Chapter Eleven
Michael row your boat ashore Hallelujah
Michael row your boat ashore Hallelujah
River Jordan is chilly and wide Hallelujah
Milk and honey on the other side Hallelujah
Their voices floated gently on the cooling night air, over the low crackle of the campfire. Two sweet, high, female voices harmonizing, and several lower male voices, most of them slipping uncertainly in and out of key, they sounded almost like a large family, or a small church group, enjoying a carefree camp out. In the shadows of the twilight forest they almost looked it, too.
The spot they had made camp was a full day's drive further north, across the St. Lawrence River and deep into Quebec. They found themselves well off the beaten path, down a narrow gravel road that ran parallel to a rushing stream, then climbed into a thickly forested range of low mountains. The discovery was serendipitous. They had been turned away at two other campgrounds because they had been full. This one was small, and undeveloped, which meant while there were very few other campers, there were no showers or bathrooms. A collective grumbling of protest had arisen, the most vocal being April and Raphael. Casey had to promise that the next stop would have running water.
"Hot running water!" Raph had insisted.
"And maybe a Laundromat?" Lia had added, and then shrugged. "I'm running out of clothes. This whole trip has been a little hard on my wardrobe. Alex got one set, the NYPD got another. Plus my jacket and boots… "
"So what's the problem?" Raphael had asked. "Dress like us why not?"
"Har har," Lia had shot back. It was certainly getting easier.
April and Casey had been secretly apprised of the situation with Jake, and sworn to silence after Casey's initial suggestion that they simply throw him out at the closest off ramp. "Hey, I'll even slow down to 50," he grinned. Splinter's decision prevailed, however, and Jake remained in their company, still unaware that everyone knew his dark secret.
Jake and Sean's introduction to Splinter had proven to be anticlimactic. Both had greeted the aging sensei with good manners and a surprising lack of shock. Jake had even bowed with appropriate respect. It was only afterwards that the turtles realized that naturally Jake would have known of Splinter's existence, because the Foot would have told him, and so was somewhat prepared to meet him.
"Well, he was certainly polite," commented Donatello when the four had a moment alone to confer.
"Kiss ass," pronounced Raphael.
"Or covering his ass," said Mike.
"He doesn't know we know," Leo pointed out. "Raph, please try to be cool."
"I am bein' cool! When was I not bein' cool? Jeez, Leo!"
"It's just that we've got a much better chance of finding out what his motives are, if they're anything different from what he says, if we don't tip our hand here."
"I'm not tipping my frickin' hand, ok?"
"I think I smell food," said Mike. "I bet the girls could use some help. Raph, you wanna check out what's cookin'?"
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Raphael allowed himself to be redirected toward campfire. As they were walking Mike stuck foot between Raphael's. Raph sidestepped to avoid tripping and grabbed Mike by the carapace. The two went down, rolling in the fine dirt and pine needles and knocking into the wooden picnic table, snarling and laughing, until Mike, still laughing but clutching his sides, cried "Uncle!".
Raph helped him up, growling. "What the hell'd ya do that for Mike? Mister No-My- Four-Cracked-Ribs-Feel-Fine! I coulda hurt you! Jeez…"
"Yeah, you'd like to think you coulda hurt me!"
Leo had watched them for a moment and then turned to Don. "You feeling ok now, Don?"
"Yeah, Leo. I'm ok now. Kinda tired. I wish I knew what was causing it. I'm not even drinking coffee now. Really weird."
"Don, Splinter said before you had talked about some kind of voice, like someone talking to you while it was happening."
Don looked down and scratched his beak. "I don't know, Leo. I think maybe I was hallucinating that."
"Did you hear it this last time?"
Don frowned.
"Don?"
"Yeah." He looked up. "Yeah. I did. But it's not exactly like a voice. It's more like a thought. I don't know. I think it might be my own mind, trying to think of some way to make it stop. Why?"
Leo took a long breath. "Because I thought I felt something...something weird in the trailer with us, when it was happening, when you were on the floor."
Don shuddered. "You're giving me the creeps."
"Gave me the creeps, too."
It was after a huge meal of campfire baked beans and more roasted corn that Michaelangelo had gone rummaging for his radio, finding instead Lia's guitar and placing it in her hands. They gathered around the low-burning campfire, sitting on their bedrolls and blankets, faces lit by the flickering light, shadows dancing in the trees around them. Raphael hung back, close to Casey, as though he needed someone else to help bolster his own reluctance to participate. His negativity had little effect on everyone else though. The mood was as close to light-hearted as it had been in four days.
"You know anything by Metallica?" asked Casey, grinning mischievously.
"Um…no, not exactly," said Lia, tuning the guitar. "My mom taught me mostly a bunch of folk songs."
As it turned out, both Lia and April had been put through the rigors of Summer Vacation Day Camp, during their childhood, and had learned many of the same songs. They were delighted at the discovery and it only seemed fair to subject everyone present to some of them now.
Lia was especially awed to find someone else who knew all the words to "Green Grow the Rushes", an add-on song like the "Twelve Days of Christmas". By the twelfth verse almost everyone had it together.
Twelve for the twelve apostles,
Eleven for the eleven who went to Heaven
Ten for the Ten Commandments.
Nine for the nine bright shiners,
And eight for the April rainers.
Seven for the seven stars in the sky,
And six for the six proud walkers.
Five for the cymbals at your door,
And four for the Gospel makers.
Three, three, the ri-i-vals! (boom boom boom!)
Two, two, lily white boys,
Clothe them all in Green-oh!
One is One and all alone
And never more shall be it so!
"Alright!" enthused Mike, as Rose, sitting in his lap, clapped happily.
"Whew!" breathed Dodger Sean.
"Let's not sing that one again, ok?" asked Leo.
Donatello frowned and raised a hand. "How come only eleven of the twelve apostles went to Heaven?"
"Oh, that was Judas Iscariot," explained Lia. "He betrayed Jesus with a kiss, which actually, he was supposed to do, but then he went and hung himself."
"The damning offense was that he hung himself, was it not?" asked Splinter.
"Yes."
"Hm," said Leonardo.
"That would seem unjust," said Splinter, thoughtfully stroking his chin whiskers. "For it seems that hanging himself, taking his own life, was Judas' only hope of regaining honor after betraying his Master."
"Well," said April. "If you're raised Catholic, suicide is a cardinal sin."
Lia nodded. "That's what I was taught. You kill yourself you go straight to Hell. Do not pass go, do not collect $200."
"Gee," said Mike. "Bummer."
"Especially about the $200," quipped Sean.
"I've read that. But it does seem like a weird rule," said Leo. "Do either of you believe that?"
April shook her head. "No, I don't believe in Hell anymore at all. I think we create our own private hells right here on earth. And what happens after we die is anyone's guess."
"I'd like to say I don't really believe in Hell anymore, either," said Lia. "I don't want to. But some of the things I've seen…some of the things Alex showed me..." Lia shivered. "I don't know. Sometimes it seemed like he would open the gates of Hell, just to see how close to the fire he could stand. Just to defy it, like a power trip."
"You seem to call on a Goddess, Lia," said Donatello. "Is that something Alex taught you?"
"Oh, goodness, no. Alex's God, whatever It really is to him, is totally male. It was Belladonna who taught that the creative life force on this planet is feminine. She and her people believe that the Earth itself is female. The highest, divine energy, at the Universal level, is genderless, but here, the Earth is our Mother." Lia absently strummed a chord and turned a key, re-tuning. "The idea of the Goddess, you know, like a nurturing, mother kind of being, just seems more accessible than the Biblical God."
"Was that not in part, the purpose of Jesus' mission?" asked Splinter. "To provide an accessible pathway to God?"
April smiled, glanced over at Casey who was staring vacantly into the fire. "I believe you're right, Splinter" she said. She gave Casey a friendly poke in the ribs. "Wake up!" she giggled at him.
"Are you Christian, Splinter?" asked Lia, thinking that nothing would surprise her at this point.
"No, child. I believe that there are truths, which though spoken in different words, are common to the teachings of both Jesus and the Buddha. I have studied both and find few fundamental contradictions."
"Compassion, harmlessness," nodded Donatello.
"Yeah, right," said Raphael, who was apparently paying more attention than he had let on. "And ya get packed off to Hell for making the honorable decision. That's compassionate, alright."
"I think the idea of that law was to show that all life is sacred. At least, that's what I get out of it," said Lia. She glanced over at Leo. His head was down; he now appeared lost in thought himself. Before she could think twice or stop herself, she asked, "What, Leo?"
"What?" he echoed, looking up.
"What are you thinking?"
"I was, uh, thinking about what you said about creating our own private hells."
"That was me," said April. "I was actually thinking about something Splinter had said months ago, about all life being suffering, and how we do it to ourselves."
"Yeah, well, I agree," said Leo. "I think we do…create our own hell. That's all."
"So, hey, Lia," broke in Michaelangelo. "We did the Casey Jones song for Case, and the row boat for me, ya got any songs for any for anyone else?"
"Well…hmm," Lia strummed another chord. "How about…" she sang,
"Leo-nardo…", to the opening notes of Desperado. "Oh, no wait. This is really Raphael's song," she grinned.
Desperado, why don't' you come to your senses?
You've been out riding fences for so long now.
Oh, you're a hard one
And you've to your reasons.
But these things that are pleasing you
Will hurt you somehow.
Raphael groaned and sank back as most everyone else sang along, stumbling over the lyrics a bit, but generally enjoying taking friendly poke at their resident bad boy. Lia was absorbed in leading the others and following April's harmony. They got to the last verse:
It may be rainin' but there's rainbow above you.
You better let somebody love you
Let somebody love you,
Before it's to-o-oo late—
"Damn!" Raphael cried abruptly, stepped back and took off into the woods.
Lia froze, as everyone stopped, looking startled. "Oh, no..." she whispered, realizing what she had just said. "Oh, god, I'm an idiot."
Mike was starting to stand. "It's ok. I'll get him."
"No, I have to. This is my fault. How could I be so stupid." Lia set her guitar down.
"Oh, none of us was thinking," April glanced around. "It wasn't just you. Poor Raph-"
"Maybe you should let him have some space," suggested Casey.
"I don't think you'll be able to find him anyway, Lia," said Leonardo.
Lia stood and gestured uncertainly. "I picked that song. That was so stupid and insensitive of me—I have to try and talk to him." She looked around for some support in the faces around the campfire. "If he doesn't want to be found, you're right, I won't be able to anyway."
Splinter's eyes glittered in the firelight. "Lia, you must do what you feel is right."
Lia nodded and, pulling an oversized, borrowed sweater around her, headed off in the direction Raphael had fled.
Leo was on his feet. "Splinter, she shouldn't go by herself. We don't know who or what may have.."
"You are quite correct, Leonardo," agreed Splinter. He turned his head. "Donatello, please follow her."
Don rose, took up his bo and gave Splinter a quick bow before disappearing into the dark forest. Leonardo quietly sat back down, cross-legged again.
"Um…" began Sean. "Am I the only one who doesn't know what's going on?"
"It's a long story, dude," said Mike. "Hey, anyone want to try and sing a capella?"
She found him with no trouble. The waxing moon lit the narrow path he had taken well enough she could make out every tree and limb. He was sitting on a low stump at the edge of the footpath, staring into the woods. His mask was pulled down around his neck, both sai thrust in the back of his belt. The moonlight shone on his carapace. It certainly did not seem he was trying to hide.
"Raph?" she said, knowing he had heard her approach long before she had seen him. "Raphael, I am so sorry…um…Raph?"
He didn't move or in any way acknowledge her presence.
"Look," she said. "If you want me to leave I will…I just…I'm so sor-"
"Get out of here."
She sucked in a breath, throat tightening. It felt like a slap. She started to back away.
"No. Hold on."
She stopped, watching his back.
"Stay here."
Lia stepped forward again. "Can I sit with you?"
He didn't look up, but made a small, low sound that Lia decided meant 'yes'.
Lia sat next to him on the edge of his wide, short, tree stump. She cleared her throat and began again. "Raphael, listen, I am so sorry about that song. I just wasn't thinking-"
"Lia, don't do that."
"I'm just trying to— I did something really stupid, and I'm sorry, and I'm trying to make it right."
"Well, you can't make it right, so forget about it."
"I just want you to know, I didn't mean to-"
"I know that."
Lia sighed. "Is there anything I can do?"
"No."
She crossed her arms and hunched over. The cold was creeping in through her jeans and the loose knit sweater of April's. They sat silent for a while, the sounds of the forest's night stillness around them. Far off a night bird cried.
The silence finally becoming too uncomfortable for Lia. "Raphael, I wish there was something…I know you said there isn't, but sometimes I think you want me to second guess you, and I'm groping in the dark for the answer and you really know what it is, so if there is something, can you just tell me what you want?"
A small, hard, smile twisted his mouth, though he still stared out into the darkness. "You said it in that song. The things that I can't get."
Lia took a deep breath. "Raph, about Sunni..."
"I do not want to talk about that!"
"There is something I've been meaning to tell you. There's something you need to know."
"What?"
"About Sunni-"
"No!"
"You need to hear this."
"Gah!" Raphael dropped his head into his arms. "Why the hell does everyone think I need to hear something?"
"It wasn't your fault."
"Great. Go tell Leo."
"No, listen. The Foot didn't follow you to Sunni's place that night. They were following Sean and Jake. Jake told me, and I checked it out with Sean, he told me exactly what happened. Raph, the Foot probably never even knew you were there. I mean, if they did, wouldn't they have come after you?" Lia laid her hand on his arm. "They were after Jake and Sean. It wasn't your fault."
Raphael was very quiet. After a moment he raised his head, swallowing hard. He took in a long breath.
"They both told me," Lia went on. "They were sleeping there when the Foot broke in. They escaped out the window."
Raphael straightened up. "And they left her there? Those little shits took off and-" Raphael moved as though to stand. "I oughta-"
"No!" Lia grabbed his hand. "Wait! Listen! They tried to get her to come with them. Sean said Sunni went back with a baseball bat to try and hold them off! Raph, it wasn't anyone's fault!"
"A baseball bat?" Some of the tension deflated from Raphael's body. He closed his eyes. "A baseball bat…" he repeated and took a long shuddering breath. Raph shook his head. "Sounds like her…sounds about right…." He looked up, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the camp. "I still oughta kill 'em both."
Lia tightened her grip on his hand, and gave him a warning look.
Raphael looked down at Lia's fingers gripped around his and with some difficulty, suppressed a grin. "And you're going to stop me with this little bitty hand of yours, huh?"
"Uh, well, no…I guess not."
"So, then, why are you still holding my hand?"
Lia shrugged, and started to let go as Raphael closed his large hand around hers.
"Um…" she began.
"Shh. It's ok."
Lia swallowed.
"So how come you didn't tell me until now?" Raph asked, his expression serious but revealing nothing of what he might be feeling.
"I only found out yesterday. And I guess I wanted a chance to get you alone to tell you."
"You have me alone now."
"Yeah, so…so I told you." Part of her mind nervously wondered what he was up to now. The other part considered the emotional roller coaster ride he had already taken her on in the space of just fifteen minutes. She decided it would be a good idea to keep him talking. "And besides that, Leo had just told me that you blamed yourself for what happened."
Raphael snorted. "Yeah. Leo. The all-knowing."
"What do you mean?"
"Mmh, well, Leo told me not to get involved in the first place. He said something bad would happen. But Leo's dead set against any of us getting involved with humans...with girls…that way…anyway."
"He is?"
"Yeah. He thinks it's wrong."
"He does?"
"Yeah, you know. Leo's weird. He doesn't seem to have any, you know...needs."
"He doesn't?"
"No. I've seen him just walk away from opportunities…just like, he doesn't care. Or he's just so sure it's wrong, that he can do that. Which is fine, for him. But he expects the rest of us to follow his lead, and that's… that's not reasonable."
"Oh," said Lia. She looked down, her eyes falling on her hand, still held in Raphael's and resting against the hard muscles of his leg.
"What about you?" he asked.
"What- what about me?" Her heart thudded.
A teasing smile deepened the creases in his cheeks. "You have needs?"
"Um…" Lia brought her free hand to her brow. "I…"
"Come on, Lia. You gonna tell me you can't feel this? It's been there since that first day in the dojo. You know what I'm talking about."
The worst thing is, I know exactly what you're talking about.
She said nothing.
"Lia…."
"Raph, I... ok, there is something that seems to happen …"
"Yeah, I thought so." He gently brought her hand closer into him, curling his arm around hers, capturing it, and pressing her hand against his breastplate. He pulled her close so they were face to face, eye to eye. Lia lowered her gaze, fixed her eyes on the curving bulge of his biceps. She felt herself shake.
He slipped his arm around her.
"Raph, I can't…"
"Shh."
Before Raphael's mouth could touch hers, she ducked her head abruptly and turned away.
"Raph, please...I can't…"
"I'm that bad, huh?" he asked, letting her go.
"No, no…that's not it."
"So what do you see here? The ugly green freak?"
"No-" Lia brought a hand to her eyes. "That's not it at all. It's not you, Raph, really. I never thought you guys were ugly. Please believe me. It's me. I just…can't. It's too soon…"
"Too soon?"
"Yes. Too soon after…all that stuff…"
"All that stuff? You mean this is about your old man?" Raphael frowned.
"Yeah. I think so. It just…I feel weird. I don't think I'm ready…"
Raphael sighed. "He hurt you pretty bad, didn't he?"
Lia shrugged, one hand fluttering to chase the thought away.
"I'm not like that."
"I know…it's just me."
"Ok." Raphael ran a tongue over his mouth, watching her, taking measure once again. "Will you do me a favor?"
"What's that?"
"When you're ready, you tell me, ok?"
Lia watched his eyes, their clear, almost colorless gray, catching the moonlight. She nodded. She had told the truth about feeling weird. Now she was pretty sure she was lying. And she didn't know, just then, what else to do.
"Hey, um, it's getting cold," she said, though she was actually feeling far warmer than the night air around them. "You wanna come back with me to the fire?"
He shook his head. "No. You go if you're cold. I'll be back later."
"Aren't you cold?"
"Used to it. You go on."
"Ok." Lia stood, and touched his shoulder lightly. "I'll see you back there."
"Yeah." He turned and called after her. "And hey, Lia! Take Donnie with you!"
"So that's it?" asked Casey.
"Yeah, that's all that we know," said Leonardo.
Casey ran his hand over his face, rubbing his eyes. "Damn. No wonder you didn't want to tell the girls." He glanced back over the fire, and the ring of sleeping bags and bedrolls around it. The four turtles, Splinter, and Casey were holding their hushed conference on the far side of the camper trailer. "We should probably leave it at that."
Splinter, sitting on the picnic table nodded. "I believe Leonardo and Raphael made the right decision. There is no reason to upset either of them unnecessarily."
Donatello scratched his head. "There were no logos, nothing to identify what agency, or what branch of the military, or what-?"
"Nothing," said Raphael. "At first we thought it was just more cops looking for Lia. 'Til they broke out all the scientific equipment."
Michaelangelo fidgeted a little and scratched his head. "Ok, I can sorta see not telling April. She might freak and feel she was having some nightmare flashback. Though we're gonna have to tell her eventually. Guess we'll let ol' Casey handle that," he gave Casey a cheerful punch in the arm.
Casey rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"But why", Mike went on, "are we not telling Lia?"
"Well, the thing is," said Leonardo. "These people who raided the house after you split probably did so because they had been tipped off by the police who were there the night before. They must have told someone that there was something weird going on there. Maybe they found the photo album, or something. Anyway we thought that Lia would assume that the whole raid was her fault since the police were originally looking for her."
"You thought," corrected Raphael.
Leo shrugged.
"It is a reasonable assumption," said Splinter. "In any event, for the sake of simplicity, for now, let us keep this between just the six of us."
"Ok," said Casey. "Now, just so I'm clear on this. We are illegally transporting a seventeen-year-old girl who's wanted for murder across the country. We got one Foot soldier along for the ride, maybe a few others chasin' him, and some scientific wingnuts with expensive equipment breakin' into my house lookin' for you guys. Did I leave anything out?"
"I think that's about it," said Raphael.
"Sounds like fun," Casey's maniacal grin was back. "Who's got next watch?"
"I do," said Don.
"Hey, guys?" asked Mike. "Did you happen to see Klunk after those people got there? I know April was going to call Mrs. Davis…"
Raph shook his head. "No, sorry, Mike. But you know him. He's a tough little guy. I'm sure he ran and hid."
"I hope they didn't catch him…"
"What are they gonna do? Interrogate him?" Don patted Mike's arm. "Don't worry. He's been through worse. He'll be fine."
Morning sun. Getting very warm. Flies buzzing. Warm hay smell. Something tickled his ear and he twitched it. Lovely warm….
Car sound. Dust smell. He opened his eyes and looked down at the driveway below from his hay loft perch. Not his car. Not his Two-Legs. Some other Two-Leg. He watched, slotting his eyes against the early morning brilliance. He shook his head. Something still tickled his ear. He sat up, yawned, stretched and licked a spot on his left flank. The Two-Leg was getting out of the car. Car smelled bad, smoky. He didn't like the smell of smoke. Smoke smelled like fear. Fire. Blood. Like Two-Legs fighting.
He watched as the Two-Leg went up onto the farmhouse porch and opened the front door and went in.
Food?
She came back out a moment later. "Kitty-kitty- kitty-kitty-kitty!" she called. "Here, kitty- kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty!"
He watched as she circled the farmhouse, calling. She was interesting to watch. White hair on her head. That was different. She moved slowly, her shapeless, pastel colored clothing billowing in the breeze. "Here kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty!" she called again.
He flicked the tip of his tail.
She stepped onto the porch again and looking around, called one more time in a somewhat harsher tone, "Kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty—oh, never mind!" She locked the front door up, got back into the bad smoke–smelling car and drove off.
He stood, stretching luxuriously again, and trotted down the ramp, leaping gracefully to the barn floor and ran out and across the open space to the farmhouse. He happily bounded around to the back porch door, and slipped in his small private entrance to the kitchen.
Sure enough. Food.
Lia watched as the sun lit golden the very tops of the fir trees far above her. The sky was the color of pearl. She was still tucked in the sleeping bag, only her eyes peeking out from her shelter of unkempt hair and rip-stop nylon.
She hadn't slept all night.
After hours of playing over and over again in her mind what had happened with Raphael, and what he had said about Leo, sometime around three in the morning it struck her, perhaps harder than ever before, that somehow the choices she had made, the things she had done, had marked her for life. She felt dirty, wrong, and ashamed. Ashamed for all the things she had allowed Alex to do to her. Ashamed she had freaked out when Raph had only tried to kiss her. Ashamed that he thought he could do that. Ashamed for what she was feeling.
That couldn't have meant anything to him. Not so soon after his girlfriend was killed. He would've used me, and I almost let him.
I'm a wreck. Who would ever want a wreck?
It was one thing to recognize that she would probably never want to be with another man as long as she lived.
It was quite another to understand that maybe someone she cared deeply for, wouldn't ever want her anyway.
It just hurt. That was all. It just hurt.
Someone was stirring, rustling in his bedroll. Someone else coughed and cleared his throat. Lia balled herself up and scrunched further down in the sleeping bag. No one needed to see her puffy-faced and red-eyed. Maybe she could just stay in bed all day.
"Mommy?"
Well, that was the end of that little fantasy.
Grow up, Lia. Get off the pity pot. Someone needs you.
She poked her head out. "Hey, Sweetie, here I am. You hungry, Rosie?"
Donatello sat on a rocky formation overlooking a narrow ravine. It was the highest place, other than the treetops, where he could sit and think. Don liked heights, he liked the limitless feeling of nothing but sky above him. He needed the quiet and the open space, away from his brothers and their dramas, to think about what was going on. He also recognized, now that he had gotten away, he was very resistant to thinking about the very thing he had wanted to work on.
Who wants to think about blinding headaches and strangely seductive voices in his head when there are so many more interesting things to think about?
So he was thinking about wave-formation and function and its duel nature as both a physical predictor about the nature of matter, and it's existence in the realm of thought alone. He was also pursuing a line of thought that the unfolding of their lives was much like a waveform, with periods of greater and lesser activity. He wondered if the last program he had been playing with back in the lair could be used to predict periods of time when the levels of activity and intensity he and his family experienced would increase. If it was largely predictable on the basis of time elapsed, then how many other factors would he have to vector into the formula? He wondered how much his expectation of the outcome would influence the result, having found his own theories proved out at an alarmingly high and statistically unrealistic rate, and then he wondered if a formula for predicting the probability of his own expectations and their influence on outcome could be formulated and was it Bohr or Max Born who addressed that? Donatello bookmarked the thought so he would remember to go through the books he'd brought to see if he could find that reference.
The wind was shifting, the warmth of the early afternoon air took a chill and the sunshine was blotted out for a moment. Don glanced skyward. Dark clouds were forming over the ridge to the far west, and an advance line of smaller white cumulous were scudding overhead as the breeze picked up. Change in the weather, thought Don. I bet everyone is going to be sorry they decided not to leave until late afternoon. Smells like thundershowers. A stronger wind whipped at the tails of the mask he pulled down around his neck. The air smelled sharper of ozone and electricity. Miles away, the faint rumble of the coming storm could be heard.
Donatello liked electrical storms for the same reasons he liked high places. He liked the wind, and the sense of the air like a living thing, crackling and snorting in response to the movement of tiny charged particles. Storms cleared his head, left him invigorated.
The light shifted, reversed, as the afternoon sun took on a strange golden caste, reflecting against the darkening clouds. Donatello stood up on his perch and let the wind catch him full in the face. It whistled over his ears, and tugged harder on the ends of his mask. The next rush buffeted his whole body, and he stood fast against it, grinning. The first hard splats of rain hit his nose as a roll of thunder echoed through the valley, much closer. He knew the with the next crack of thunder the skies would open up and he would be drenched, but it seemed worth it, to watch this display of the elements crashing together in such orchestrated chaos.
The blackened sky lit up with the crazy zig-zag of a lightening bolt. As the air was ripped by the crashing thunder, and the rain pelted down in great cold drops, a second deafening crash exploded in Donatello's head. He grabbed at his head, mouth ajar, eyes bulging, gasping at the pain. Donatello staggered, caught himself, and lost his footing. As the world plunged into a black abyss of pounding agony, he plunged off the edge of the rocky cliff.
Music Lyric Credits: Michael Row Your Boat Ashore- traditional, Green Grow the Rushes-traditional, Desperado- Don Henley and Glen Frey