Storm the Author's Cut

by Vanessa Grant

  The wind had stopped. She stood outside the cabin on the pathway, listening for any sound. Nothing, not even the ocean waves, although it was unlikely the storm had ended. The sky was still dark and heavy with clouds, but a clear patch above let the moonlight through.

  The path was smooth and well travelled. In another month it would be summer. Yachts would come from everywhere to sail these waters, many of them visiting Hot Spring island with its natural hot baths.

  She walked past the little shelter where she had bathed earlier, on up the path to the top of the hill where she found a pool about ten feet across. The steam rose from the water in wisps.

  She followed the path on, past the pool, to the crest of the hill. She looked out over a dark land of water and mountains. The black ocean was backed by the blacker outline of the mountains. She thought she could make out the south end of Lyell Island. To the left, she fancied she could see the beginning of Darwin Sound.

  The passenger with the broken leg would be in pain. She hoped that was not Tony, Mike's son. Tony had been given a name and an identity. He was very real to her and she did not want to think of him in pain.

  She was alone on top of the hill, perhaps alone in the entire world. It was a long time since she had been alone. She avoided solitude and the memories it brought.

  She had been eighteen the summer after her graduation from high school, getting ready for college, excited, high on the adventure of life. Shane, usually the calm one, had been high on the excitement of obtaining his pilot's license.

  "Let's fly to Prince Rupert," Laurie had suggested. "Shane, you could fly us over, then we could all go out for pizza and a movie."

  They had been sitting in the coffee shop of the hotel—Laurie with Bob, her current boyfriend, and Shane with a girl named Cheryl. They were all a little bored, but Shane vetoed Laurie's idea and told them, "I'm not flying in this weather."

  "Come off it, Shane! It's not windy! Those clouds have been hanging around all day, amounting to nothing. We'd be in Rupert in no time at all."

  "This morning's weather forecast said there's a storm coming."

  "The weatherman's wrong all the time! One of the commercial seaplanes just took off." She turned to her father. "We can go, can't we, Dad?"

  When her father hesitated, Laurie picked up the phone and called the seaplane base to confirm that the floatplanes were still flying.

  "All right," her dad agreed. "Just check first that Bob's grandmother does have room to put all four of you up for the night."

  Shane hadn't protested any more.

  Laurie took the co-pilot's seat, although she knew nothing about flying. Her brother had taken flying lessons with Dad's blessing, but their father had had no enthusiasm for the idea of his daughter as a pilot.

  The black clouds didn't materialize on the southwest horizon until halfway across Hecate Strait.

  "It's a squall," Shane said. "We'll outrun it."

  He was a cautious pilot, aware of his relative inexperience. He chose to make landfall on the north end of Banks Island and follow the sea passage in to the port of Prince Rupert. Even if visibility became poor, he would have the aid of the large lighthouse on nearby Bonilla Island.

  They had just sighted Bonilla Island when the squall caught up with them. Laurie was unprepared for the way their world suddenly narrowed to the small seaplane and a few feet of driving rain outside the windshield.

  Shane altered course to come clear of the north end of Banks Island, but he was flying blind now. Banks Island disappeared, along with the rest of the world.

  "My God! I can't see a thing!"

  They flew on in a grey and formless world.

  "Shouldn't we land?" shouted Bob from behind Laurie. "We'll fly into something if we keep going in this!"

  Shane wasn't calm now. There was panic in his voice.

  "It's a local squall! We'll fly out of it. I can't land here!"

  "Fly back to that island!" shouted Bob, but Shane shook his head desperately.

  When they saw land ahead, Shane checked his compass heading and the map on his lap. "I know where we are now," he said, and changed course again.

  Laurie sat silent, frozen in the passenger seat. This was her fault. She knew they were going to crash, and that there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

  They flew on for what seemed like hours, the engine loud in the storm-tossed Cessna. Sometimes she spotted the dim outline of land, but there was so much they could not see. From the back, Bob kept urging Shane to land somewhere, anywhere. Cheryl whimpered once and turned to bury her head in Bob's shoulder.

  They lost control without warning. The gust overtook them and Shane was twisted and pulled on controls, trying to shepherd a wildly careening ton of flying aluminum.

  Abruptly, the grayness in front of the windshield was replaced by dark menace. She didn't remember the instant when they hit.

  She regained consciousness slowly. When she felt the trembling of the airplane in the wind, she knew they were still in the air. She had been terrified for too long and she must have fallen asleep trying to escape the terror. She wished they would land soon.

  Or crash.

  She didn't want to open her eyes. She tried to will sleep, but she felt terribly alert. She felt the vibration from the wind and she fancied she could feel the cold wind on her skin.

  Something was wrong. The wind should not whip on her body as if she were standing on a lonely cliff.

  When she opened her eyes she saw the branches of a tree first—in front of her—not moving.

  Then she saw Shane.

  There was no doubt at all that he was dead. His open eyes stared at her lifelessly. His broken body spoke all too plainly of the damage it had suffered.

  His image burned itself on the inside of her closed lids. She could not remember the crash itself, but they had crashed.

  Slowly, she became aware that someone was crying.

  "Cheryl," she whispered, but although the sobs continued, no answer came. Laurie twisted in her seat, trying not to see Shane's poor, broken body. Pain from her leg flared up and engulfed her in unconsciousness.

  The next time she woke, a painful sensation of cold enveloped her. She did not dare to open her eyes. It was a long time before she realized that the sobs she heard were not all her own. When she stopped on a ragged breath, there was still the occasional sound of Cheryl crying.

  "Cheryl?"

  The sobs did not stop.

  "Bob?" her voice asked hollowly, but there was no answer.

  It was dark when she woke again. She sensed Shane's form beside her, but she could see it only in her mind's eye.

  She was alone.

  All her life she had been surrounded by family and friends who loved her. Even when she ran away, Bev had come. Laurie was the daredevil, and there was always someone willing to keep her company.

  When the sky began to turn grey with the morning, Cheryl finally stopped sobbing. When Laurie called her name, the only reply was the wind howling through the wreckage.

  Eventually the sun rose, throwing light into the interior of the plane. Shane's lifeless eyes stared accusingly at her. She reached out to touch his face, to close his eyes. He felt cold and she couldn't make herself touch his lids.

  When she closed her own eyes, her brother's image persisted.

  Twice she heard the sound of a plane in the distance.

  It was a long time before the coiled microphone cord made an impression on her consciousness. When she finally made the connection between the microphone, the radio, and help, she reached for the microphone. Her fingers stopped a few inches short of it. She tried to twist, to reach farther, but the pain surged up from her leg and she lost consciousness again.

  She drifted in and out of consciousness most of the day. It seemed to her that she was awake for much of the long, dark night that followed.

  The wind stopped sometime in that second night and the world around her became as silent as death.

  She
was to blame for Shane's death... and for whatever had happened to Bob and Cheryl. It seemed only just that she, too, should die.

  But her parents would be shattered by Shane's death. How much more terrible if both children were taken?

  She had done more than enough damage. She could not cause extra grief to her parents by her own weakness. She could not move, could do nothing to keep warm or to increase her chances of survival. But she knew she had been weakening, willing herself to die rather than face her own guilt. Her leg was broken. She knew from years living in the north that hypothermia was what would kill her. The only thing she could do was to fight with her mind, and she must do that.

  If she lived, she would have to try to make up to her parents for the loss of Shane. No more daredevil stunts. It was time she grew up, time she started thinking about someone besides herself.

  Two days later a search plane spotted the wreckage. Laurie was the only survivor.

  Chapter 6

  Earlier, when Luke walked across the wooden floor to put wood on the coals, Laurie had been asleep, her eyes closed, black lashes against her cheeks, and her dark curls tousled. She had rolled over as he watched, cradling her head on one arm, drawing her legs up as if for warmth. The blanket he had given her earlier was folded over the back of the sofa.

  His eyes had traced the route along her bare arm to her shoulder. The covering over the rest of her body did nothing to inhibit his imagination, especially when she turned restlessly, the curve of her hip thrusting out. Her breathing did not have the slow, even rhythm of deep sleep, but the quick shallow breaths of uncomfortable dreams. As he watched, she rocked her head slowly in protest, a whisper of a moan escaping her lips.

  When her breathing slowed, he had returned to his bed, listening to the wind and watching the pattern of the flickering firelight on the walls, telling himself he was a fool. Finally, he slept again.

  He woke to soft sounds and a glimpse of Laurie as she moved about the room. He lay motionless as she tended the fire, her bare feet silent and purposeful on the wooden floor. Listening, he wanted badly to cross the room to her. He knew that she had been dreaming, and he had a strong conviction that she needed comfort. He felt certain of her need, yet he lay silent as if he were asleep.

  Laurie represented danger to him. Her voice on his radio was one thing; but down here she was too close and too real.

  When he heard her open the door, then slip outside, he was finally able to relax. He breathed slowly in the dark, deeply, willing sleep to return.

  A solitary gust of wind shook the cabin, and then subsided. Luke drifted into a waking dream, reliving agonizing battles between his mother and father all those years ago. Memories better left buried.

  If Laurie had gone to the small outhouse down the path, she would be back by now. There were no dangers on the island, no wild animals—only the birds. She was somewhere outside, walking the island paths, or soaking in the hot mineral waters of the pool. If she were tense and wakeful, a long soak in the hot springs would be incomparable therapy. He had a vision of her, half sitting, half floating in the pool at the top of the hill.

  When he got up, he realized that he had intended to follow her from the beginning. He put on his mostly-dry jeans, leaving his feet and his chest bare.

  He walked softly on the path outside. He was a fit man, but when he climbed the path his breath came short, especially as he passed the shelter with its two steaming tubs. She wasn't there. He walked silently up the path to the pool above, forcing his breathing silent. The pool was empty.

  He walked on, following the path to the top of the hill.

  She stood at the edge of the cliff, looking out over the world below. A gentle breeze molded the blanket to her. He was seduced by the darkness, by the image of her standing at the edge of the cliff. He hardly knew where he was or what he said; but when he touched her he felt the coolness of her skin through his whole body.

  She turned to face him. The mountains and the sea watched as he touched her face. His hand came away wet with her tears.

  "Earlier... you were asleep with sadness in your face."

  She shook her head slowly and he held her arms with his hands, needing the ivory smooth feel of her.

  "Not dreaming," she said in a low voice. Her words were obscure and almost meaningless, but he knew about waking nightmares. The wind was warm, but she trembled. He drew her into his arms.

  "Tell me." His voice was the voice of the darkness.

  He felt her silent tears on his chest and rocked her gently against him. The roughness of the blanket she wore scratched his chest.

  "My brother was the pilot."

  "You were in the plane with him?"

  She shuddered in his arms. She had flown all day with him, had searched intently, hardly noticing the roughness of their ride. Or had she noticed?

  "You're not frightened of flying now?"

  The wind came over the cliff in a slow acceleration until the blanket whipped around him and her hair blew in intimate patterns on his chest.

  She shivered against him although inside she'd warmed the instant he touched her. "It took a long time before I could fly again." The psychologist every Wednesday for six months while she was at college.

  "Come away from the wind."

  "I'm not cold."

  Her hollow voice frightened him and he got her moving down the path, though she hardly seemed to know or care where she was.

  "Tell me," he urged her, needing to know.

  She pulled against his arms, turning back to look.

  "There was a tree like that," she whispered. "It was half through the windshield and tangled with the plane."

  He was silent, drawing her closer so that her cold body began to warm from his warmth.

  "Cheryl cried all night. I couldn't even turn to see her. She never answered me when I called. Shane—Shane—He..." She shuddered violently, pulling away from his arms, shivering in the warm night air.

  "They all died... Shane and Bob and Cheryl. It should have been me! I brought it on them.

  She heard his voice calling her back. In the midst of the wreckage, alone with her dead in the wild storm, no one had called to her. But now, Luke's voice urged her, "Come here. Come to me. You're cold."

  He drew her away from the cliff, away from the tree that was so like the tree outside the broken seaplane she remembered. He led her down the path towards the pool where the steam rose in lazy warmth. She trembled from the cold of her memories, but he held her in his arms until her shaking stopped. He had found a curved seat and he drew her down with him. When her trembling stopped, she drifted, almost asleep, secure against him.

  The wind was returning. The clouds had masked the moon. Around them the trees rustled, whispering in the darkness. They lay quiet, protected from the wind by the hillside behind them.

  "Better?" he asked softly.

  "Yes." She didn't want to move. His hand was on her arm, on her bare shoulder. She felt his warmth against the coldness of her memories and she curled against him, burrowing closer. The force of her own emotions frightened her and it seemed only his closeness could keep her sane. At the same time she felt self-conscious about the tears she had shed on him. "I'm sorry."

  He moved his hand along her arm, caressing her gently. "We all have our dark nights. Tomorrow the sun will shine. The past will be where it belongs."

  She watched the dark movement of a tree against the sky and tried to think of tomorrow. Somewhere, a part of her knew that reality was tomorrow and Queen Charlotte City and Ken... not Luke Lucas on a stormy, deserted North Pacific island. But the weatherman had issued a storm warning, and he had been right. The storm was everywhere—outside her and within her. Tonight there was only one reality.

  "I cannot imagine tomorrow," she whispered.

  The wind whipped over the cliff, winding down the hillside and over their entwined bodies.

  "Do you want to go back to the cabin?"

  Back to the lonely night and her m
emories. She felt his hands move on her back, comforting her. His fingers moved over the straps of her bra, tracing soothing fire along her skin.

  "No," she whispered against his neck. "I want to stay out here." She feared the spell would shatter if they moved.

  She looked up at him. The moon was gone, but the clouds were lighter than the black of the stormy trees. She could see the silhouette of his head. He looked down at her and she felt the heat in his eyes. Ken, she thought, almost desperately, but she couldn't get the image fixed in her mind. She reached her hand up to touch Luke's hair. The rough curls moved between her fingers, tickling against her palm. She didn't know if she pulled his head down, or if he bent to touch her lips with his own. He kissed her so gently that her mouth trembled beneath his. When he drew away, she could not move. Then his fingertips traced across her back, down her arms and he pulled gently on her blanket.

  "Go into the water," he urged her. "You'll be cold here." He moved his hand to the belt around her waist. She covered his hands with her own, her heart pounding.

  "It's dark," he said gently. "I can't see you."

  He'd come to her in the dark, leading her away from the cliff, saving her from her own painful memories, from the terror and the guilt. With the storm starting to rise again around them, she knew that only he could keep her safe from the memories.

  She stood, moving away from him, slowly unfastening the belt herself. She could see him only as a black outline when he stood, but she felt his gaze through the dark as she let the blanket slip to the ground.

  "Can you see me?"

  "No, but I have a very vivid imagination!" There was laughter in his voice, and desire.

  What did he imagine? She unfastened the front of her bra. The storm raging in her made her wild and wanton. She tossed the flimsy undergarment to him, knowing how it would inflame his imagination. When she slipped her panties off and moved to the water, she knew that he would follow. She knew, too, that she needed him to follow her—needed him to shield her from the darkness and the storm.