Water, Stone, Heart - By Will North Page 0,99

out of nowhere with a van, and began shuttling survivors from the rectory to the village hall at the top of Fore Street, where arrangements were being made to take those who needed medical attention to the clinic in Camelford and those who needed shelter to the big leisure center there. The police were letting no one near the lower village, where the river still raged and the destruction continued.

At the village hall, Roger and Anne arrived, having had to drive miles out of their way to avoid the roads the police had blocked. Lee was asleep in Andrew's arms. Instead of waking and startling her, both parents knelt on the floor on either side of the mat on which Andrew sat holding her, and, very gently, stroked her hair and bony legs until she awakened.

“Mum! Daddy! It was so cool! You should have been there, up in my tree! It was like the whole of Cornwall was swimming by—trees, bridges, bits of buildings; I expected to see cows and sheep.”

Roger looked at Andrew, lifted his eyebrows, and just shook his head, as if to say, She's a complete mystery to me … but thank you.

Andrew smiled. Anne stood, kissed him, tears in her eyes, and gathered her gangly daughter in her arms. “Come home, Drew; we're dry up there.”

“I need to find Nicola,” he replied, and Anne nodded.

“Do it for all of us,” Roger said. “Lilly needs her.”

And then they left, and Andrew ached at the completeness of them: mother, father, daughter … family.

Andrew had just left the hall and turned down Fore Street, toward the ruins of the lower village, when she arrived in the van from the rectory. She stepped down to the road hugging a rag-covered package and looked around, blinking, as if she'd been left on another planet. Andrew would remember this moment for the rest of his life: She was shattered, lost, a waif in borrowed clothes. He didn't call out, for fear he'd frighten her. He reached her just as she entered the village hall.

“Nicola…”

She turned toward the sound of her name, in a stiff, twitchy motion, as if the turning were a reflex, not entirely of her own volition. She stared hollow-eyed for a moment, and then the light came on. A smile rose from somewhere deep and she held it for a moment. Then she began to sag, like a leaking balloon. Andrew slipped his arms under her armpits and lifted her toward him.

“Nicola,” he said again.

“I saved her,” she said into his shoulder.

“Of course you did,” he said quietly. He had no idea what she was talking about.

After they'd been fed by volunteers and had their dried clothes returned, they spent the night, side by side, wrapped in blankets on gym mats at the leisure center in Camelford, along with dozens of others—residents and tourists alike. Though she was dry and warm, Nicola trembled uncontrollably. Andrew wrapped his arms around her and held her close until the trembling passed and he could tell by her breathing she was asleep. Then he unwrapped the package and understood whom she'd saved.

Tuesday, August 17, was cruel. The heavy weather having passed, the morning dawned sunny, warm, and preternaturally clear—the kind of storm-rinsed clarity that made you think you could see right over the horizon into the next time zone if you were only tall enough. A perfect day for tourists, but the only people moving in the lower village were emergency workers.

Nicola and Andrew were standing on the edge of the main road at the top of the switchback, halfway up the hill above the harbor. Though they were told the police had cordoned off the area, they'd hitchhiked back to Boscastle from Camelford anyway. Nicola had been adamant about returning. Now the two of them, along with a small crowd of others, tried to take in the scene before them. No one said a word. The only sound was the muted roar of the river, still flowing filthy and fast through the ravaged town, but no longer at full flood stage. The main road through the lower village had survived, but the bridge that carried it over the normally sparkling river had been stripped of most of its stone railing walls. The Clovelly Clothing Company, the shop on the other side of the bridge, had vanished, leaving only a section of thick stone wall. At the Riverside Hotel—and, for that matter, at all of the buildings as far as they could see—the