What Storms Shake the Oceans of my Sleep

There was an unexplainable calm the next day. The storm had passed and a new day had dawned. They had only managed a couple of hours of sleep before they could no longer convince themselves that it was comfortable and they decided to move. The howling of the wind had stopped so Raven thought it might be safe enough to look outside. She stumbled with numb feet between the burnt out remnants of the candles littering the floor, hand in hand with B who seemed to be dragging his feet through his sleepiness. The latch snapped open, but only after Raven had thrown all her weight against it. There was silence as she hesitated a moment more, and then with determination, she opened the door to the wider world unsure of what they’d find.

The dazzling sun pierced their vision, lighting the gloom of the shelter and causing them to throw their hands up to shield their eyes from its penetrating glare. After Raven became used to the light, she gripped the doorframe for support. Total devastation. There was a reason that storms were called catastrophes. There was also a reason they were named like humans. The house on a whole seemed to still be holding together but the loose rubble from its shell littered the yard like some type of gross minefield of memories. In silence, B clung onto Raven’s hand and they left the shelter that had proved to be quite a successful sanctuary for them.

The sun was just rising, starting its long journey across the sky and causing pink and purple hues to bleed across the horizon, which was still tinged with the darkness of the night before- a smudge like an incorrect answer that refused to be rubbed out. The curvature of the sky enclosed them in the devastation. Raven just stood speechless. Her house, her home was a wreck. She couldn’t possibly be able to fix this. It wasn’t as simple as sweeping the floor or making beans on toast. She half laughed, remembering how she had even failed at cooking beans. One short laugh escaped her and she collapsed to the floor, crouched, hopeless. And she sobbed uncontrollably and her chest burned with desperateness. Raven hadn’t even noticed that she had let go of B’s hand until he stroked her back soothingly. Looking up she saw her brother and realised it wasn’t just her that had lost her home and she forced a wavering smile amidst the hot tears that studded tracks down her flushed cheeks. He handed her a folded piece of paper, one of his drawings.

“I did it last night... for you.”

“What is it?” She shakily replied, frantically rubbing away the tears with a wobbly hand. He looked confused for a moment trying to figure out how to phrase it. He seemed to give up and gestured to the carnage that surrounded them. Raven sniffed and unfolded the paper slowly. Another drawing. This time it was their yard, a mess with rubble just like in real life, their house barely standing and the completely demolished barn. Looking up she saw that the barn was also in a bad state. It was not completely gone like it was depicted, but one side had completely fallen flat as if God had sliced it like a loaf of bread. Back on the paper, Raven started to notice from the rubble of the buildings and yard B had drawn shoots and little flowers that seemed to be growing straight out of the debris. And in an instant Raven realised she wasn’t alone, her and B had lost most of their house- but they still had a home if they were together. She smiled truthfully and as she folded it carefully, noticing as she did a cloud with an eye on it at the top of the page. Raven sat trying to work it out for a few seconds before finally asking for help. It was a cloud, a childish ‘wouldn't-look-out-of-place-in-a-children’s-book’ type of cloud, but the eye on it was more intricate. It looked almost alive and there was something lost and sad about it. Turning back to B and pointing to it she asked,

“What’s that?”

“Mum.” He replied instantly as if it was obviously her, the only logical explanation for such a drawing.

“Why is she a cloud?” Raven asked delicately but he didn’t reply and something seemed to pass over them both in the warm glow. Together they took in their surrounding and after what seemed an age B started walking slowly back to the house, a path that should have been well known to them but now seemed alien. Raven watched him look around for some sign of salvation, walking in and out of the rubble. He’s so innocent… Raven thought as she watched him stop and pick something up. Rising to her feet Raven followed him calling,

“What have you found B?”

He turned to her showing her one of his beloved wellington boots. The only income they had was from Raven working at the grocers about half a mile down the road, and she had saved up for months and months to buy him them. They were fourth of fifth hand when she got them and they had seen better days. The pattern had definitely gone and the sole was wearing through but he thought they were amazing. Raven remembered fondly how he refused to take them off for bed on the day she had bought him them. His eyes flickered with hope and he smiled.

“Well,” Raven said after a second “one is useless by itself- let’s find the other.”

They worked hard without resting, moving around the yard. B was rescuing anything that could be salvaged or any items that had departed the house in the storm creating a pile of them near the house. He had found his other boot and was joyfully skipping around the yard on his search for artefacts of their old life. Raven, on the other hand, was moving large pieces of rubble, trying to patch up the outside of the house to make it seem more sturdy and desperately trying to make the yard tidier. Neither had ventured into the house yet. Raven had told B it was because she didn’t know if it was safe for them just in case it decided to collapse with them inside, but actually, she was worried what she might find. She had spent her whole life trying to keep the house together if it was a ruin she didn’t think she could quite cope. But by the time she deemed the yard tidy enough for now the sun was directly above them scorching them through their thin pyjamas. She continued to put it off until her and B’s stomachs rumbled hard enough cause another natural disaster, and she decided that she would rather be collapsed by the house she was forced to call home than dying of starvation or dehydration among the rubble in the yard.

Nothing was familiar to them as they walked. They felt like strangers in their own house, as if passing briefly through a different story. The back door that led to the kitchen had been ripped clean off its hinges and plates had smashed along the floor. The heavy mahogany table had moved a few feet across the room and the liquor cupboard had fallen completely and had splintered into pieces over the slabs that were still faintly stained with Raven’s blood. They continued out into the pokey hallway where pictures frames had fallen off the walls and shattered everywhere and parts of the wall had crumbled and fallen away. Nothing that can’t be fixed… Raven hoped desperately. The rest of the house was much the same, parts of the walls crumbled away, a few pieces of light furniture moved or upside down in the case of a couple of chairs but the house itself, despite its age, had survived pretty well and this filled her with new confidence.

After a tour of the house, they returned to the kitchen to salvage what they could. Luck seemed to be on their side for all the electricity, gas and water seemed to all be working. B pulled the only chair that still seemed to be intact towards the table and Raven busied herself by making a little picnic for them. The old fridge was still upright which made the job a lot easier, and she found some bread, ham and cheese for sandwiches, a pack of ready salted crisps which she emptied into a bowl that had smashed clean in half, and a couple of apples. Proud that she was able to assemble something so quickly she whipped around back to the table saying, “I couldn’t find any plates we could use but I’m sure we’ll manage...” Something hit her stomach, a cold dread when she realised that B was not, in fact, sitting at the table. Throwing the food down onto the table she screamed “B? B!”

A small voice from below answered her “Raven, it’s blocked.” Dropping to her hands and knees the whole in the wall that B usually hid in was now visible because of how far the table had moved. Raven sighed with relief as she looked down at her brother.

“B don’t, don’t do that to me okay?”

“Raven, it’s blocked.” He repeated in an even smaller voice. He was attempting to squeeze into the cavity in the wall, his hiding space, but the wall seemed to have fallen in making it indeed – blocked. Raven sighed again knowing how much this little place meant to him. She had been looking for her sanctuary, and he had just lost his.

“Where am I supposed to go now?” he whispered, his voice shaking, his lip trembling and silent tears ran down his face. Raven broke. B never really showed emotion. They had seen their house practically ruined and his face had not changed, but now he was crying. She should have felt happy. It was a breakthrough. He was feeling. But, she realised that he was crying not just because of he felt- but he understood. And that broke Raven. She hugged him hard and picked him up in her arms. They stayed like this for a few minutes, just holding each other, realising that if they were together they were home. After a few minutes he seemed to have calmed down a little bit more and Raven tried again.

“Hey, I made a delicious feast that’s going to waste. How about, as a treat we eat it on the sofa and I’ll read you one of your books. Yeah?”

News reached them a few days after the hurricane that their father was dead. He had been battered and bruised presumably in a drunken fight and left in a ditch by the side of the road to the mercy of the storm. There was no funeral and no one mourned him. A week or so later whilst clearing out the rubble from the half-collapsed barn Raven found her mother’s body, broken, covered in mud and blood. She buried her straight away in the yard by the shelter not wanting to let B see her like this. They held a small funeral for her. Nothing much and no words. They picked some flowers from neighbouring fields to decorate her grave. In the next couple of weeks, B worked on the headstone. It was a slab of stone found in the rubble that he had worked at to etch away the words ‘Mum. Was lost. Now Peace’ which the cloud symbol scratched at the top. Raven liked it, her brother’s way of simply phrasing things confused and sometimes upset people but in this instance, she couldn’t have put it better. So now parentless they carried on their lives as best as they could. They worked on the house and kept themselves busy, realising that it was the best distraction.

They spent the next few months patching back together the house. It was a long slow process which they could only have done with the help of Raven’s boss- Mr Speare, the grocer. He was a tall, slender man with sandy coloured hair and a good heart. Raven had spent the last number of years working for him to provide for her family. She would help at the till with B hiding underneath it helping her out with the more difficult sums. Raven was smart, but Maths definitely wasn’t her forte, so it was lucky that it came naturally to B. For extra credit she would also run errands for him, delivering goods or watching the shop for him. In return instead of normal wages, he would give them food and other supplies. But after the hurricane, he took pity on them and gave them extra food. Raven would keep refusing it but he would sneak it to B. He would also come around on Sunday’s to help fix and mend their house, bringing his children who loved playing in the large yard. His continuous generosity astounded Raven and within a few months she had deemed their house safe enough and allowed her and B to start sleeping back in it, instead of in the shelter. There was much celebrating at sleeping in a proper bed again (even if they did have to share) so as a treat Raven whipped them up half a dozen cupcakes. Whilst clearing out they found an old writing book that B commandeered at once. It was a leather bound one with a deep brown jewel set in it, the pages thick and real with traces of bark still on it, and stamped on the back of it ‘GODFREY MULLIGAN’ which they found out after some more digging in the box of photos was their grandfather who originally bought the farm and where they had got the last name of ‘Godfrey’ from. As a mark of respect, they decided to hang up the musty frames and faded photos back on the walls where they should have been- alongside some of B’s drawings.

Raven tried to make their life seem as normal as she could. Tutoring B and teaching him how to help her around the house. They were more relaxed due to the absence of their father, and calmer without the vacant presence of their mother that terrified them and seemed to cause a void in the room. The house slowly changed to represent the personalities of those who lived in it. The walls were painted new, deep purples and light blues, and almost always resulted in paint fights between the two siblings. In the bedroom, they painted the ceiling like the sky ranging from morning to morning along it. Pinks bled into blues into purples and back again. Directly above the bed millions upon millions of stars were painted creating galaxies which mingled into their dreams. Months passed and more and more of B’s drawing were stuck up on the walls to accompany the photos and the house seemed to buzz once again with life. Most evenings were spent reading or playing a homemade scrabble which included picking cardboard letters out of a glove that had lost its pair at some point. They lived simply but they were happy.

One night about six months after the hurricane they were sat around the old heater with a book. Squished onto one forlorn-looking armchair with a threadbare blanket over them they sat by candlelight when B turned to Raven and said,

“Are we going to be okay?” His eyes were alight with worry and Raven was taken slightly aback by the question.

“Of course we are, we have each other don’t we? Why do you ask?”

He seemed to chew this over in his mind for a moment and Raven waited patiently for him to piece together his answer, trying to ignore the cold dread that seemed to be creeping into her. He put the bookmark in his book and shut it slowly, still thinking.

“It’s just… something is going to happen.” He said slowly measuring every word and Raven was silent for a moment not knowing what to say. “Something bad.” He added without looking at her. Raven took a deep breath that seemed to hang in the air.

“Barnabas, nothing is going to happen to you. I promise. I am gonna protect you. No one will ever hurt you.” She wasn’t sure why she said this, whether it was to persuade him that she would look after him or persuade herself that she was capable of looking after him.

“You think?” He was looking her dead in the eye now and there was something in them that she didn’t quite understand. It wasn’t the usual situation where he’d say weird things that didn’t make sense but more than what he was saying was too true to be just the worries of a four-year-old. Things had been going so well. They were happy for the first time in their life and was it just fate that something would happen to shatter that, leaving Raven to pick up the pieces in bleeding hands again. There was also something else in his eyes that she noticed that caused her to shudder. Her mother’s eyes, cold, unseeing eyes, were looking back at her through B’s. They flickered and within a second they were gone. Raven shook her head not believing what she had seen.

“I think,” she added forcing herself to attempt to lift the mood, “I shouldn’t have let you read that science fiction book. C’mon its time for bed, and I’ve finally finished mending it. Tonight you have your own bed!” B beamed up at her and all traces of his mother left. Raven smiled, proud of her accomplishment.

“Last one upstairs has to clean the dishes tomorrow.”