be there by now, but I don't see any lights from the farm house.," Cy said to April.

 

They kept walking as the storm gathered force above them. Lightning crisscrossed the sky like a luminous web, skittering between dark masses of clouds. Cy motioned for April to stop and squinted his eyes in an effort to see through the storm. A sudden flash of lightning reflected off a flat surface in the distance, a window in the farmhouse, but the room behind it was dark. Cy spoke to April, "The house is over there, but no lights are on inside. I know the folks who live there. I stopped and visited with them for a few minutes just a few weeks ago. It doesn't make any sense."

 

April asked, "Do you think something has happened to them?"

 

"I don't know, but we'll find out shortly. Let's head that way," was Cy's reply.

 

With refuge in sight, April trudged on beside Cy. "I’m sure I wouldn't have made it without you, Cy," she said.

 

Cy said nothing, but gripped the hand that reached out for his in the middle of the storm's violence. Relief flooded through his thoughts, a respite from the tension of the last two days. The last, faint light of the setting sun was fading on the western horizon as they reached the fence surrounding the farmhouse. The gate was torn off its hinges, Cy had noticed, when a gasp from April stole his attention. Her eyes looked through him, beyond him- She saw only the image that forced its way into her vision. Cy spoke to her, but she didn't respond and he caught her as she began to fall.

 

Lifting April into his arms, Cy carried her the short distance down the stone walk to the adobe house. He was only somewhat surprised to see the front door standing partly open. Cy set April down against the front wall of the house and cautiously walked up to the front door. He pushed the door the rest of the way open with his foot. Nothing moved in the house, Cy made certain before he walked inside. It looked like a storm had rampaged inside the house as well as outside. Furniture was upended and tossed about like a child's abandoned toys. Pictures were smashed on the floor, and the contents of many of the cabinets had been emptied into the middle of the mess. Cy crossed the room and righted the dining table that had been left lying on its side. He went back outside and picked up April, then retruned to the table and placed her on it.

 

As he did so a now familiar form slowly appeared in his vision, and a laugh that curdled his blood rang in his ears. He backed away from her, and the image faded although the sound of laughter still seemed to echo in his thoughts. With no clue what had happened at the farmhouse, he was wary. April lay on the table, unconscious, in a trance that held her, vulnerable without his protection. Thunder rumbled and faded into the gathering night as Cy stood in the fading light, assailed by a riddle to which he had no answer. Rain pounded on the tiled roof harder than before.

Cy's reverie didn't last long, though. He opened his pack and removed his flint and steel to light a fire. Kindling lay piled in a box by the fireplace beside logs resting in a grate. Both were miraculously untouched by the disaster the rest of the house had seen. Working with accustomed ease, Cy soon had a fire roaring in the fireplace. He turned and surveyed the room, then righted a chair that had been lying upside down by the window. He moved it closer to the table where April lay and sat down in it. With a determined look on his face, he leaned forward and whispered to her, "We'll get through this. I promise we will."

Cy sat listening to the storm that raged outside. Its howling winds tore at the window panes in their frames and rattled them in sudden fits of fury. The fire, smaller now, danced and swayed in the hearth, and shadows flitted nervously about the rooms. More thunder cascaded through the skies, louder and closer now, more threatening in its display of raw power.

 

Cy got up and took the silver blanket from his pack, covering April with it to protect her from the cold that had crept in with the storm. Moving the table and chair closer to the fire, he settled himself for a long night's vigil.

 

During the night the storm dissipated, moving out across the farmland toward the city of Marntz. Throughout the early hours of the evening Cy slept only fitfully, dozing is stolen snatches, drifting off for mere minutes at a time before waking. Each time he awoke he opened his eyes and saw a fading image hanging before his eyes, an image of a laughing, hooded man.

 

Toward morning Cy climbed down onto the floor and fell into a deep slumber, a few hours of dreamless, peaceful sleep. Thunder sounded distantly, way off down the hillside, moving farther and farther away into the night. Cy slept on.

 

Before the sun was up, when the horizon first showed a tinge of the coming day, Cy awoke. Though brief, the deep sleep had renewed him, and his first thought upon waking was of April. It seemed to Cy that her breathing had slowed from earlier in the night, and her body seemed more relaxed. Her face showed less turmoil in it.

 

He sat up and stirred the ashes in the fireplace, looking for hot embers to rekindle into flames. A sound caught his ears, and he turned to see April standing beside the table with her hands to her ears. He moved toward her.

 

"Stop," she screamed, "Stop it, you're killing me," and she gasped and fell forward into Cy's arms. Alarmed, Cy lifted her up onto the table and reached for the blanket to cover her as she opened her eyes.

 

"Cy..., something's wrong, Cy. Something's wrong with me, with this child I carry," April said through clenched teeth.

 

He took hold of her hands and asked, "What, April? What's wrong?"

 

April shuddered and looked away from him. "I don't know. I can't... I can't say, Cy. I just feel it."

 

Cy held her tightly as tears coursed down April's face. He stroked her hair and tried to soothe her as she cried but all to no avail. Her tears still fell, and it made him feel small and helpless, impotent in the face of a situation he did not understand and forces he could not predict or control.

 

Cy stood in front of April and asked her, "What happened? Who were you talking to?"

 

She looked away, not responding. he gently took her by the shoulders and made her turn toward him, cupped a hand under her chin and tenderly lifted her face so that he could look into her eyes. In a soft voice, he pleaded, "April, let me help you. Tell me what's happening to you. I've got an idea that I already know what it is, but you've got to trust me enough to let me help you."

 

He brought his hand away from April's face and reached down to grasp her hands. She closed her eyes, wincing as if in pain, and when she opened her eyes again, it seemed to Cy that there was a terrible sadness in them. It was as if the brief instant of closing her eyes had somehow aged her, sculpting the lines of her face into something different than it had been and dimming the spark of vitality that had shone so brightly in her the day before.

When she spoke again her voice wavered and trembled, as if she continued only with the greatest effort, a supreme act of will to endure what must come next.

 

"This baby, Cy, it's... it's in my mind," she exclaimed.

 

"What do you mean?" he asked. "How could the baby be in your mind?"

 

"I... I hear it, him. I see his face, but it's not a baby's face. It's the face of an old man, a cruel-looking man," she told Cy.

 

"You see him and hear him, you say?" he responded, looking deeply into her eyes.

 

April nodded, and a sense of desperation mingled with hope animated her face. She looked up expectantly at Cy, searching his face for something, she wasn't even sure what.

 

"Does he wear a hooded cloak?" asked Cy.

 

April gave Cy a look of astonishment. "How did you... how could you know that?" she said.

 

"If I had seen the same thing, I'd know, wouldn't I?" said Cy.

 

"But how, Cy? How could you see him? I don't understand." she cried.

 

Cy shook his head and replied, "I don't know either, April. I don't understand it myself."

 

Looking down into her green eyes, he continued, "I see him and hear him, too, but only when I get very close to you, and only when you... when you've gone... into that trance. There's something else I've noticed. The trance, or whatever it is, always seems to happen near sundown."

 

Cy looked out the window, and in the morning light, he felt a renewed determination. Somehow this was connected to C'elaine, to her death and to the child she had carried. The strange dreams she had told him about made sense now. Why he had never experienced the visions as he had with April, Cy didn't know, but C'elaine had spoken of a cloaked figure in her dreams. Cy remembered, now, what she had said, "an evil laughter filling my head."

 

"You're right, it doesn't make sense, but it's happening, and we have to figure out what it means," Cy told her.

 

Cy thought, "Right now, we need get to the city and talk to my friend Jepp. He'll be able to help. He'll know someone who can help us make sense of this mess."

 

"Do you think you can travel?" he asked April.

 

She looked at Cy with a wan smile and said, "I don't really have a choice, do I?"

 

Cy just nodded and began to scout around the kitchen for something to eat. Some bread and dried fruit were all he could find. They sat at the table and ate in silence.

 

Once they had finished eating, and all their things were stowed inside his pack, Cy hefted it onto his shoulder, and he and April walked out of the cottage into the light of day. The storm had marched off to wreak its destruction elsewhere, leaving behind a blue sky and a rain-washed scent in the air. Looking at April, Cy said wryly, "Let us depart, my lady."

 

April laughed softly, and, for Cy, it seemed to push the darkness of the previous night a little farther away.

 

A short time after Cy and April left the farmhouse they came to the country road that led to Marntz. They walked for while until a passing farmer, carrying a load of codill fruit to market in a horse-drawn wagon, offered to take them to the city. They accepted gladly.

 

April rode between Cy and the farmer in the middle of the bare wooden seat. She sought out Cy's hand as the farmer snicked the reins, and she smiled when he squeezed hers in return. The farmer was a taciturn sort, not prone to talk, so they rode along in silence. The steady clop of the horses' hooves lulled Cy, and he was thankful for the opportunity to think about how he'd explain it all to Jepp.

 

"The truth is too outlandish," thought Cy, "too unbelievable. Even with all he knows about me, Jepp will think I'm out of my mind..., and I can't say I'd blame him."

 

April leaned against Cy, still clasping his hand in hers. The trials she had experienced recently had taken a toll on her. She was weary in mind and body, drained by fear and uncertainty, and right now she felt Cy was her only lifeline to reality. She had come to trust him more than she would have thought possible in such a short time, but something about Cy made April certain that her trust was not misplaced.

 

Slowly they made their way to Marntz. Early in the afternoon they arrived at the bridge that linked the city of Marntz to the surrounding countryside. The farmer stopped his wagon at the foot of the bridge, and Cy and April stepped down. As he left them on the main street, they thanked the farmer for the ride he had given them, then walked down the wide street, headed for Jepp's sundry goods store. Around them the bustle of the city swirled. A couple who knew Cy from previous visits greeted him pleasantly. The rest just passed them by.