Chapter Fourteen — After the Storm
1311 Words
The storm broke sometime before dawn, but the world didn’t feel calm when Silas stepped outside. The air was heavy, thick with the smell of wet earth and broken branches. The river still snarled beside the house, swollen and muddy, but the water had finally begun to sink back into its banks.
Silas didn’t wait for breakfast. He didn’t wait for his dad to finish talking. He didn’t wait for anything.
The moment the river dropped low enough to cross, he grabbed his boots, slung his tools over his shoulder, and headed straight for the forest.
The path was a mess—mud sucking at his feet, branches scattered everywhere, leaves plastered to the ground like wet paper. The forest felt different today. Quieter. Watching him with a kind of worried stillness.
“Anwen?” he called once, voice swallowed by the trees.
Ink didn’t answer.
That scared him more than anything.
He pushed deeper into the woods, heart pounding harder with every step. The closer he got to her clearing, the worse the damage became. A tree had split clean down the middle. Another had fallen across the path, forcing him to climb over it.
When he finally reached the edge of the clearing, he stopped dead.
Her house had been hit.
A massive branch had crashed straight through the porch railing, splintering wood everywhere. One of the front windows was shattered, glass glittering across the ground like ice. The shutters he’d fixed yesterday hung crooked, one ripped halfway off its hinge.
Silas’s breath caught.
“Anwen!” he shouted, voice cracking. “Anwen!”
No answer.
He ran across the clearing, slipping in the mud, grabbing the porch railing for balance. The broken wood groaned under his weight.
He pounded on the door. “Anwen! Are you in there?”
Nothing.
His chest tightened. Panic clawed up his throat.
He hit the door again, harder. “Anwen, open the door!”
Still nothing.
He stepped back, jaw clenched, ready to kick the door in if he had to—
“Silas?”
He spun so fast he nearly slipped.
Anwen stood behind him at the edge of the clearing, hair damp, clothes muddy, arms full of broken branches and scrap wood. Ink perched on her shoulder, feathers puffed up like he’d been yelling at her the whole walk back.
Silas didn’t think.
He ran.
He crossed the clearing in seconds, boots splashing through puddles, and before he could stop himself, he wrapped his arms around her in a tight, desperate hug.
Anwen let out a soft gasp, the wood in her arms nearly slipping as he pulled her close. Ink fluttered off her shoulder with an indignant squawk.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Silas felt her warmth, the rise and fall of her breath, the faint tremble in her arms from carrying too much weight.
Then he realized what he was doing.
He froze.
He stepped back so fast he nearly tripped over a fallen branch. “I—sorry—I didn’t— I mean— I didn’t mean to—” He scrubbed a hand over his face, ears burning. “I just— I thought something happened to you.”
Anwen stared at him, stunned… then her expression softened into something warm and fragile.
“You were worried,” she said quietly.
Silas opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Yeah. I—yeah.”
Ink strutted between them, tapping Silas’s boot like you think?
Anwen shifted the wood in her arms, cheeks pink. “I’m okay. Really. I just went to gather things to fix the window before you saw it.”
Silas looked at the shattered glass, the broken porch, the storm‑torn clearing. “I saw it.”
“I know,” she whispered.
He swallowed hard. “I thought you were inside. Or hurt. Or—”
“I’m here,” she said gently.
And for a moment, the storm damage didn’t matter. The broken porch didn’t matter. The mud, the cold, the ruined window—none of it mattered.
She was standing in front of him.
Alive.
Safe.
Looking at him like she understood exactly what that hug meant, even if he didn’t.
Silas cleared his throat, trying to pull himself together. “Let me help. Please.”
Anwen nodded, her smile small but real. “Okay.”
They walked toward the broken window together, Anwen shifting the bundle of wood in her arms. Silas reached to take some of it from her, their fingers brushing.
He froze.
Her hand was ice‑cold.
Not just chilled from the morning air — cold in a way that made something in his chest twist.
“Anwen… your hands.” His voice came out softer than he meant.
She blinked, startled. “Oh. I’m fine. Just—just a little cold.”
But her cheeks were flushed, too red against her pale skin. Not the shy warmth from earlier. A feverish red.
Silas stared at her a moment longer than he should have, worry tightening behind his ribs. She tried to look away, but he gently caught her wrist.
“Hold still,” he murmured.
Before she could protest, he lifted his hand and pressed it lightly to her forehead.
Heat pulsed against his palm.
“Anwen,” he whispered, “you’re burning up.”
She stiffened, eyes darting away. “It’s nothing. I just— I was out in the rain for a while.”
“How long is ‘a while’?” Silas asked, voice low.
She hesitated.
Ink cawed sharply, like tell him.
Anwen sighed, shoulders slumping. “The whole storm.”
Silas’s heart dropped. “The whole—? Anwen, why?”
She hugged the wood to her chest, embarrassed. “The window broke early. Things were flying in. Glass, leaves, rain… it knocked over my mother’s vase.” Her voice softened, almost breaking. “And the painting in the living room—my family’s painting—I didn’t want it to get ruined.”
Silas stared at her, stunned. “So you stood in the storm all night trying to block the window?”
She nodded, small and ashamed. “I used a sheet. It kept blowing loose. I didn’t want you to think I was silly.”
“Silly?” Silas stepped closer, voice trembling with a mix of anger and fear. “Anwen, you could’ve gotten hurt. You’re sick because you were trying to protect a painting.”
“It’s all I have left of them,” she whispered.
That stopped him cold.
The wind rustled through the clearing, soft and mournful.
Silas exhaled slowly, the fight draining out of him. “You’re not silly,” he said, gentler now. “You’re… you’re trying to hold onto what matters.”
Her eyes lifted to his, shining with something fragile.
He swallowed hard. “But you don’t have to do it alone.”
Ink hopped to Silas’s shoulder, tapping his head once like finally, someone understands.
Silas didn’t even flinch.
He just reached for the wood in her arms again, this time more firmly. “Come on. Let me fix the window. You need to sit down before you fall over.”
Anwen opened her mouth to argue, but a wave of dizziness washed over her — subtle, but Silas saw it. She steadied herself on the porch railing, cheeks flushing deeper.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Maybe… maybe I should rest for a moment.”
Silas nodded, guiding her gently toward the porch steps. “I’ve got it. Just stay where I can see you.”
Anwen sank down, exhausted but relieved, watching him with soft, grateful eyes as he began clearing the broken glass.
For the first time since the storm, Silas felt the knot in his chest loosen.
- Writer
