Chapter Nine – Poetry

.

The storms came that night.

Clarice Starling woke in her bed at around seven or eight in the evening. The darkness of the sky threw her at first. She had to glance over at her alarm clock to check that she had not slept late into the night. It had meant to be a nap. Feeling tired after an afternoon in the nearby town, she had returned, unpacked the car, showered and gone straight to her room to sleep. Half an hour was all she had planned for. That was three hours ago.

Starling sat upright, pushing back sticky strands of hair from her face. The windows were drawn open, like she had left them, but gone was the light afternoon breeze. The air drifting in was hot and heavy with expectation, humidity clinging to her tongue as she took a long breath in. The sky was filled to every limit of Starling's vision with great columns of cloud, fat bellies nearly grazing the treetops as their great heads rose up high into the atmosphere. An eerie green light played over the scene. The air was electric.

She shivered, but not from cold. The air was as warm as ever but it felt expectant and heavy. Outside, the sky was deep purple. She must have been fast asleep not to hear the distant rumblings of thunder. Starling looked around herself for her shoes and frowned. They weren't where she had left them, kicked to one side on the floor by the doorway. Instead she spotted them propped neatly against the old straight-backed chair in the corner, next to the open window.

He liked to watch her sleep, he had told her years ago, that first night she gave herself to him. Starling shivered again. The night was electric around her. Gil, the pup, was safe downstairs in his playpen with food, water and enough newspaper to paper the coliseum. He was safe to be left on his own for a while. Besides, she had a visit to return. It was only polite.

.

The door of the monster's lair lay ajar, as per usual. And, as per usual, it stayed in that manner, no one going in or out. The window of the room was thrown wide, giving the room's occupant a panoramic view of the prairie and the oncoming storm.

It rolled in, gathering speed on ferocity as it approached the house. The owner of the room, occupied at the desk with a book in his hand, was not currently watching the storm. The words he read from his book could stir up his own storm. It lashed against the windows of the memory palace of his mind. There, great waves crashed and broke, while above the sky split with thunder.

A noise nearer to home broke the dreamer from his reverie. He looked up to the window; eyes caught at first by the clouds, then by a hand appeared around the edge of his window, clutching the wood there for balance. It was followed by a more than familiar foot. The doctor blinked, only just able to contain the pleasure of seeing Clarice Starling unfold from the corners of his window-frame. She stepped in carefully from the flat porch roof that connected their windows on opposite ends of the house. She was barefoot, wearing the simple clothes she had been wearing earlier that afternoon. He would have voiced some greeting, but the sight of her, storm brewing behind her and in her eyes, found him unexpectedly lost for words.

She walked up to his side and took his hand in hers. It was something she rarely did, not wanting to be mistaken for needy or weak, two of the things she most despised. Her smaller hand was warm against his. He could feel the pulse of her wrist as it pressed against his forearm, thunder in her blood. Her warm skin smelt of soap and the scent of her warmed him too. She led him to the window and they climbed out, sitting delicately on the flat tiles there, where the view of the prairie was unspoilt by wooden frames. As she watched her poetry, he watched his.

He watched her.