6. Adrian
Adrian
T he humidity in the air was coupled with a great heaviness. He had woken from a deep sleep this morning, knowing it would rain before he even opened his eyes.
Another day off the boat. Another day with a negative net gain.
“Obviously not a morning to get on the water,” David said at breakfast, peering through the darkness out the window. The wind whipped through the trees, howling through the branches of the pines. “The rain should start by nine. We still have plenty of time to get some traps up onshore.”
“I bet it starts at eight,” Seth said with a teasing smile, hiding behind his coffee mug.
David took pride in his weather predictions, and Seth’s favorite game in the morning was pushing his dad’s buttons. In truth, it was his favorite game at any time of the day.
“Oh yeah, asshole?” David smiled back at him triumphantly. “For your unnecessary cheek and constant mockery of my superior talents, you get to be the one to accompany me.”
He took a large swig of his coffee and returned his mug to the table with authority. On his way to the stove, he patted his oldest son on the back so hard that a breakfast sausage he was chewing on launched halfway across the table .
Adrian couldn’t help but snigger as Seth leered at him.
David retrieved a sausage of his own from the pan. “If you clowns wake up your sister, I am going to make both of you come with me, and we can work until the rain stops,” he said as he crossed the kitchen to the back mudroom. “The last thing I need to deal with on a rainy day is a house that smells like a burnt match.”
Adrian took the rare opportunity for freedom to take a jog along the cliffside. Clearing his head was never easy, and the only way he knew how was to run. The pounding of his feet on the gravel of the road was the only thing that drowned out the nagging worry in his mind.
He laced up his shoes and set out for the path at the edge of their yard that led down to the small side street shared with other houses that faced the sea.
The dank impending rain in the air clung to his skin, but the breaths that filled his lungs were diametrically cool and light. The final few days of summer were melting away into autumn.
In the next few weeks, the currents of the water would turn icy while the misty humidity would fade into the empty crispness of the autumn air.
The sun was fully up now, but the light was muted by the heavy gray clouds that tore across the sky in the gales of wind. He took a turn around the large fir tree that lined the path when he felt it—the same electric energy he had sensed on the dock the day before.
He stopped in his tracks, his magic humming with curiosity, and maybe a bit of trepidation.
Not all witches were the type you wanted to run into with your guard down. He searched the coast, squinting as his eyes dropped to the shore below.
Standing at the edge of the water, near the rocks in the sandy cove, a woman looked out to sea. He couldn’t see her face from the height of the cliff, but she appeared to be frozen in time. Could she feel the same electric energy in the air?
He watched her wavy brown hair billow behind her in the wind of the impending storm, and after several moments of staring, he, too, seemed to be frozen.
After a few heartbeats, he realized the waves beyond her swelled to greater heights as the tide approached. Pretty soon, the small cove would be covered in water. Something about her posture gave him pause, but he needed to go down there and warn her. He couldn’t very well let her drown.
Adrian climbed down the stone steps that led to the shore, as though being guided by an invisible tether.