When Darkness Loves Us

“Okay. Be right back, Dave.” Harry got up and trotted toward her. “How is it outside?”

“I don’t know. It’s wild.”

They slipped out the door together; Harry pulled his hat down over his eyes. The wind had risen even more than she had believed possible. “I’ll get it,” he shouted over the incredible noise. “Go on back to the house.”

She ran to the house, the wind catching her lithe frame and almost knocking her over. She leaned into it to maintain her balance, dust filling her nostrils, blasting her legs and arms right through her sweater. She followed the rope as it slowly rose from the ground and was secured to the barn. This was the rope they would follow to the barn, to minister to the animals, in case of blizzard. In a whiteout, Harry explained, you can’t see your hand in front of your face. Men get lost and freeze to death two steps away from their home porch. When he told her about the blizzards, Fern put the rope on her list of things to do. She wouldn’t take a chance that it might be forgotten.

As she went up the steps, she heard a new noise in the wind, a high-pitched scream, and wondered what was tearing away. It was the scream of metal ripping, or a nail being forced from wood. She opened the storm door, holding on carefully so it wouldn’t slam. She stepped into blessed peace and quiet. She put on the tea kettle, then patted the dust out of her clothes. Quietly, she waited for Harry and David, fidgeting, absently wondering where David would sleep tonight. Surely he couldn’t go home in this weather.

Too soon, she heard the pounding of boots on the front porch, and went quickly to open the door. Harry stood there, torso bare, little drops of blood oozing from a hundred places on his arms and chest where the wind had driven sharp fragments of rock and bits of sand. Dave was leaning heavily on him, his face pale, his arm wrapped in a scarlet, dripping cloth.

“Jack broke. Dave’s cut himself bad.” He walked Dave over to the table and eased him down in a chair.

Fern had never seen so much blood. Her stomach went sour, and bile came up to the back of her tongue. This is an emergency, Fern, she told herself. Now prove yourself to be a resourceful wife. She poured warm water from the kettle into a big bowl and set it on the table, along with a stack of freshly laundered kitchen towels.

Dave’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his neck muscles gave out; he hung limply in the chair. Harry peeled Dave’s blood-soaked shirt from his arm, and Fern gasped as she saw the flesh of his forearm laid wide open. Tendons hung, bone glistened, and an artery, like half a worm, pumped hot red blood into the wound. Instinctively, she reached out with both hands and squeezed the two sides together.

A calm washed over her like a flood of warm water. All the panic of the moment, the fear of the blood, the anticipation of the storm were gone. Her eyes closed, and she saw clearly a blue liquid start to flow through her, saw it come through the top of her head, sparkling with little golden flecks, and it swept easily, pleasantly, through her head, her neck, down her chest and through her arms to her hands. They felt warm with the sudden rush, yet cool with the freshening balm. In her mind’s eye, she saw the cool blue, like an icy mint, surround the hot throbbing wound, and the fever was drawn out, the pain was soothed, the blue liquid melting into the tissues like butter on a fresh hot roll. The rent flesh merged together again, naturally, melding and flowing under the touch of her hands.

The flow of blue trickled, then stopped. Gradually, reality reentered her senses. She heard Harry’s raspy breathing. She heard the wild wind rattling and shaking the house. She opened her eyes. She saw David’s unconscious frame lolling in the chair. She moved her hands, and saw the long forearm covered with blood, and a thin red scar running down its length. She dipped a towel in the warm water and washed off the blood. The arm was pink and healthy looking.

She dared not look into Harry’s face. She kept working, cleaning the blood away, frightened, trembling, not understanding. When the arm was clean, she indicated the couch. “Let’s get him to the sofa.” She looked up at Harry. He was staring, open-mouthed, at her. She didn’t want him to look at her that way. “Come on, Harry.”

Between them, they dragged David to the sofa and laid him down. Fern fetched a pillow for under his head. Then she covered him with a blanket and made two cups of tea. Her hands were shaking. She had to keep them busy.

She put the tea on the table, then sat down next to Harry. He was still staring.

“That arm was laid wide open.”

She nodded. “I saw.”

“It’s a miracle.”

She thought about that for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “I guess it was.”

CHAPTER 3