The Storm Lady

Wake up.
In the dark room, the woman slept soundly. She slumbered on her side, her arm thrown over the pillow next to her, perhaps pretending that it was her absent husband.
Wake up. She's outside.

The woman slept on, despite the lightning flashes that would brighten the room every few minutes. The storm moved closer. The rumblings deepened.

Wake up! She's coming!

With an eye-searing illumination, the room was completely lit up. A split second later, every object in the room shook from the massive clap of thunder.

"Trinity!" With a scream, Dawn sat up in bed. She blinked wildly, her breath coming out in quick gasps. She was confused....then there was another flash of lightning and she understood.

"Trinity!" she called out in desperation, even though she knew it was too late.

When she was halfway across her room, the thunder hit, and she jumped, choking back the scream that filled up her throat.

Her bedroom door was open, as it always was. She crossed the hall to her daughter's bedroom door. She opened the door quietly, despite her urge to fling it open in a panic. Her daughter had been....normal...for a while now; maybe she had grown out of her strange habits. But then again, Triangle Bay hadn't had a storm in quite a while.
Sure enough, the bed was empty, the covers thrown aside.
Dawn cursed, heading for the stairs. Trying to control the wave of panic that now washed over her, she wondered for the millionth time why she could never remember to double bolt the front door before bed when she knew that there was a storm coming.
The front door was directly across from the bottom of the stairs, and it was standing wide open. Sheets of rain were blowing in, making a deep puddle that reached halfway across the floor.

Dawn ran out into the storm, oblivious to the cold downpour that instantly plastered her thin nightgown to her skin.

"Trinity!" she screamed, her voice lasting only a second before the next clap of thunder erased it.

The dark road ran in front of their house, and continued all the way down to the beach. It was a lonely stretch of road; their house was one out of three, the other two about a mile down the beach. And the beach was always where her daughter ended up at. Each time, she had gone deeper into the water. This time could be when the sea finally grabbed her.

Dawn tucked her head and ran, panic giving fuel to her legs.

She reached the beach without realizing it, the change of hard road to wet sand causing her to stagger wildly. She went down on all fours, and struggled to get back up. Her nightgown ripped at the knees, a sound that was lost in the violence of the storm. She tried to see through the sideways rain, but everything was distorted. She waited until the next flash of lightning to scan the beach. Her missing daughter was nowhere to be seen. The lightning ended and the beach went back to blue black darkness. The desperate mother filled up her lungs once more with sound.

"Trinity!" But she had timed it wrong; it was capsized by the deafening clap of thunder.

The wind whipped her skin into nothing but goose bumps, yet her heartbeat was the only sound inside of her head.

She stumbled across the sand, her hands swinging in a wild arc around her body as she struggled to maintain her balance.

Anther flash of lightning and she stopped once again to search for her daughter. The beach was deserted, but wait-out there in the surf-what was that oblong shape? Dawn squinted, trying to see before darkness swallowed up the beach once again. She cursed again and pulled her hair back from her face. She bundled up the bottom of her nightgown and hurried to the water.

Maybe it was all the adrenaline flowing through her system, or simply the sheer strength of a mother's panic, but Dawn crossed the wide beach in no time and plunged into the raging surf. She was forced to let go of her nightgown, needing to use both her arms to balance. It trailed out behind her and the water tugged at it, trying to pull her under. Her dark hair whipped around her face and she brushed it frantically aside. One more lightning flash and yes-now she could see that it was her daughter further out in the water, her dreamy, storm chasing daughter.

She reached Trinity just as the water was surging up to Trinity's chest. The girl was turned towards the east, her face upturned with her arms held above her head, as if about to be received by something. Dawn marveled as to how the child hadn't been struck by lightning.

"Trinity!" she still had to yell, even only being a few feet from her daughter. Trinity was in a trance and didn't respond. Her arms waved back and forth, slowly, dreamily, in exact contrast to the chaos raging around her. How did a tiny child like her not get carried away?

One final lunge and Dawn swept her daughter into her arms. She turned and started back to the beach, her feet struggling to find hold in the surging water. She prayed they wouldn't get struck down before they reached safety.

Her daughter felt like an oversized doll as Dawn hauled her out of the water. Trinity simply floated along, her blank eyes turned towards the angry sky.

Mother and daughter reached the house just as the storm seemed to be abating. As they got to the front door, and Dawn pushed her daughter inside, the violent thunderclaps had been reduced to mere mutterings. Indeed, right before she shut the door, she could swear it sounded like chuckling, as if something out there was laughing at her. A shiver rattled up and down Dawn's spine, a shiver that had nothing to do with being cold.

Trinity stood a few feet inside the doorway, wet hair and pajamas hanging around her tiny frame. She was six years old, but looked more like four.

Dawn shut and locked the door then ran and got a few towels from the bathroom. She returned to her motionless daughter, stripped off her pajamas and wrapped a towel tightly around her. Dawn took a moment to pull off her own soaked nightgown and wrap a big beach towel around herself. Then she pulled Trinity close to her chest and choked back the tears that threatened to pour out.

"Baby, baby....you gotta stop doing this to me," Dawn murmured, while kissing her forehead and cheeks. She used a third towel to wrap up Trinity's hair, while the child stood in front of her, shivering.

Suddenly, Trinity turned and pointed back out towards the sea.

"Mama, she's coming."

Dawn stared at the girl's profile and realized in disbelief that her daughter was still in a trance.

"Trinity?"

"She's coming back for you," the little girl repeated, still looking away.

Dawn's stomach twisted up like a pretzel and a fresh batch of goose bumps broke out all over her body. What or who had hold of her daughter? Her daughter's trances never lasted this long. Usually they broke once she was back inside. It terrified Dawn, seeing her daughter like this, and yet curiosity made her ask,

"Trinity? Who's coming back?"

"The storm lady." The girl turned her head and locked eyes with her mother. And the eyes staring at her were not the eyes of her daughter. There was someone inside of them, a shadow of someone that Dawn knew very well.

Dawn's head whipped back as if Trinity had slapped her. She felt all the blood leave her face, and pool somewhere down by her feet. For a moment, she was very lightheaded and her vision swam. All she could see were those tawny colored eyes of her dead twin sister....those eyes that she had seen close in death.....

Then she blinked and it was only her six-year-old daughter standing in front of her with a glazed look on her face.

Dawn took her by the shoulders and shook her.

"Trinity! Wake up!"

With great relief, Dawn saw the fog leave her face, and be replaced by pure innocence.

"Mama? What happened?"

A sob filled Dawn's throat and she momentarily choked on it. .

"You were sleepwalking again, babe," she told her, a brave smile underneath the tears.

Her daughter's eyes widened as she took in the pile of wet clothes on the floor next to them and the towels they were wrapped in.

"Did I go outside again?"

Dawn nodded and Trinity's eyes filled up with tears. She started to cry, and Dawn once again pulled her daughter into her arms.

"Hush, my baby. It's okay, I have you now."

"I'm sorry, Mama," Trinity sobbed into her chest. Dawn gave her a squeeze while offering up a silent prayer of thanks that she still had her daughter.

She lifted Trinity's chin. "Honey, it's not your fault. I'm just going to have to put a magic spell on that door to keep you inside." Dawn chuckled gamely and her daughter smiled through her tears.

"Come on, let's get warmed up." Dawn's teeth were chattering now that the adrenaline was spent. Dawn led her daughter over to the fireplace in the living room and used the wood stacked nearby to make a blazing fire.

For a long moment, Dawn sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace with her daughter in her lap, holding her close. The clock on the mantel read 1:23 a.m. Dawn's husband wasn't expected back home for another two days.

While they both stared into the fire, Dawn thought again of the words her daughter had spoken while she had been in her storm trance. Another shiver snaked up and down her back. How could her daughter know that name? That name was from a past that Dawn had fled from. The only other person that knew that name was Dawn's husband, Joel. Dawn and Joel had buried that past when they moved to Triangle Bay, when Dawn was still pregnant with Trinity. They had sworn never to speak of it again, for the memories that were invoked with that name were too dark, and too painful.

Dawn's thoughts moved to Trinity's real father. She wondered if that name had come to her daughter's lips simply because of the bloodline that her daughter was apart of, the same bloodline that she had belonged to.

Her daughter stirred.

"Mama, why do I sleepwalk?"

"I don't know, baby." Dawn told her. "You're just a storm chaser."

"What if you don't find me someday?" her daughter whispered. "What if I drown?"

Dawn hugged her tighter.

"Baby, I will always find you. I will not let that sea take you away from me."

"I don't want the storm lady to take me away. She looks mean." Her daughter murmured.

Dawn felt icicles slide down her spine once again. She stared at the back of her daughter's head and felt like there was some force surrounding her daughter that had never been there before. She desperately didn't want to ask, but knew she had to.

"Honey, what lady are you talking about?"

"The lady in the sea who always calls to me. She makes the storms."

In one horrible second all the pieces of the puzzles about her daughter's strange behavior came together. Dawn understood what was going on before she confirmed it and her mind screamed at her to stop, to not stir up whatever madness was brewing. But she had to know, she had to bring it to light. If she was going to start up again, she needed to know. It was the only way she was going to save her daughter.

Dawn closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She asked in a voice that barely hid her trembling:

"Baby, what does the storm lady look like?"

Her daughter snuggled up deeper inside her chest. Could she hear her mother's heart hammering away?

"She's got long white hair and really big yellow eyes, like a cat's."

Like a black panther, Dawn's mind followed. Sister, why won't you rest? Why must you keep trying to take everything I love away from me?

Dawn opened her eyes and stared into the fire, fierce determination taking up her features.

You're not going to get my daughter. You have to get through me first.

THE END