Page 15 of The Two Halves of My Heart

“No,” I called, the uncertainty colouring my voice.

“It’s all right, Grace. You’re fine,” Maddison chimed in.

The light shrunk away as if sucked from the sky, and the leaves and branches turned everything dark and gloomy. The tip-tap of droplets splashing on leaves sounded before I felt several drops hit my head and arms.

Maddison climbed down to me and perched on the branch to the side.

“Grace, you ready to go down?”

I nodded furiously at him, but my grip of the branch and my position backed up against the trunk didn’t change.

“It’s only a bit of thunder. Follow me back down, okay?”

I looked at him and nodded again, but I felt my grip tighten around the wood in my hand.

He slid his legs to the lower branch and dropped his body and then looked up. “See. Easy.”

My fingers relaxed their grip, and I inched my body along the branch to follow his lead. As I let go, the inside of the tree lit up with a flash, casting shadows around us, followed by a loud boom that shattered the sky above our heads.

“Arghh!” I squealed and pushed myself back against the trunk of the tree and gripped hold, securing myself in place.

“Grace, you’ve got to follow me down,” Maddison pleaded, but fear had tied me to this spot.

The rain fell harder, and a few drops now cut through the canopy above and started to cover me, seeping through my t-shirt and chilling my skin.

“Grace!” Oliver called again. “Mads, you’ve got to come down.”

“What about Grace?” he answered.

“Move, Maddison. I’ll talk to Grace.”

The rustle of the leaves told me that Maddison was finishing the last level before reaching the ground.

“Grace, you know what’s happening, right?” Oliver asked.

“Yeah,” I confirmed through chattering teeth. I was terrified that I was stuck in a tree in a lightning storm.

“Then you’ve got to come down. We need to get home.” His voice rang in my ears but didn’t make me shift from my spot.

“Grace?” he shouted again.

I peered down from my spot and saw him leaning up against the tree trunk, trying to get a clear line of sight to me. I wasn’t that high up, but the rain and the noise put a lot of distance between us.

“Grace, I won’t leave you, but you’ve got to help me.”

“Grace, come on!” Maddison added.

Another thunderous crack and the sky split with light. It sounded like the clouds were gathering like giant boulders, crashing into each other and fighting for position overhead.

Water dripped from my hair, now soaked through and plastered to my head, and the shiver that started now shook my whole body violently.

I’d always loved thunderstorms, watching the sky light up in a flash and listening for that roll of thunder after. But this took all the magic from those events. Being under those crashes and strikes made me feel tiny and insignificant and froze any courage I had from my earlier tree-climbing adventure.

“Oliver, what are you doing?”

“Get away. She needs to come down.”

The boys argued beneath me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking everything out and imagined myself wrapped up in my covers with Bob.

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