"Drought"

Excerpt from "Season of Crows." The drought settles on the land.

Mr. Barkwhistle had deepened his pond as much as possible, slinging layers of mud onto the banks and the exposed rim of his dam. And then one day he stopped. He grasped a large branch underwater to steady himself and floated motionless at the bottom of his pond, listening for a sound that had been his constant companion for so many years. He closed his eyes and turned his head slowly this way and that, hoping with every fiber of his being that the sound would find its way to his ears. But all he could hear beneath the dark waters of the pond was the noiseless void of stone cold silence.

Grimly, he let loose the branch and paddled along the bottom of the pond, following the gentle slope to the eastern edge where the Fray fed into it. Rings of thick ripples spread in all directions as the large beaver’s head broke the surface. He hauled himself out of the water, waddled up to the mouth of the little brook, and sat in the scorching sun to look upstream. The beaver grunted and made a clucking sound with his tongue.

The Fray was gone. The water that had fed his pond for so long had stopped running altogether, and now only a murky, stagnant puddle and damp patches of gravel dotted the streambed.

He shifted his weight heavily and looked across the dark waters of his little pond. “So, it begins.”