Child of the Storm by R. B. Stewart Read Free Book Online

front yard with a turn of the
head. She looked up and saw the sky.   Things were all around her that were always there but she ’ d never noticed.
    “Learning something new
always opens a door,” her father began. “Step through, and you find another
world of things linked up with what you just learned.”
    Celeste nodded. That
much she knew.
    Her father continued. “That
can really stir you up and could scare you to death, because it challenges you
so. But that’s the choice you have. Stick yourself in the mud, or accept a life
that shakes you up. One or the other, but be careful
about picking the first one. It’s the hardest in the long run. It can be mighty
hard to get out of the mud once you’re sunk in too deep. And there will be
plenty who want you buried up to your neck in the mud. Plenty who’ll help you
stay that way.”
    Celeste wasn’t as clear
on this other part.
    “Try to remember that, child.”

 
    Before
the week was out, her father was gone.

Scraps
    One
day was much like the other. So much more the same than they had been before. A
day would have rain or not, would be bright with the sun or veiled with the
thin lazy clouds passing like cattle through a field. Spring was warmer than
winter and summer hotter than spring, but it came on slowly and was no
surprise.
    There
was always much to do, but always the same things. Celeste sewed and cleaned
for her mother. She tended the garden and drew her pictures for the letters
back to her father. Only the letters brought any sense of change. The letters
were sometimes short, dashed off in a free moment and in a longing for home.
Other letters were long and filled with characters and strange things and
stranger ways.
    By
summer, Bernard was placed on a ship and sent across the ocean to where the war
continued to grind hopelessly on. Once the ocean lay between them, word was not
as frequent, which wore on Marie. Celeste ’ s eighth birthday
came and went, but the war did not end.
    When
there was news of the war, Celeste grasped what she could of it and passed that
along to Neighbor since he was too occupied to follow the news for himself. She
fed him with news as she kept his sleeves stuffed with corn shucks and silk as
her brother had taught her to do. His silence was a sign to her that all was as
it should be and the war would end soon — though
he wouldn ’ t say when. She told him anything that
came into her head since he was good with secrets and knew all about the
weather, new growth and harvest, life and death. King of the
seasons. New as morning. Old
as dirt.
    What
little money arrived from Bernard, Marie would draw off the least they would
need to get by on, which was not much and grew less as the months went by, and
she squeezed all she could from the garden, from the small amount she made from
sewing, and from doing without. The rest she saved and put into the hands of
Odette whenever she came around. They had an arrangement since Odette
understood more about complexities and getting around obstacles.
    “ I ’ ve few enough talents, ” she said to Odette as Celeste sat with
them at the table, drawing a pig from memory. “ I don ’ t mean to just bury them while he ’ s away. Not if I can find a way to do
more. ”
    Odette
looked at the money and at Marie. “ You look thinner than
last time. Just be sure you don ’ t waste his greatest
treasure while storing up another. ”
    “ I ’ ll fatten up if I need to once I know
he ’ s coming home. ”
    Celeste
labored over the hooves of her pig, licking her lips. “ We can have bacon with our eggs, ” she said without looking up. Only not
from this pig, she thought. Not from one she knew.

 
    That
evening, Marie worked on another paying quilt. Celeste sat at her feet beside
the basket of scrap fabric.
    “ Hand me that piece
over at the side, ” Marie said to her. “ The yellow one. ” She didn ’ t stop to point but
continued with her stitching and merely nodded and cast a glance