Child of the Storm (8 page)

And
for some long time Celeste remained clutching the ravaged branch that held her,
shivering with shock as a gentler rain fell. At last, she heard a stirring and
scratching and opened her eyes to see the cub climbing down to where its mother
waited, watching Celeste. Then they were gone, disappearing into the woods
beyond, maybe to find the cub that had climbed so high. Her last clear image of
her cub was of it padding across a carpet of sunflower petals; all that
remained of the wide field of the tall sun tracking flowers that had once grown
on the other side of the road.

As
Celeste began her slow and shaky climb down, she caught sight of her home,
flattened by the tornado, even as it withdrew into the sky. She slid more than
she climbed, the bark digging at her skin until she couldn
’
t hold and she fell the last several
feet. When she tried to stand; tried to go to the house, she found her legs
couldn
’
t manage and she sagged against the
trunk of the ruined tree. Just sat
there
staring at
what had been her home. Now there was only a tangle of wood, nails, shingles, a
single plate and the unfinished quilt she had been working on. It had been
sucked up through the ceiling and now draped from a splintered rafter like a
flag of surrender. The window where she had been sitting earlier, watching the
coming of the bears, was cast to the ground, shattered, along with the wall
around it. A small tree had driven almost clean through the house, dropping it
like an arrow through a deer.

Her
house had once been something with an inside to it where comfortable time had
been, but now the inside was gone. Like a room when the lights are put out and
the moon isn
’
t there to shine in, the room just goes
away
‘
cause you need to sleep and not do
anything there till morning. She was sitting on the outside of her house when
something like that had just come along and happened, leaving her out here in
the mud and the sudden cold while her mother slept and slept in that room where
the lights had just been put out. Sleeping till Daddy could come home and wake
her up, since it wasn
’
t for Celeste to wake her under all
that weight of Sadness.

She
felt the cold get a deeper hold and then heard a thump that must have been her
own head bumping back against the trunk. She closed her eyes. Can
’
t be real, she thought.
Just a bad dream.
The storm and all of it,
just a bad dream.
Seeing the bear cub was good, but sometimes dreams do
that. Start out one way and go somewhere else. Like a nice day and a long walk
that ends at the white cemetery where the ghost is waiting to take the good out
of everything. Take this bad dream away. Just wake up and find her mama waiting
for her. Simple as that
—
only
this dream was stubborn. Wouldn
’
t let her go. Wouldn
’
t let her wake. Change it to something
else. Make it be a nicer, less stubborn dream. Leave this bad dream behind and
go somewhere better.

She
opened her eyes again and stared up into the branches of the Climbing Oak,
whole and strong and reaching like they had always been and not ripped down to
stumps by the bad dream. Better already, and the sun shone down on her through
a little break in that great cloud of leaves. Not sun, she told herself. Not
sun because she
’
d have to squint at the sun.
Redder than the sun, or like the sun sitting like a bright apple on
the bottom edge of the sky instead of high overhead; redder like fire.
Like fire in the chimney place or like fire at her Papa's forge. The fire was
all blurred like it could be when she sat too close and the heat made her eyes
water and the fire blurred and the shapes in the fire moved and changed like
clouds rolling in the sky.
A shape like a bear.
Like a bear of hot coals that was cooling now.
Red to black,
just up
there
in the tree. A black bear in the tree,
looking down at her with nice kind eyes, dark as could be and swimming with
gladness to see Celeste. Like her mother would look at her when she was happy
and not under the Sadness. Eyes like her mother
’
s eyes, only if she
had been a bear, and this was a bear. A
bear
up the
tree wanting her to climb up and follow.

Celeste
found her good legs for climbing and followed. Up and up through the branches.
Up and up, higher than she
’
d ever climbed
before, following the bear.
Maybe miles and miles of
climbing.
Days and days of climbing with no night in
between.
Like a walk way past town and on toward New Orleans or wherever
her Papa might be. Or Augustin. Climbing up the Climbing Oak and it was so
easy. Clear up to the top where the leaves touched the sky and felt the sun and
made the wind and smelled of spring. A great big field of glossy leaves for her
to stand in, beside that black bear, and see and feel all those things that
lived between tree and sun. Things like colors of all kinds that shared a bit
of themselves to make more colors, and things like warmth and coolness that
flowed high and low, taking in some color too. And clouds licked with colors
that took whatever shape they chose, like the shapes of birds or pigs or things
with ears like boat sails and fish with mouths like pitchers.

One big sky full of everything.
Everything stirred in together like
the best soup she
’
d ever eaten. All there for her and so
real she could reach out and lay her hand on it.
More real
than a bad dream about a house with no Inside to it.
Celeste reached out
and traced the edge of the bear
’
s ear, just as she
’
d do with her mother
’
s ear, and the bear turned to her with
those dark, dark eyes where everything imaginable swam.

“
It
’
s all yours, Celeste,
”
she heard the bear say.
“
Everything you can hear and see and
touch and smell is yours. Maybe not for the taking, but for the touching.
”

But
before she could say how she liked the sound of that, or how she would like to
see and touch and smell it all, she felt a touch and heard a voice from
somewhere else. The bear was gone. The light and the air were cold again, and
she was looking into the face of Sandrine.

“
Can you hear me
child?
”
she asked.

Celeste
managed a soft, confused question.
“
Where
’
s Mama.
”

She
could see John Stone over by the house, trying to find the inside; moving board
after board. He moved quicker than she was used to seeing him move, but not a
sloppy kind of moving fast. Fast like Mama could do with mending or cooking, or
like Papa at the forge, or like she could do herself when pulling up weeds in
the garden. Careful to do it right, but get it done.

Sandrine
was helping Celeste get cleaned up, maybe for dinner. She was a mess and
Sandrine could tell. There were lots of scratches needing to be cleaned up too.
She
’
d been careless again. Always skinning
herself or pricking herself or doing something to get a little cut or a bruise.
Must have been
‘
specially
careless this time. Sandrine took care
of the cold too, wrapping her up in something and setting her on a perch out of
the mud. She could see sweat on Sandrine
’
s face, and thought
it strange since it was so cold without being wrapped up. Maybe it wasn
’
t cold where Sandrine was. Right there
but kind of far off too.

John
Stone was way, way off, over by the house with no inside to it
—
where Mama was asleep. But then he
opened up the house a little more, knelt down for a while, maybe having a talk
with Mama but not just walking in until invited. Talked a while then stood up
and looked up their way. Celeste thought she should wave at
him,
only her arms were all stuck to her sides by the warm wrapping. She saw him
look to the sky, then look to the ground beside him like maybe he
’
d lost something. Sandrine turned
Celeste around so she was facing the woods out back, where the bears had gone.
She felt Sandrine
’
s fingers touching the back of her head
and her neck. Must be a mess back there. Must need more cleaning up before
dinner, so she sat there for a while, watching the woods for bears until
Sandrine gathered her up and carried her out to where John Stone waited,
sitting on the back of the mule that pulled their wagon.
Funny
to have a wagon and sit on the mule instead.

Sandrine
handed Celeste up to John Stone where he sat on the mule and he held her safe
and tight in front of him as Sandrine went back to sit in the wagon. Mama and
Sandrine are good friends. Sandrine will let Mama sleep inside the wagon, she
thought. But she had to sit up on the mule with John Stone because she was
still too big a mess to sit in the wagon. Mules don
’
t mind a mess and maybe John Stone didn
’
t either. She stayed close to John
Stone and faced ahead, watching the road go by and watching the mule
’
s big ears pointing this way and that
as it listened to the countryside settling down after the storm.
 

She
was clean and warm and fed. That much was better, but so much else was worse.
The bad dream was real. She lay on a bed that John Stone had dragged out into
the main room. He and Sandrine sat beside the bed, silent and watchful. The
door to the only other room in the house was closed. Celeste wouldn
’
t ask the question she knew the answer
to. She asked the one she was not so sure about.

“
Is Mama an angel now?
”
Her slim knowledge of angels came from
what she could piece together from things she had heard Sandrine say.
Never a subject at home.

“
She is,
”
Sandrine assured her.
“
She
’
s watching over you.
”

“
I know,
”
Celeste said. She thought of her dream
of the tree and of the black bear.

John
Stone shifted uncomfortably and his brow wrinkled. She
’
d seen this sort of shifting and
wrinkling by Papa when Mama said something he didn
’
t agree with but wouldn
’
t say so. Not seeing eye to eye, Papa
called it. Mama could always read it in him. Always.

Celeste
swallowed a lump in her throat.
“
Can angels look like
bears?
”
she asked.

“
No child,
”
Sandrine said, but John Stone seemed
to want to have a word. It would have to wait. Celeste could see that.

“
When will Aunt Odette
be here?
”
She
’
d been told already,
more than once, but couldn
’
t remember if it was
tomorrow, or if tomorrow had already come and gone and it would be another
time.
Hard to remember anything.
She tried to picture
her house but left it
be
when Sandrine spoke.

“
Tomorrow. Just as
soon as she can get here from the station.
”

“
We
’
ll take the wagon to meet her?
”
Celeste asked. She
’
d forgotten this too.

“
She will come here. I
don
’
t know how,
”
said John Stone.
“
We will wait for her to come.
”

“
And she
’
ll take me and Mama to New Orleans.
”
It was not a question. Celeste knew
that much. They both nodded.

She
slept some that night but not through all of it. If any dreams found her, she
couldn
’
t recall them except for one where she
saw the ghost of Miss Bolton picking through what was left of her house,
enjoying herself. Celeste wanted to shoo her away but was all bound up and
couldn
’
t move her arms. Her tongue seemed
bound up too.

When
she woke from that dream, she found that Sandrine had made a place for
herself
to sleep in the corner on the floor, while John
Stone sat watch over Celeste
’
s sleep from his
chair. When he saw she was awake he leaned closer.

“
Bad dreams?
”
he asked in a whisper.

She
nodded but wouldn
’
t say a word about Miss Bolton, in case
she had been someone he had known and liked.

“
I thought it had been
a bad dream today when I saw my house all knocked down with Mama inside. I
’
d been up in the tree with a bear cub
when the storm came up and tried to blow us out of the tree. I was so scared
and the cub was scared too. I could tell. But I stayed there with it, keeping
the worst wind off the cub. That
’
s why I was so cut up
and bruised. I couldn
’
t leave it alone up there. Then after
it was all over and the mama bear came and called it down, I saw my house with
Mama inside and I couldn
’
t believe it was
real. Thought it was a bad dream and wanted it to go away. That
’
s when I saw the bear again, back up
the
tree,
only the tree had all its branches. We
climbed way up, the bear and me did, only it wasn
’
t the cub. It was a
mama bear with eyes like my Mama
’
s. It took me to the
top of the tree and showed me
…
things.
Colors and light and good things.
Lots of
good things.
And it spoke to me and said it was all there for me, even
if I couldn
’
t keep it just for me. Spoke to me like
Mama would. So that
’
s why I asked about angels looking like
bears. I thought maybe that bear was my mama, come back as a bear to watch over
me. Like Sandrine said angels do.
”

John
Stone nodded, so she knew he
’
d say what had been
on his mind before. That thought he
’
d had but wouldn
’
t say in front of Sandrine.
“
When I was a little boy, my grandfather
told me about a man he had known when he was only a boy himself. He was a
shaman.
A wise man and a healer.
Before he was a
shaman, he had been an ordinary man, I think.
An ordinary man
who became very ill.
Very ill.
So ill, no one
thought he would get better. But when everyone gave up hope for his return, he
surprised
them
all. He told how he had traveled to
another place
—
a place of the spirit, and that one of
these spirits had guided him back and would be his guide between the place of
his home and the place of spirits. He learned many things from the spirit that
was in the form of a bird.
A hawk, or an eagle.
I can
’
t recall now. It was long ago when I
was told the story and I would sometime wonder if it was true, as my
grandfather believed it was true. Maybe it was. You may be a special one who
has touched another place. Maybe you have traveled there and returned with a
spirit guide. Maybe your mother
’
s spirit, in the form
of a bear.
”

“
I think I have,
”
Celeste said. Like a wave, sleep took
her. Covered her in warmth and darkness like a great big quilt, and she drifted
off to wander somewhere else, as John Stone sat close by and thought again
about old tales and his grandfather.