Storm Surge by Melissa Gunn

Author:Melissa Gunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: paranormal fantasy, demigods, climate change dystopian sprite, shifter werefox, urban fantasy, coming of age
Publisher: Melissa Gunn
Published: 2021-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

AFTER THE STORM

Freya opened her eyes in the darkened kitchen. Despite the turmoil in her mind and the wind outside, she had slept almost as soon as she closed her eyes. While she slumbered, someone had covered her with another blanket usually kept in the sparsely furnished lounge. She was glad of the extra blanket. It was chilly in the unheated house. Sitting up, she saw that the warmth on her right was her mother, curled up under another blanket. The warmth on her left was Mr Fluffbum, dry now, and curled up in a tight ball with his fluffy black tail covering his nose. Between them they covered most of the space on the floor of the small kitchen.

Freya felt thrilled all over again as she looked at her beloved cat. She reached out and patted him to reassure herself that he was real and not just a figment born of wishful imagination. Mr Fluffbum gave a small meow, and tightened a paw over his eyes. He was clearly not yet ready to awaken. Freya stretched and sat up.

As she did so, she discovered that just sitting up hurt. She fingered her puffy face and decided not to visit a mirror this morning - assuming it was morning, of course. She levered herself cautiously to standing and draped her blanket around her shoulders, then decided she should leave the kitchen to inspect the house. Her cat ignored her actions.

“Nice to see you, too, Mr Fluffbum. Lio must have been feeding you well, wherever he had you.”

Looking at the gaps in the cardboard on the windows, Freya felt bad that she hadn’t helped much with the storm defences. Usually, she was the household mainstay with such preparations. Luckily, most of the windows had held. On her way out the kitchen door, Freya skirted a patch of broken glass from one smashed pane. She wondered where Tammy was. Often, if they had to defend a house from a storm, they all slept in the same room.

Freya stroked a gentle hand along the sleeping Mr Fluffbum’s back, then headed up to her bedroom to see if her memory of the damage was correct. There was no easy way to get to her chest of drawers, as the robust tree trunk that had crashed through the roof mostly covered it. Her bed was similarly covered in tree parts and the mattress was sodden. Leaves, branches and roof shingles covered her bedroom floor. It was indeed morning, as she could clearly see through the hole in the roof. The main body of the storm had passed, and only swiftly moving clouds scudded past. She could see tree branches down through the valley tossing in the stiff breeze, but the wind no longer howled. She turned away. There was nothing she could do in here without a chainsaw which she didn’t own and probably couldn’t operate even if she did.

Tammy’s room, across the stairs from hers, was eerily empty of life. It looked like

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.