2020 Tapestries: Saint Francis University's literary and visual arts magazine

Holding Peace by Kristen Toth The sound of booming thunder wakes me and I can’t get myself to go back to sleep.

The rumbling is so loud I can feel it shaking my bed and filling my ears, allowing me to hear nothing but the thunderous booming. I pull my covers up over my eyes and place my head under my pillow, hoping to block out the storm. As I lay and listen to the thunder, I can’t help but notice the noise is somehow still growing louder and closer.

Beads of sweat form across my upper lip from the hot, thick, humid air in the room.

Finally, I tear back the covers to my bed and rush over to the small window in the bedroom whose frame is in dire need of a new paint job. Hopefully, the air outside is a little cooler than it is in here. As I stand on the old wooden floor of our small farmhouse, I can feel the ground shaking beneath my feet.

Just as I am moving the old yellow drapes that hang across my window, I hear a scream. A familiar scream…that sends my blood rushing and my heart racing. It’s a bloodcurdling, heart-pounding scream. I don’t know why she is screaming; it’s only a thunderstorm after all.

But my sister is indeed screaming.

I look over to her bed located right next to mine, but what I initially thought was her body is only just her pillows and a pile of blankets. Even though she’s ten years old, she sometimes does still get frightened during thunderstorms. She says they give her nightmares, but she never tells me what they are about. So I just lie with her until she falls back to sleep. So where could she have gone?

I turn away from the window and open the small creaky door to my bedroom. I can feel the doorknob shake against my hand as I turn it. That’s when I hear her scream again, only this time, it’s my name.

“Chastin!”

There’s urgency in her voice, an urgency that wasn’t there before. I don’t know where to look. I’m standing on the floor of the small, cramped kitchen when suddenly I hear a door squeak open behind me. I turn and see my brother, Clive, come running out of his room. He is hastily putting on a torn white shirt and his brown hair is a tousled mess.

But when he looks at me, I see his eyes are full of horror. Did he hear Carrie screaming, too? He runs to me and grabs my shoulders, shaking them as he yells over the thunder.

“Are you okay!? Are you hurt?” I shake my head and open my mouth to find out what is going on, but he cuts me off. “Where are Carrie and Mother? Where are they?” Clive’s words stumble and slur out of this mouth. Even though he’s yelling over the thunder, I can still barely make out what he’s saying.

“I’m not sure!” I yell back. “I’m trying to find Carrie. What’s wrong? Did you hear Carrie screaming, too?” The last words out of my mouth turn his face a pale white color. I don’t know what’s wrong with him and why he looks so frightened, but before I can speak again he grabs me by the wrist and pulls me across the small kitchen. My feet stumble across the floor, but after just a few steps, we are met with another scream coming from 50