Two Weddings and a Baby by Scarlett Bailey

door of the Silent Man threatened to fly off its hinges as Tamsyn opened it, Buoy shooting past her legs, though he waited for her on the cobbles, the wind lifting his ears and blowing them across his one good eye. For a moment Tamsyn felt that if she let go of the iron railings that stopped drunk people tumbling down the steep steps, she might very well be swept up in the maelstrom herself and end up somewhere that definitely wouldn’t be Kansas. She could see Buoy barking at her, but couldn’t hear him over the din of the storm. Grabbing her suitcase from the porch, she made her way down the steps and watched as he ran a few steps ahead of her and waited. He seemed to want to go in the same direction as her. Maybe he fancied a nice hotel room and room service too, Tamsyn thought.
    Fifteen more minutes of discomfort, she told herself, and that was exactly where she would be. Except Buoy had very different ideas.

Chapter Five
    The rain was still falling in a constant torrent, rather than in drops, and although it was almost the longest day of the year, and it should still be daylight as it was only just before nine o’clock, the sky was as dark as a starless midnight. Water rushed down the steep streets towards her, cascading down the steps that were the quickest way up to the hotel, flowing over Tamsyn’s feet and around her ankles, its volume increasing with frightening speed.
    As she followed Buoy she watched as a plastic recycling box was easily dislodged from its place on a doorstep and set on a new path that would no doubt involve a trip out to sea. She remembered the stream at the top of the hill, the one that ran through the meadows behind the hotel; normally it was barely more than a trickle, often even completely dry during a long summer, but it must have burst its banks by now, and the overflow was finding its own route towards the sea. Tamsyn had never seen anything like it, and she gasped as Buoy slipped into the freezing deluge, sliding down the street a few feet. Catching his collar, she dragged him upright, but he was determined to carry on up the hill. He really must want whatever it was that he’d found up here, near the top of the town.
    Shuddering, Tamsyn drew her sopping coat around her for comfort more than the scant protection it offered, instinctively ducking as another flash of lightning briefly illuminated the sky, followed a moment later by the deep rumble of thunder so loud it sounded as if it were ricocheting off the walls of the houses. Ten more minutes, Tamsyn told herself, then a bath and wine, with possibly a soggy dog for a secret room guest.
    The wind howled in her ears, tearing at her hair; it seemed to pinch at her cheeks, making her almost want to laugh. Right now she should be sipping something expensive in Club Silencio, dressed in something gorgeous and wearing a pair of shoes that were guaranteed to cripple her. Instead, she felt rather like she should be traversing the plains of Siberia, and that the major threat to her feet came from frostbite, and it was June! Tamsyn made herself smile, because although she didn’t care to recognise the feeling, for the first time in her life she was frightened by the weather.
    For the briefest of moments the wind dropped like a stone, and there was a fraction of deep silence, and then came a sound that made Tamsyn stop dead in her tracks and listen. She just caught a snatch of sound, a thin, high howl – no, more of a wail – a sound quite different from the roar of the wind that enveloped them once again. Was it an animal, or something human? Was this what Buoy had been fretting about? Had he heard something trapped and in distress?
    Dropping her hood for a moment, so she could hear better, Tamsyn listened. Yes, it was still there, the noise – a cry? Perhaps it was a trapped cat, or a fox caught under a fallen tree. It was definitely the source of Buoy’s distress, as he’d made his way to the gates of the churchyard and was barking