OCR Text |
Show WORTHING FARM/1^ the great drops struck. He laughed. It was hard but in spite of the wind and the wet thatch Elijah clambered off the roof, off the shed, and onto the ground. The dust had turned to thick mud, and it sucked at his feet as he walked. He stopped when he got well out into the field, and there he looked up into the clouds, the raindrops bruising his face as they fell hard and fast, and he cried out silently for the rain to come like knives to kill the Forest of Waters. The rain .became a single thing, falling again and again hard as an ax on the wood. Leaves were ripped from the trees, and Elijah was knocked to the ground where he stood. The rain beat him, the mud sucked on him, and the heavy drops knocked him unconscious as he demanded that the rain go on. The hands touched his face gently, but still quick stabs of pain followed every motion. He tried to open his eyes, and found they were already open and he was looking up into the eyes of his wife. Her hair was matted with sweat. She looked worried, and he remembered what had last passed between them. I'm sorry, he thought, but she didn't hear. So he opened his mouth and said, "Alana." She answered with fingers on his lips. And she pursed her mouth and said, "Shh." He fell asleep. He awoke again lying on his straw-stuffed bed in a corner of |