…The Storm…

The Naturalist, July 5, 2020

I have told you how I saw the hart the night of the Fourth of July. Now, let me tell you what happened after. We were still standing in the yard, looking after the path the hart had taken, when a roll of thunder pealed across the sky. I looked to the east and was shocked to see the black wall of a storm advancing toward me through the neighborhood. The wind was picking up rapidly and I could see the buffeting of the trees immediately in front of the clouds and rain.

I swore softly under my breath, turned and began running back to the house. Raven followed, taking off at a full sprint. She quickly outpaced the length of the leash and almost knocked me off my feet as the line jerked taut. She reached the door and frantically began scratching at it with both front paws, barking wildly. I glanced to my right and saw that the storm had almost reached us. Another crack of thunder crashed through the night sky and wind and rain were already beginning to whip my face.

I took the stairs up the porch in two long strides and threw the door open. We crossed in and I struggled for a moment to close and lock the screen door as it swung back and forth in the wind. Just as I had regained control of the screen and then slammed the main door behind me, the storm hit. It shook the house and the downpour of rain and clouds blocked out any remaining light from the moon, filling the night with a gritty black.

It didn’t take long before the children emerged from their rooms, wide-eyed and nervous.

I reassured them, but told my oldest son to go and get the flashlights and candles in case the power went out.

He went downstairs to fetch them, and I went to the living room to watch out the window. The dog followed closely behind me, still panting, but otherwise calmer than when we’d made our mad dash across the yard. I looked through the slats of the blinds and could see the streetlights in front of the house struggling to illuminate the road beneath them. The gloom of the rain and violence of the wind seemed a crushing force that pressed against their glow, rendering it faint and muted. However, it was enough to watch the street transform from wet pavement to a shallow riverbed several inches deep.

The lights flickered once… twice… and then went out completely. There were a couple of cries of dismay from different places in the house, but I gave a sigh of relief as a moment later a beam of light turned on in the kitchen and I saw my son emerge from the downstairs, wielding a flashlight and holding several more, along with a bag of candles. A few minutes later we had distributed these to various people in the house and everyone was settling back in, reading by candle or flashlight, or just listening to the wind, rain, and thunder.

And then it ended. One moment I was pacing, worried about the basement flooding without power to run the sump pump, then the rain was slacking, and the wind began to slow. Within minutes it had stopped entirely, and the clouds dissipated. Light from the full moon shown down, far brighter than the now lifeless streetlamps had been, and showed the road quickly draining from river to wet pavement.

I checked the clock. It read 12:56 A.M.  My wife and I began making the rounds of the house, snuffing out candles and telling the kids to go to bed. The dog continued to follow me, appreciating the chin rubs she received from each of the children in turn. I ended my tour with a thorough check of the basement to make sure we weren’t getting any leaks or flooding with the pumps out and then headed upstairs to bed.

Before leaving to upstairs to bed I looked down at Raven who was now sitting on her dog bed on the main floor. She looked backup up at me and cocked her head. It was an inquisitive, searching expression that she sometimes used when she was puzzling something out. Then she circled her bed once and laid down with her head between her front paws. I was reminded of the expression she made earlier when she bowed before the hart, and once again I was filled with that same sense of loss and mourning. Then she closed her eyes and I went upstairs to bed.

Read the continuation in …and the Tree.