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

over her
glasses at the basket.
    Celeste
drew out the piece of fabric and laid it on her mother ’ s knee. She smoothed it out, over and
over, feeling the fabric — feeling
deep into it, deep into the memory it held for her.
    “ This was from that
dress you used to wear when I was only little, ” Celeste said.
    “ You remember it? ”
    Celeste
said she did, and pointed to the table set in the middle of the room where
Bernard would do his reading and she did some of her indoor drawings. “ Round and round the table. It ’ s like I can still see you two dancing. ” She continued to look, her eyes
tracking the memory around the table as her hand touched the fabric. When she
looked back to her mother, she had stopped her work and was looking at the
piece of cloth. She drew it out from under Celeste ’ s hand.
    “ Maybe this isn ’ t the piece I need for this quilt. ” She set it aside and looked into the
basket. “ How about that piece peaking out there.
The sort of cream colored one with the little stain.
Maybe I can clip that part out and make it do. ”
    Celeste
picked out the fabric and handed it to her mother.
    Marie
considered it. “ Should be able to make that work, don ’ t you think? ”
    Celeste
shrugged. “ You want me to put that other back in
the basket? ”
    “ No, I ’ ll hold onto it here a while. Need to
make up my mind what to do with it first. But why don ’ t you fish through the basket and see
what else you find with a memory stitched into it. That was nice how you found
one just now. So see what else you find in there while I give my fingers a
rest. Never known of a child to have such a powerful memory for things, and to
be so tiny. We ’ ll have to watch that your head doesn ’ t pop from so many stored up memories
as you get older. ”
    “ Don ’ t think I keep them all locked up in my
head, ” Celeste said. “ Mostly they ’ re just out there in this or that. All
I do is read them. Sort of like a story. ”
    So
for the next little while, Celeste fished through the basket and found a few
that spoke to her. She told her mother about each one, and not one of those
bits of fabric went back into the basket, or into any paying quilt.

 
 

Outside
    Celeste
had dozed off, face down on the half finished quilt she ’ d been helping with; dozed off while
only meaning to rest her eyes for a moment since the light was dim in the room
without a lamp burning. It was a day when rain came in great torrents only to
drift off to rain on someone else for a while ; a busy
rain. It was more than a rainy day though. It was building toward being a
stormy one. The biggest sort.
    Celeste
stood at the window watching as a deer dashed across the back yard, chased by
nothing but the pressing weather. Marie slept deeply under the Sadness and the
house was quiet except for the muffled rush of the wind. It was too dark inside
to do any more sewing, so Celeste dragged a chair up to the window to watch the
rain and see if the deer might return.
    The
deer did not return and birds of all kinds followed the path it took, some
briefly pausing in the branches of the Climbing Oak to rest or get their bearings
before striking off again, driven by the wind. Time passed and the birds
stopped flying by. The rain trailed off again and the wind eased. It was very
warm in the house and she grew drowsy again. She rested her forehead against
one of the panes of glass and her chin on the window sill .
Puddles dotted the back yard and water dripped from the oak leaves. Neighbor
would be wet through and silk tousled.
    Something
caught her eye off to the right and she tilted her head to see what it was. Her
eyes widened. A black bear came into view. A black bear in her backyard again,
and she held her breath. She had been warned by her parents and Augustin that
bears were dangerous, or could be, but this bear didn ’ t look dangerous at all. She looked
confused and frightened. The bear moved cautiously into the back yard,