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She’d always loved hearing the wind and rain of a storm. Even when she was a little girl tucked up in her bed, with her Nanny fretfully sleeping on the smaller bed in the room, Charlotte would listen to the howling gale and the torrential rain. She would sneak over to the bedroom window and watch the bright, white lightening slash through the dark night sky, while thunder roared overhead like some mighty dragon.
For all she’d heard that dragons were fearsome beasts who would gobble up whole villages and steal pretty princesses, she would often entertain herself by closing her eyes and imagining she was riding that storm dragon. The body and wings were dark, thick grey clouds, the rain it’s icy, sharp scales.
Tonight, her dragon was roaring with gusto. She even heard the shutters shaking against the wind and the rain drumming hard on the roof of the cabin. For all the comfort a storm usually brought her, for all the warmth her bed provided, she found herself wide awake.
She curled up in the blankets again, closing her eyes and willing herself to sleep, but it was like some small, bothersome gnat had made its way into her brain. No matter which side she lay on, how she fluffed her pillows, or tried to reason with herself that she had a huge number of things to do tomorrow sleep evaded her.
Finally, she got up. While the cabin was dark, her eyes had adjusted and she knew it well enough to not trip or stumble against anything. Charlotte made her way into the kitchen, debating about whether making herself a cup of tea would help soothe her back to sleep, but something about the closed door, that opened out onto the garden, called to her.
She slid back the bolt and unlocked the door, then pulled it open and stepped out onto the porch. The torrential rain thrummed heavily on the ground, a dark, silky wave of darkness swallowing up the surrounding trees. Sometimes on quiet nights she would hear the rush of the nearby river or the trains trundling along the tracks towards Bacchus Station. But right now, she couldn’t even hear the rustle of animals in the bushes or the hoot of an owl in a nearby sycamore.
As always, she felt the pull of slipping out into the garden and allowing herself to be drenched by the rain, to dance in the everlasting depth of night, the boom of thunder her music and lightening illuminating the ground beneath her feet. She had once done it as a child, or at least had tried to, until her Nanny had yanked her back indoors.
She was lucky that her father was home to tell her off, rather than her mother. Her mother would have probably given her a thwack over the thighs with a slipper and sent her off to bed without supper. Her father just gave an amused chuckle when Nanny told him what she had been up to, before sitting her opposite him and telling her that being electrocuted was a very unpleasant experience. He had seen several exhibitions on it while he had been in New York. Being hit by lightening could mean instant death.
‘So, no more dancing in the rain, my little witch.’
She had nodded fearfully, wide eyed and terrified that the lightening could snake its way into the house, find her and zap her.
Still the urge never really left her, even though eventually the sense of adulthood prevailed and she would usually just watch a storm from a safe distance. She risked placing her hand just outside the safety of the porch, the rain drizzling lightly on her fingertips. A sudden flash of lightening made her pull her hand back. For a brief moment the garden was lit up as though it were mid-morning, she could easily make out the neat rows of vegetables and herbs, the bowed heads of the flowers in the plant pots by the cabin and in the distance, coming up the road was a brown, misshapen lump of something.
‘Bear!’ her mind instantly thought with fear. But even with the rumble of thunder, that followed the bright flash of light, she heard a horse’s whinny of terror. She debated what would be the best thing to do in the short amount of time she had with the person approaching her house. There was no way she could grab her rifle and a lamp; it would have to be one or the other.
She grabbed the rifle from behind the door and nestling it snuggle against her shoulder, called out as bravely as she dared, ‘Who is it? I warn you, I am armed and won’t think twice about shooting you, if you cause me trouble!’
In the gloom, the horse ambled forward, and Charlotte placed her finger on the trigger. ‘I’ll give you to the count of three. One… two…’
But she never got to three and was instead interrupted by a low groan, as someone slipped from the saddle and landed on the ground with a low, heavy thud. She cautiously stepped a little closer, unfortunately all too aware of the tricks people could play on gullible, kind strangers.
‘Who are you?’ she called out again.
Lightening split the sky in two with a brilliant flash and she was able to see the stranger, though he was lying face first in the cold, dank mud of her garden. She could make out the brown leather jacket, a blue cotton shirt, heavy boots on his feet. His light brown hair was lank and plastered to his head.
Before she had even realised it, she was racing across the garden path and knelt down by his side, practically dragging the man into her lap and rolling him over. He let out a gasping wheeze as she did, but one of his hands lifted up, trying to cup her face.
His shirt was ripped and blood stained the material. His face was almost unrecognisable, bruises blossoming everywhere, his lips cracked and bloodied, his skin ghostly pale, eyelids closed over those sharp clear blue-green eyes that she had grown to know and love so well. He let out a few rasping breaths, then coughed, a terrifying, brutal cough that seemed to drain him of any energy he had left.
‘Trouble, ‘m trouble,’ he said, his words a scratchy whisper that could have easily been lost in the rain.
‘Arthur,’ she murmured, holding him, cradling him against her.
She had so many questions screaming through her mind, ‘What happened, how did you get here, who hurt you, where have you been, why did you leave me for so long?’
Another racking cough seized his body and afterwards he let out another groan, before resting in her arms once more. ‘Can I come in?’ he muttered faintly.
She found herself laughing at the absurdity of the situation, that he would still ask permission to enter her home, even though he looked like death. He managed a wheeze and a painful smile, that looked more grimace than grin, but his fingers finally cupped her cheek and he gazed up at her as though he was glad to be there, as though he had found peace, as though he had found his way home.