In the morning the storm clouds were back, darker than before, dark as road tar. With them were gusting winds. They were what woke him: not dawn, as he’d planned, but a ragged nor’wester, tearing up the sand and harassing the little forest. He stumbled to the head of the cove, still groggy with sleep, hoping to see a faultless sky on the horizon. Instead he saw a whiteslashed river, foaming all the way to the mouth.

There was no choice to make. No course to take but the hard route home.

The conditions were even rougher than they looked from the shore, far rougher than anything he’d experienced before. The moment he left the cove the nor’-wester hit him hard, throwing the boat off course, knocking it against the waves. It took all of Ned’s strength and skill to wrangle his way back down the river. He was constantly tacking back, pulling out his oars, fighting the savage gusts and the heeling of the boat. If he knew more about sailing he might have coped better. At no point did he feel in control, not for the whole trip. Wind cut him; water slapped him. His arms and back were wrenched by the work. They rang with pain, but he could not stop. At midday he ran out of fresh water. A deep throb hammered his skull. The weather did not relent. The only benefit to this frantic battle was that it gave him no time to dwell on the failure of the trip.

He limped into the bay at Limberlost late in the afternoon. He was crusted with salt, slick with sweat and spray. Halfasleep with exhaustion. Numb from toenail to eyelash. The glow within him splashed still and smokeless.

~

The fullness of the storm arrived that night. The pace of the wind increased with the darkness, racing down the valley, knifing through the trees. Gums creaked; pines swished. A deep and mournful whistle heralded each gust. Rain finally plummeted groundward: hours of ceaseless, heavy pelting, viscous as honey.

In the morning Ned and his father went to the orchard and found apples blanketing the ground. Hundreds. Thousands. Vibrant orbs shining on the already greening grass. They began gathering them up, not saying much. Ned knew there was a possibility that some of the less-damaged fruit could be sold to the cannery, but most of the fallen apples were unredeemable: their flesh bruised, their skin torn. They dropped them into canvas bags and carried them to the apple shed.