The Book of Storms (29 page)

“It's coming! It's coming!”

What? Not another storm … but of course. He had summoned one himself, another lifetime ago. The storm that carried his parents.

Above him, the clouds groaned and grumbled. One gave a bellowing yawn. There was a long, satisfied burp, and the sky began to creak and mutter. Danny waited while winds trailed and zoomed around his ears, while specks of rain danced over his skin and cold plucked at his ankles. For long minutes he waited, ignoring his shivers. If only night were shorter. If only dawn would come. At least then he'd be able to see what was approaching, instead of having to stand here on the hilltop listening to the air swirling around him and trying to work out what was going to arrive first, from which direction, and at what speed.

He felt it before he heard it. If only Tom could see him now. Tom, who always prided himself on being able to predict the weather, who'd stick his head outside in the morning and say things like, “Bit of drizzle, but it'll soon clear up,” or “This one's set in for the day.” What would he have said if he'd seen Danny sniffing the wind and Danny had turned to him and said, “This one's a whirlwind, just wait and see”?

Tom wouldn't have believed it. But then he'd have heard, as Danny now heard, a peculiar stillness and a faint whistling sound. And he'd have been forced to admit, as the wind started raking him horizontally from left to right, that Danny was correct.

Because the whirlwind was upon him almost before he could steady himself. It swept him sideways, pushed him flat to a tree trunk, and pummeled at his clothes. He clutched tight to a branch with one hand and the stick with the other and began the song again. This time he shouted it, for all he was worth, until his lungs were dry and burning and his breath had been completely sucked away.

“The world is deadly, the world is bright,

The creatures that use it are blinded by sight,

But there's no sense in crying or closing the page,

Sense only battles in fighting and rage.

So come all you soldiers and answer my call,

Together we gather, together we fall!”

And when he'd finished, instead of repeating it and waiting for an answer, he opened his mouth as wide as it would go and screamed, “STOP! PLEASE!”

The winds dropped like withered petals to the ground. There was a soft thud nearby, then another. Still blind in the darkness, Danny stumbled toward them, his hands outstretched.

“Mum?” he said, not daring to hope. “Mum? Dad?”

There was a silence longer than any piece of real time. And then a voice.

“Danny?”

It was his dad.

And then, “Danny?”

Which was his mum.

“Where are you?” he called, but they were closer than he'd thought, and a figure, clambering up off the ground, reached out to him.

He fell at it, hugging his mum tighter than he'd ever hugged before, and then his dad wrapped his arms around them both.

“Oh, Anna,” Danny's dad said. “Oh, Danny, how did you
find
us?”

Danny couldn't speak. His stomach was so full of heat and fear and coats, of swallows and lightning and the belching of clouds, that he thought he might be sick. He looked up at his parents. Even through the dark, he could see that their clothes were torn and their faces gray and exhausted. His mum's hair stuck out like the fur on an angry cat.

“Why do you go?” he said. “Why do you leave me?”

They looked at each other. “There are things…” said his dad.

“Oh, just tell him,” said his mum, suddenly sounding like it hurt her to speak. She put a hand up to rub her eyes.

“Not here,” said his dad. “Let's get home first.”

Danny knew they were trying not to mention his sister. But that wasn't right—she ought to have a name. She ought to be spoken about.

“I know how Emma died,” he said. “I found your notebook. I read about Emma and the storms and all that stuff.”

He saw them flinch when he said her name, as though they'd both trodden on something sharp. Neither of them spoke for a moment, and then his mum said, “It's very difficult, Danny. You're … too young. You'll understand when you're older.”

He was about to say that he understood now, but his dad broke in.

“It was the storms, okay?” he said. “Sunday night, we both woke up and we'd had this weird dream, both of us—the same dream. She—Emma—was there, and she was talking about … about…”

His dad didn't seem able to speak for a long moment, and then he coughed and forced out some words again.

“She was talking about storms. And she said, these days, there're more and more of them, everyone knows that. And she said she knew why, and if we followed her, she'd tell us. So we followed her. Not
her
, you know, just … the
thought
of her. And then we were dragged up in that twister, just spinning and spinning … and we couldn't get back down. I thought we were done for.… We just spun and spun and spun and tried to hold hands so we wouldn't lose each other.…”

They trembled and reached out to each other again, reminding themselves that they were safe again, standing on the cold earth together. For a second Danny felt them swaying just out of his reach.

His dad said again, “How did you find us? Did you come out here alone?”

“I came with Tom,” he said. “Tom knew the way. We rode horses.”

“Tom? Your cousin Tom?”

Danny tried to see his dad's face in the night. The moon broke free from the clouds again, and there he was, the same, familiar Dad.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Where is he now? He didn't leave you alone up here, did he?”

He did leave me, Danny wanted to say. He left me his pitchfork. If it hadn't been for Tom, I'd be dead by now.

“His horse ran away,” he said. “I think it just went mad. He couldn't help it. But he must be around here somewhere.”

His mum opened her mouth, about to say something, then changed her mind and gazed at Danny. She seemed shorter, somehow. They both did. And instead of looking away from him, at his dad, Mum just swallowed and said, “Okay. Where do you think he's gone?”

Good question. Because the storm had died away, and Tom should have gotten control of Apple and ridden her back by now. That's definitely what he would have done, if he'd been able to.

But as the moonlight spread over the hilltop, he saw very clearly that it was just the three of them up there, and nobody else was anywhere near.

CHAPTER 19

AN ENCOUNTER

Tom had tried his hardest to pull Apple up, but her terror was stronger than all the combined efforts of the bit in her mouth, the reins on her bit, and Tom's arms on the reins. She'd pulled him through gaps too narrow for comfort, ducked under low-hanging branches that nearly sent him flying backwards over her tail, and hurdled with huge leaps over shadows as if they were deep black pits. He'd tugged uselessly for a while and then given up, making himself as still and low to her back as possible so as not to further unbalance her desperate, leggy scramble.

What finally stopped her was the river. She arrived at its bank and came to a dead stop, snorting at the inky water. Tom, already crouched forward, was smacked in the face by her neck as she threw her head up. His nose was bleeding freely as he pushed himself upright again.

At least she'd stopped. Tom's heart began to settle, and he swung his leg over the horse's back, letting himself slide to the ground.

His legs were not quite steady. Apple was not a good rock; she shifted away from his hand on her shoulder as he tried to lean on her.

“Easy, Apple, easy,” he said.

And the rain slackened off after a while. But soon after that, another raging wind picked up and Apple began to cringe in fear at every waving branch. Tom knew it would be useless trying to coax her back up through the moaning trees—he'd have to wait for the winds to die down before he went up to the hilltop to find Danny again. The best thing to do in the meanwhile would be to find a tree to shelter under and hope that it didn't get struck by lightning.

*   *   *

He was standing under a huge old oak when the man came down the path. Apple pricked her ears at the sight of the white shirt, but the moonlight that was starting to break out from occasional gaps in the clouds showed the figure well enough. Just a poor man, without even a coat. He'd been drenched by the rain, and his shirt was clinging to his bony shoulders. His head was down, black hair plastered to his skull. He was so thin that he must have been freezing.

“Hey!” Tom called out. “You okay?”

The man put his head up as if he'd only just noticed Tom. He'd looked pretty lost in his thoughts. Something bad must have happened for him to be out in the middle of a night like this dressed only in his shirtsleeves.

“Yes, thanks,” he called back. “I'm fine. What are you doing out here?”

“Lost my stupid cousin,” said Tom. “Haven't seen him, have you? Eleven-year-old kid?”

“No, sorry.” The man took a few steps off the path and came to shelter under the oak tree next to Tom. Close up, he had a friendly face. His voice was gentle and low, but despite the wailing treetops around them, Tom didn't have to strain to hear him. “What's an eleven-year-old kid doing out here in the middle of the night?”

Tom grinned. “Don't ask. Between you and me and the horse, I reckon he's gone bananas. But he's got these ideas in his head and he won't let them go.”

“So you've come out after him?”

“I came with him! Thought it best not to let him out on his own, and he wasn't going to stay at home no matter what, so I stuck him on my ancient pony. Reckoned he wouldn't get anywhere very fast on her back. My mum'll skin me alive if I've lost him.”

“Was it a piebald pony?” said the man. “Maybe I have seen him. I did see a flash of something out on the hilltop. Could that have been them?”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Tom. “Okay, I'll get back up there once this wind drops a bit. Idiot kid. What a night to choose for it.”

The man inclined his head in a neutral gesture. “It's the wild at heart who lead us into the places we'd never think to go. If I hadn't spent the last three hours following a badger, I wouldn't be here either.”

“Badgers!” Tom said. “I know there used to be badgers in these woods, I remember seeing some when I was a kid. They're still here, then?”

“They are indeed,” said the man, his voice taking on the tone of a smile. “In fact, there are quite a few setts around here. Are you interested in badgers too?”

“Yeah, definitely. Badgers, foxes, deer—I like all that kind of thing.”

“Oh, yes? Me too, although it's badgers, mostly. What is it you like about them?”

Tom looked once more at the man's face. Although he couldn't quite make it out, it seemed familiar and comfortable.

“I don't know…” he tried.

The tree's branches creaked above them. And somehow, in the sound, Tom found his answer.

“I guess I just love the wild bits of the world,” he said. “I just like … I like the way things go on, whether you're there or not. I don't like towns, where the buildings look like they make up the whole world. I prefer places where you can see that what people have built is just sitting on top of this massive, living land. I love birds, too—I'm trying to learn all the different bird calls at the moment. I live on a farm, so I hear them all round the place, and even the same birds don't always sing the same way. It'd be cool to know which birds were singing when you heard them, don't you reckon?”

“Well, yes,” said the man. “Actually, I have to confess that I
do
know.”

“You know bird calls? Which ones?” Tom's broad face swung round to fix on the man's narrow, still one.

“All of them,” the man said. “It's a bit of a hobby of mine, actually.”

“That's amazing!” Tom's voice couldn't hide its hope; he forgot about the rain and the wind and his horse. Apple was perfectly calm anyway. Something about the stranger had seemed to settle her; she was gazing at him with longing on her face.

“Oh, I've studied all sorts of things. I spend most of my time looking at nature,” said the man. “It's fascinating.”

“It is!” said Tom. How could he befriend this man without seeming weird? It was so hard to learn bird calls from recorded samples—what Tom needed was someone to go walking with who'd be able to say, “Hear that? That's a jay” or “a goldfinch,” or whatever. This man would be perfect. Soon it would be Tom and not Danny who had swallows clinging to his sweater, called there by a perfect imitation of a swallow's song. That was how things should be.

“Are you a farmer?” Tom asked. “D'you live round here?”