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

pausing
to look at the house and even at the window where Celeste sat, and for a moment
their eyes seemed to meet. There was something in the way the bear walked that
made Celeste think that she might be injured, but not badly. The bear turned
its head away and looked at the oak, looked into its high branches. And then
there were more bears. At some signal from their mother, two cubs came bounding
into view and were at her side in an instant, looking curious, but less
frightened. The three circled round the tree and then the two cubs went
swarming up the low branches and the trunk, one cub climbing faster than the
other. For a while, the mother roamed around the base of the tree, casting an
eye to the woods ahead, to the house and back the way she had come with her
cubs, which would have brought her across the muddy road from who-knows-where.
She looked to the window where Celeste sat, and then up to the tree to her cubs
before she set off into the woods beyond, as the deer had done.
    Celeste
waited for the cubs to come down, but they did not, so she went out to the tree
and stood beneath it, looking up at the cub that had stopped among the lower
branches while the other continued to climb. It was quiet now except for the
dripping of the tree and the scratching sounds from the climbing cub. It was
dreamlike under the oak, and Celeste wouldn ’ t have been the least
surprised to see the ghost of the teacher come stalking out of the woods or
rising up out of the soggy ground. But that would have been the wrong thing to
see in this magic place that was so familiar but also very changed.
    The
cub in the lower branches was watching her, inviting her to come up, she
thought. So Celeste began to climb, and was glad she was wearing her work dress
with its stains and well-worn seams. She left her shoes at the base of the tree
on a spot that was almost dry and climbed slowly, picking a path that let her
keep an eye on the cub as it kept a careful eye on her.
    The
cub was waiting. Celeste had always seen things others missed and learned
things, important things, from all the things she saw. This would be like that,
she told herself. This would be like gifts at Christmas, like mysterious angels
or waking dreams. She slowly drew up level with the cub, and settled in the
joint of two branches within reach of it — if
she had dared reach out to touch it. Magical or not, it was still a bear, and
she knew nothing of bears except for the warnings.   The cub ’ s small but sharp
claws gripped the bark, and its rounded ears were tipped toward Celeste.
    So
Celeste settled in as best she could against the rough wet tree, and waited for
some sign of acceptance. “ Wild things are more
afraid of you than you are of them, ” her father had told
her more than once. “ Most times that ’ s true, ” he would add. “ Even so, that ’ s not to say they aren ’ t dangerous. Frightened things can be
the most dangerous and unpredictable. ”
    Rain
began to fall again, slowly at first, small and gentle drops falling through
the air and the leaves on a light wind that came at Celeste from behind. Rain
fell in her hair and trickled down her back uncomfortably, but at least it wasn ’ t a cold rain. This was a deep summer
rain, coming in from the Gulf — pressing
out from the spiraling bands of a hurricane. Celeste felt the weight of the
storm and could feel it was a big one, maybe the biggest she had ever felt
before. Still, as long as there was no lightning, there was no great danger,
she told herself, and this bear cub needed her to sit with it, just like
Sandrine had sat with her that time when she was little and her mother was
sleeping under the Sadness. Poor little cub, she thought. Probably
scared stiff, which is why it isn ’ t scampering off higher to be with its
brother.
    Celeste
reached out toward the cub, slowly so as not to alarm it, putting forward the
palm of her hand like she would for a strange dog. The cub watched her hand
draw