Children of the Storm

despite wind and rain and all the worst that Hurricane Greta could throw at them. When Alex slid out from under her, she continued to sleep, nice a tiny spirit, an angel. Like the scene, earlier, with the ants, Sonya counted the child's peace, in the midst of chaos, as a sign of good fortune ahead.
        Alex, when he saw that Sonya wanted him to more or less ride the log across the pool, while she swam behind him using her feet to stay afloat and her hands to push with, thought that she had come up with one of the neatest ideas since the bicycle.
        Of course, he didn't have to push.
        He waded into the water with her, until it had risen to the middle of his chest, waited while she went ahead a bit and left the log wallowing in deeper water. She returned, picked him up, carried him out to where the water rose slightly over his waist, settled him onto the log and directed him, with her hands, to lay on his belly and clutch his ark with hands and knees.
        He got the knack of it straight off.
        Gently, gently, she released his weight, let the log take it and, in turn, let the water take it. She was immensely relieved to see that, though the log went under, a good part of the boy atop it remained above the surface and that he had only to keep his head raised in order to get his breath.
        He seemed happy.
        In three minutes, she was happy too, for she had gotten him to the other side without incident. She turned around and started back to get Tina, who still slept so peacefully in the mud and rain on the other shore.
        The closer she drew to that shore, the more she began to fear that, just as she was getting to the child, Peterson would appear at the crest above, as bedraggled as they, the knife in his hand…
        She gained the shallow water, stood up, pushed the log into the mud, to keep it from drifting out of reach and stranding them on this side. She went to wake Tina.
        Peterson had not yet appeared.
        The ants were right.
        The little girl rubbed her eyes with two balled fists, looked blearily at her surroundings, obviously bewildered by what she saw, looked up at Sonya as if she could not place who she was and as if she were about to start crying.
        Sonya's heart went out to the girl, for she knew only too well what it was like to wake up in a strange place and not know how you had gotten there. It was an experience she had suffered too often, and it was a fear which, all these years later, all mature and adult now, she could still not forget.
        Magically, things seemed to click in place for Tina, like pieces of a puzzle. She smiled, tentatively, and she reached up with both hands, asking to be held.
        Sonya carried her back to the water, got the old log in place, pushed the log and carried the child into the deeper regions of the pool.
        Tina still blinked, sleepily, but she seemed to understand what Sonya wanted her to do. She took hold of the log almost as well as her brother had, holding her head high even though she did not sink quite so far as Alex had.
        Sonya cast one last, apprehensive look back at the far shore, saw nothing moving, began the last trip across the pool.
        They made the crossing without incident. On the other side, Sonya cast the log adrift and struggled up the next slope with the children beside her. This rise proved easier to negotiate than any that had come before it, because it was spotted with all sizes of rock outcroppings which they could set as goals and which they could use to steady themselves when the grass grew treacherously slippery underfoot.
        At the top, she stopped, not to call for a rest period, but to catch her breath and to look back across the top of the other hill, which was now on the same level as they were. She thought that, far off in the twining palm boles, she saw movement that was unlike anything the wind might cause, the purposeful advance of a man on foot.
        She turned to hurry the children along and found that Tina was asleep again.
        She woke her, stood her up and brushed her muddy hair away from her face, hoping that would somehow make her feel fresher and more awake.
        It did not.
        Her small eyes fluttered, closed, even as she was on her feet, and she swayed towards Sonya.
        The woman caught her, saw that even this near-fall had not awakened the child, and knew that from here on out, she was