Mother in the Storm

The shutters on the small stone building flew open in the growing wind. The fishwife inside scowled as she hurried to secure the rotting wood back in place. A few months before, the glass of this window had broken out, leaving the shutters as the only protection against the elements. As a poor widow in an already poor town, she planned to wait until the first big catch of the new year before buying a new window. But that meant suffering through half the winter with nearly no protection against the elements. She had blankets enough and wood for a fire, but the wind and rain were relentless.

She fixed the right shutter with a bit of net she was repairing, but she couldn't get the right leverage to reach out and grab the left one to bring it in.

Mumbling under her breath, she wrapped herself in her old shawl, saving her newer one for wearing to wait out the storm. She pushed open her front door, shoulder and hip braced against the gale. The door slammed closed behind her, but she focused her attention on fixing the other shutter before it was ripped from its rusted hinges. She forced the panel mostly closed and secured it to the other side, planning to tighten it once back in the safety of the hut.

As she turned back to the door she lost her footing, sliding a dozen feet down the steep embankment, cursing all the while.

The spray from the waves crashing against the nearby cliffs was spewing at least fifty feet in the air. The sea was angry tonight. She looked up at the thickening clouds that were blocking out any remaining moonlight and spat at nothing. The sky was doing its best to match the ferocity of the sea.

After a deep shiver reminded her that she was getting drenched, she rolled first onto her knees and then started to push herself up, struggling to get her feet stable under her.

In a flash of lightning something caught her eye. She squinted into the darkness but saw nothing, shaking her head and slowly making her way back up to the path that hugged her little house just at the edge town.

It was slow going and she realized she'd strained something, but the numb and cold disguised all feeling while also leaving her stiff and barely mobile.

When the lightning struck again, she looked casually where she thought she had seen something and, sure enough, there was a figure struggling against the winds and trying to find purchase on the slick rocks that made up the coastline.

Some drunken villager, no doubt. She huffed and made her way back to her door more quickly so as to avoid the asinine behavior of one of the townsfolk. It was no accident she lived further north than anyone else in the town. There was no reason for anyone to come this way.

The Dark Sea to the north of the Isle was impenetrable and the cliffs that held it at bay were no better – sharp and slick and unkind. But it was no matter. There was nothing beyond. The Dark Sea was a tomb filled with explorers and pirates and sailors of all kinds. No one comes back from the Dark Sea.

She struggled to open her door against the wind, which whipped her paltry shawl around her shoulders. The fury of the gusts threatened to push her over again, so she hunkered down and tried as forcefully as she could.

She had nearly forgotten about the villager until a hand reached above her and helped her pry the door open just wide enough to jam her foot in and weasel her way through.

"Didn't ask for your help." She waved her hand to shoo the villager away without even looking. She imagined the villager's eyes. Big, searching. The kind of eyes she had a soft spot for... and she'd be damned if she let anyone in this town know that.

"Please," came a voice behind her in a thick accent. "We haven't anywhere else to go."

She turned to examine this stranger – a tall, battered woman, filthy and soaked.

"We?" The fishwife tried to see behind the woman, who was a good foot and a half taller, but the woman rested a hand on her shoulder then opened her cloak just enough to reveal a tiny, motionless baby.

"By the Elders!" she cried, shoving the stranger into her home. She followed closely behind, letting the wind slam the door shut for her.

She moved to the shutter to fix it more securely, which provided some much-needed respite from the rain, which had already left a quarter of her sandy floor sodden.

Looking sideways at the woman, she moved to the stove and shoved in as many big logs as she could fit, then tossed in the wood chips and leaves that had fallen onto the ground. Even though there were still some warm coals in the back of the stove, she picked up her flint and lit some of the leaves closest to her to help it get started.

She set her half-full kettle on top to make something warm to drink, and took off her shawl and placed it on a peg on the wall just beside the stove.

Her wood burning stove, a well-made contraption from Stonerivell that her husband had bought years before, was about the only thing of value that she owned. But it didn't smoke into the house and gave off far more heat than some of the dingier fireplaces that other townspeople had.

Once she was sure the fire was going, she decided it was time to determine just what she had let into her home.

The strange woman hadn't moved. She stood just inside the doorway, dripping and motionless.

The old fishwife was not a mean woman, but she wasn't soft either. Like most others in this town, she did not like strangers. Especially strangers that came from the North of the Isle in the middle of the worst storm in years. She might have just let the woman stand there, dripping, if it weren't for the lifeless child she held in her arms.

The fishwife had some experience with fragile children and the fragile women who lost them. She thought it best to approach the situation cautiously. She raised both her hands slowly, trying to appear nonthreatening.

"I can take that cloak of yours." She motioned to the woman, who seemed in a daze. Rather than repeat herself, she reached up to unlatch the clasp and took the cloak off herself. It was heavy with rain, which added to the already heavy material – a thick wool that was crafted in such a way the inside was nearly dry.

At least that's something, she thought. It would be a headache if this strange woman were to die of cold in her front room. This cloak would have kept her warm enough on a trip from the village no matter how lost she had gotten, even in this storm. She noticed as she hung the cloak next to her own that the clasp was pure silver. Whoever she was, this woman was not a local.

"I'm Antha, but everyone around here just calls me the old fishwife." She waited for the woman to respond. When she was not forthcoming, Antha continued, "And you would be?"

For the first time, the woman looked up directly at her. "Nénuph..." she paused only slightly, then repeated, "Nénu."

Antha nodded. "Well, Nénu, you better sit by the fire and let me have a look at...at that little one."

Nénu nodded, though she didn't move towards the fire, but rather unwrapped a length of her skirt that she had pulled up and tucked around the baby. Antha noted that this part of her skirt was dry, though the bottom hem all around it was sullied and soaked. She had to have had her skirt wrapped around him for a while. The rain had been coming down for hours.

As the last of her dress fell down to the ground, Antha could see more clearly that the baby was an infant. And from the looks of it, Nénu had given birth within the last month. No wonder the babe had perished.

Antha moved slowly toward the woman and gently reached out, but she stopped when Nénu smiled down at the baby. And she jumped back in alarm when the baby's little arms started to move.

"Baitelou me puternic. Te voi in siguranta," Nénu whispered cheerfully.

Antha was frozen to her spot, but when the baby laughed, she hurried to bring a chair closer to the fire and went into her small bedroom to draw out some blankets.

"Well, sit down, girl!" Antha ushered her over.

Nénu smiled. "Please you to will let us stay in home with you?"

"Yeah, yeah," Antha muttered. "What in the holy hell are you doing out here in this storm?"

Nénu looked back to the baby. "For to keep him safe."

Antha shook her head. Hell of a way to do it, she thought to herself, but then it occurred to her that this woman must be running from someone. "I don't want no trouble," she exclaimed.

Nénu nodded. "I no trouble. He no trouble."

"Well, who are you running from?"

Nénu's face went pale and she clutched the baby tighter to her chest. "Not run, I not choose, I..." She shook her fist in frustration, searching for the word. "Scap. I scap. We scap."

"Escape?" Antha could barely understand her heavy Nhiukmaric accent, let alone remember what little of the language her husband had taught her.

"Che ache fat este pentriu fiul mea shey pentriu intraga lume. Tre buyes so prinche ache urmaza."

"Hold on, hold on. I don't speak Nhiuk. We will just have to figure out everything after the storm, okay? In the morning."

"This storm never end," Nénu said, shaking her head adamantly. "Gabal is storm. Abiaj tectum se ser termine furtuna. We cannot wait."