Her daughter stood in her bedroom doorway, her eyes immense, her face pale. “Uh-huh, but a big branch came into my room. It fell right on my bed. I’m scared.” Cece ran to her and held her tightly.
Amanda leaned around the doorway and peered into the room. “Oh, gosh.” Rain was whipping through a gaping hole where the window had been. A thick branch from her next-door neighbor’s tree had shattered the window and was now resting on Cecelia’s bed. “Help me put some towels down to mop up the rain. Be careful of the broken glass. We’ll have to call the landlord.”
Cecelia handed towels to Amanda, who tried to cover the broken window with the toweling. The wind whipped the first towel out of her hands and sent it flying across the street. It resembled a tattered flag, caught in the branches of the tree that rested across the roof of the other house.
Minutes later, banging on the front door caught her attention while she was leaving a message for the landlord.
“Is anyone home?” a familiar male voice called out.
Amanda looked at Cecelia and they both headed for the front door.
It opened to reveal Marcus, his hair mussed and wet. “You two, come with me. Your street is starting to flood. With the wires coming down, it’s too dangerous to stay here.” He reached for Cecelia. “Climb on my back, kid. The puddles here are really deep.” He turned around.
Cecelia put her arms around his neck as he supported her legs. She looked back at Amanda and grinned.
Amanda followed them down the porch stairs.“What’s happening?”
“Don’t know. This is the worst storm I’ve ever seen and the wind’s getting stronger—I heard it’s funneling down through the valley, doing the most damage in this part of town. They’ve got cots set up at the old armory. But, I have room at my house farther out of town, and where I live, the wind isn’t so bad. You’ll have more privacy there.”
“Let me get our coats.” Amanda raced back into the house, grabbed two coats and, at the last minute, Cecelia’s favorite stuffed animal, Eeyore. By the time she’d shut the front door, Marcus had deposited her daughter in the backseat of his car. He grabbed Amanda’s arm and helped her stay upright against the winds that gusted down the street and churned the waters in the bay to a continuous series of high waves battering the shore.
“Marcus, we shouldn’t take up space at your house.”
He started the car and they headed down the hill, weaving between downed trees. “Why not? It gets you out of danger. And you can’t stay here. Whoa—look at that!”
A huge tree toppled into the road, spraying branches and leaves in every direction.He swerved to avoid a large branch that broke off and skidded on the wet pavement in the direction of the car.
“That was fun!” Cecelia giggled in the backseat.
“Does it often blow like this?” Amanda asked.
Marcus hit the brakes when another tree crashed in front of them. “Hold on!” He drove off the road and they bounced over the top branches of the tree, the undercarriage scraping across them. He breathed deeply before responding. “No. I’ve never seen a storm like this. Almost feels like a hurricane. Before I lost power, I heard that a couple of big TV towers in Seattle came down. Radio reception’s been bad, too spotty to hear what the weathermen are saying about it. I think some of the cell towers are down, too. I tried to get an update on my cell and got nothing. Maybe tomorrow we’ll know more.”
Minutes later, they emerged into an open area well away from the trees whipping in the wind. Here, sounds of the wind were less strident and the gusts less frequent, but the sky was black. Clouds obscured the stars and with no street lights to illuminate even small stretches of the road, it seemed lonelier here than in town with houses nearby.
“Where are we?” Amanda looked around. She saw no homes, only a narrow rain-slicked black ribbon that disappeared at the end of the car’s headlights.
“Almost there.” His voice reassured her.
They passed a set of four mailboxes, leaning slightly away from vertical. One sported the picture of a sailboat.
“That one’s mine. One of these years I might own a real boat.”Marcus turned into a short driveway and parked the car next to a small house.
He opened the back door of the car. “Cecelia. Want to jump over that puddle?”
She obliged. “That was fun. Can I do it again?”
Amanda grabbed her daughter’s hand. “I think we should go in out of the rain, and get dried off.” Together they climbed the three steps to the porch.
A swing hung from one set of chains, dangling lopsidedly near the living room window.