Free The West Wind by Morgan Douglas

Xander’s father had a
LOT of books. A huge marble fireplace took up the last wall. From the shape of
the room, she guessed that they were underneath the cupola. A small couch
rested between two large leather recliners in front of the fire.
     
    Hero enjoyed reading, but didn’t do it very often. She had never
seen anything like this place. The public library made books seem institutional
to her, and it was even worse at the school library. Here, the books seemed
intimate, like someone you cared about waiting to divulge a secret or just to
tell you how their day went. Or quote poetry to you , she thought with a
smile.
     
    “You like it?” Xander’s father asked as he stood up and put down
the book he was reading. His hazel eyes were warm and welcoming. He wasn’t
quite as tall as his son, but close. His hair was also sandy blond.
    “It’s. . .” she struggled for the right word. “Beautiful? Amazing?
I don’t know what to say.”
    “This is where my imagination dances. The ballroom of my mind,” he
told her.
    “Is that from a poem? I can see where Xander gets it.”
    “No, that’s his own,” Xander interjected. “Dad, this is Hero.
Hero, this is my dad, Zachariah McConnell.”
    “Please, call me Zach,” Zach said, shaking Hero’s hand. “It’s nice
to meet you, finally.” He looked at his son. “Has it rained yet?”
    Xander shook his head with a smile, “No, not yet.”
    “Ah, well, I hope it pours soon.”
    Hero was confused. “Why do you want it to rain?” she asked.
    “I’ll tell you later,” Xander said conspiratorially. “Right now, I
want to show you my room.”
    She nodded. “It was nice to meet you, Zach. Your home is
beautiful.”
    “Just wait til it’s finished,” he suggested.
    “It was beautiful before you got here,” she said. “With the work
you’re doing, I can only imagine it getting better.”
    “I like her,” he said to Xander. “Maybe you were right about the
West Wind blowing us here.”
     
    As Xander and Hero climbed the stairs to the cupola, Hero found
herself thinking about the way Xander and his father talked. It was a little
frustrating, because they never explained their references unless she asked
them to, but at the same time she was fascinated by it. How many people could
quote poetry like that these days? How many would have the confidence to do so?
Sometimes it seemed a little pretentious, but it was so unintentional in the
two of them that she was certain it was just a part of their personalities. She
figured there were two choices, let it intimidate her, or take advantage of
their knowledge and learn something. Three steps from the top she decided on
the latter and asked a question about the last thing Zach had said. “What did
your dad mean? About the West Wind?”
    Xander stopped, then sat down on the top step. Hero sat where she
was, back against the wall, feet on the stair below her. “It’s a reference to
Ode to the West Wind,” he began. “By one of the Romantic poets. It’s a poem
about new beginnings. I also like to say that it’s the most emo poem ever
written.”
    Hero laughed. “What do you mean?”
    “One line goes, ‘I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed,’” he
said dramatically.
    She laughed again. “Yeah, that’s pretty emo. But I kind of like
it.”
    The left side of Xander’s face turned up slightly and she noticed
he smiled more with his eyes than his mouth.
    “So do we. That’s how we felt back home after Mom died. As if we’d
been thrown upon the thorns of life. And that’s where the poem begins. The
autumn wind is blowing and winter follows behind it. But if it brings winter,
then spring must come as well. Losing Mom made for a pretty hard winter. We
moved here looking for spring.”
    “How does it go?”
    “It’s a long poem, but the part I like most goes:
    If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy