Page 81 of Sweet Silver Bells
“Herb, call the paramedics just in case.”
“Knock on the door—what if they need help?”
The neighbors.
The sound of the tree falling, of crashing through roof, wall, and window, must have woken up quite a few people.
Hunter tripped over branches, wincing as he stepped on small, sharp-edged sticks hidden by leaves. He rushed to his closet to try to recover any clothing that would cover them both before they flashed the entire neighborhood. The horrifying picture of paramedics forcing them both to sit on a gurney, strapped, nude, played on the screen of his mind.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Hello?” Hunter heard an elderly voice croak. “It’s your neighbor Ethel in nineteen-nineteen. A tree fell on your house.”
No shit, lady.
“Are you alright? My husband is calling the paramedics.”
Ethel was yelling so loudly that Hunter was sure the entire neighborhood would be gathering there, if they were not already.
“We are okay, please don’t call for help,” Hunter shouted, throwing a t-shirt and boxers at Olivia. “Put those on.”
“You would prefer this on me?” she challenged, an eyebrow raised and an amused expression on her lips.
Hunter sighed, letting the dark win his internal game of tug of war again.
“If I had it my way,” Hunter growled, “you would never wear clothes again around me.”
“I would prefer it that way, too.” Olivia smiled. “The trees, they agree obviously.”
Hunter poked his head through the wet t-shirt, which he was able to pull and rip from under a different branch.
“Obviously? Nothing is obvious to me about these trees.”
Olivia’s smile faltered, but Hunter’s stress started to subside when she matched his actions by putting on the clothes.
“Hello!” Ethel's voice yelled. “HELP. IS. ON. THE. WAY. STAY. CALM. Oh my God, Madge, is that you? That poor widower might be dead in there.”
“Did you see the containment on Main Street?” Hunter assumed he was hearing Madge now. “People are saying it was terrorists.”
“George, don’t we have his mother’s phone number? She comes to church sometimes. An awful, posh woman.”
“Do not call my mom!” Hunter yelled.
“Did you hear that?” One of them said excitedly. Probably Ethel. “Someone’s alive!”
Hunter heard probably Ethel dramatically clear her throat. “DO. NOT. MOVE. HELP. IS. COMING.”
“Should we go inside?”
“God no, who knows how gruesome a scene it could be. I wouldn’t be able to sleep for weeks with gore in my mind.”
Right on cue, the faint sound of sirens reached his ears, and it seemed to be all that was needed to get the parade of retirees to shut up.
You'll need to get used to that—the sound of sirens.
“I think they’ll be disappointed that you survived,” Olivia said, stepping over branches and leaves barefoot as if she were merely walking on soft clouds. As soon as she reached him, she dove into his arms, nearly knocking him back into the split wall of the hallway.
“Can you see it, Hunter?” Olivia looked at the leaves, caressing what she could touch in the palm of her hand without breaking their body contact. “Can you see what our love has grown? It’s so lovely; these colors are more vibrant than the forest before the leaves frost.”
