Picturing You by Rowan Connell

Author:Rowan Connell [Connell, Rowan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paper Birch Publishing
Published: 2019-09-14T05:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

When the Worst Comes

The wind starts somewhere in the hours before dawn, the ones that are usually the quietest. I can’t sleep, because even though I’m tired, I’m also hurting and hungry and unable to stop my brain from talking to me, guilt and worry chasing one another in an endless loop.

At least I’m not freezing.

Luke and I have decided to keep the fire burning through the nights again, since the resident Peeping Hermit—we’ve mutually dropped the “Killer” tag—already knows we’re here. I doubt he’ll be back anytime soon, and while Luke isn’t so sure, he agrees there’s no sense in waking up iced-over every morning. But tonight, even with the heat from the stove, the cabin is struggling to hold onto its warmth. The wind is threading itself through the clay-filled crevices between the logs, keeping the temperature hovering somewhere between chilly and flat-out uncomfortable.

When the first branch falls onto the roof, Luke wakes with a jolt. His arms tighten around me. “Are you awake?” he whispers.

“Yes,” I whisper back, though there’s no one left to disturb. It feels like this is the kind of wind we need to hide from.

We each pull on another layer of clothing, curl ourselves into one another, and wait for the wind to die down. It gets worse, instead. A wind like this is hard to comprehend, the way it stretches on and on in an endless gust, whipping through branches and around trunks, rattling windows and howling under eaves, never tiring.

At last, the sun comes up in a pewter-colored sky. The clouds are low and dense; they push past one another in a hurry while new ones line up, awaiting their turn to be swept along.

The temperature dropped steadily through the night; its downward slope continues in the daylight hours. We feed the fire and huddle under blankets and eat bits of food that don’t need to be cooked: a shared can of fruit cocktail, a few peanuts, a spoonful of peanut butter. Luke’s beef jerky is all gone, and we haven’t yet brought ourselves to de-tin the canned meat, but we’re getting close—even me. The rest of the day we spend listening to the wind or dozing, together or in turns.

At last our attention is caught by something new: silence. The wind is dying down; it’s only rising here and there in quick, powerful blasts. The tension begins to uncoil from around us, allowing our breaths to deepen.

This is when the worst of it comes.

A snapping sound punches the air and Luke and I jump; our wide-eyed stares meet and dart around the cabin as we scramble to sit up in bed. There’s another snap, and another; they’re spaced at first, but seem to come from everywhere at once. There’s a need to run, but no sense of where to go. The snapping increases and Luke pulls me back against him. With his hand on top of my head, he bends me under the curve of his torso, covering my body with his.

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