The day dawned bright and clear. The sun was hot and brilliant, but the shade under the trees was cool. The storm during the night had washed away the dust of summertime, and now the sky was cobalt blue. Wet leaves were plastered against the trees and fences, houses and barns. Broken tree limbs littered lawns, and countless hollyhocks and sunflowers lay prostrate, blossoms stuck facedown in the mud.

Roads were pitted with gravelly ruts that had been washed out by the raging torrents of the night before. Birds began singing again as a salute to those among them that had survived the storm.

Celeste blinked. She saw the sky, heard a cardinal and a mockingbird singing morning songs. She moved to sit up, but her body ached; her fur was stiff with mud. In a cloudy blur of pain and weariness, she sank down again.

The first of the stars began to appear, bright and sharp against the clean sky. A catbird sang an evening song. The swollen creek had dwindled to a gurgling trickle. Still Celeste didn’t wake from her dreamless sleep.