In This Fateful Hour

Prologue
 
In this fateful hour,
All Heaven with its power,
The sun with its brightness,
The snow with its whiteness,
The fire with all the strength it hath,
The lightening with its rapid wrath,
The winds with their swiftness,
The sea with its deepness,
The rocks with their steepness,
The earth with its starkness,
All these I place
By God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness.

~Madeline L'engle's "A Swiftly Tilting Planet"

  "Kr-AAAAKKKK!!!!!!"
Lightening snaked across the bruised and swollen sky, reaching it's fingers out to touch the turbulent clouds. The waves crashed against the jettys of the lighthouse and threatned to rip the beach away from the small peninsula. Wicked winds tore at anything they came in contact with, and this ferocious weather was just on the outer edge of the worst tropical storm anyone had ever witnessed. A woman staggered against the winds, searching for a missing child.
"Dem!", she shreiked into the winds, her voice being carried over the sands and thrown against the rocks of the jetty. She searched frantically for the missing child.
"I'll never forgive myself if anything happens to him!", she swore mentally, then daring to shout out against the winds again, she called out his name over and over again.
A sudden gust of strong wind threw her to the sand, her long ebony hair flying about her body. Closing her eyes tighty, she concentrated her powers and released a spell into the air.
"Barrier!"
A transparent sheild formed around her body and she stood, the forces of the wind weakened by her magic.
"Matron!!"
She gasped as she heard the small whimpering carried by the winds.
"Dem?! Keep calling Demitri!!"
"M-Matron!"
She followed the direction of the feeble cries until they led her to a small cave in the cliff surrounding the lighthouse. Two small hands reached up from out of the cave, tiny fingers groping for a familiar solid form. Grabbing the small boy, Edea held him tightly, bringing him into the barrier.
"I'm sca-wed.", mumbled the boy.
"Shhh.", she soothed. "We'll be fine. We need to get back to the orphanage."
Picking up the small boy, she wrapped her cloak around his small body and ran for all she could back to the safety of the orphanage basement.

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