A Family Summer
Copyright© 2026 by Sonarflash2026
Chapter 7
There was a disjointed moment when light swirled and retreated, then Dana felt terribly alone, separate and isolated. That feeling passed and she became heavy, weighed down, burdened by flesh reality. Her head throbbed and body ached. A hand was gently patting her cheek.
“Dana!”
She blinked, squinted against brilliant sunlight, then made out Ken’s worried features. “You back with me?” He asked, gently brushing back her hair. “I’m not your Nanna. There was an earthquake. Remember?”
“I remember,” she said, an edge colouring her response. An ache throbbed at the top of her head. That lent a measure of irritation. “I was here ... and there, in the light. My mother spoke to me. And my grandmother.”
“Your head wacked the overhang,” he said, then catching a dangerous narrowing and shift in cobalt eyes, he quickly asked, “what did they say?”
She blinked, puzzled, then searched his features, looking for mockery. Lingering fright and concern were all she sensed. Her brow crinkled as she tried to recall. Like a dream, the experience had almost faded. She caught at ethereal phrases, very deliberately putting them into words that could be understood, rehearsed and easily remembered.
“Mom said everyone and Everything will be okay. Difficult for a time, but not impossible. Then Nanna said she wouldn’t tell me to be good or careful, just to be happy. She knew I’d take care of the family, and asked that I be patient with my dad. Said he could be thick and obstinate.”
He managed a chuckle. “Sounds like you had a hip grandmother.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and avoided touching the sore spot on her head. She also didn’t nod. lips curving into a faint smile. “Nanna was brilliant, A liberated woman with a wild side and past to match.” She grinned faintly. “Guess I inherited that from her. Mom was very restrained.” The cultured professor’s wife. She drew in a deep breath, coughed, blew to clear her nostrils, then shuddered, only then realizing that they were both still naked and sprawled outside the cave mouth. Dry pine needles and twigs were in her hair, stones digging into her back. A shattered tangle of trees and branches, rocks and rubble littered her fire circle. The basalt intrusion remained, though lichen and moss were scoured away. The area was littered with boulders of every size.
“If my cave mouth faced the volcano, we would have been buried alive,” she murmured, pushing up to a sitting position, fingertips going to the lump atop her head. She winced.
After a few seconds, she looked around, taking in details. With most of the pines down, she could see the lake. Somehow, the sun seemed brighter, the air uncomfortably hot. There was a haze of high cirrus clouds, the sky a different, pale blue.
“Damn. My sacred grove is ... gone.”
All the lofty pines had been flattened or shattered. Beyond the splintered mess of fallen trees, snapped branches and rocks, there was an open view of the nearby lake. Water was calm, a mirror reflecting mountains further west. Undisturbed by the cataclysm, tall bullrushes and reeds still lined the shore.
“It’s all wrong,” she murmured, sitting up, twisting around, gaze checking the horizon. “Oh my God! It’s all wrong!” “Everything! It even feels different.” She got up, stepping out of the hollow. The intrusion was chipped and scarred. “we should get back to the lodge. Dad will be worried. Hope everyone is okay.”
“You told me your mom said so,” he reminded her. He moved close, nuzzling her cheek, giving her a slow, deep kiss. “Freaked me there. Nasty goose egg on the top of your head. That last jolt slammed us. Knocked the wind out of me. We were already choking on the dust. You were out for so long. Was afraid you had a serious concussion.”
“Head hurts. How long?” she asked, looking past his shoulder, beyond devastation to a curiously sharp demarcation. Very gradually, her eyes followed a terrain anomaly to the southeast. Her gaze lifted, taking in rugged lower slopes of an enormous, smouldering black volcano.
“About fifteen or twenty minutes ... from when the shaking stopped.”
She blinked, trying to absorb everything and failing. Beyond scattered boulders and broken trees, the scenery was all wrong. Twisting slowly without jostling her head, she looked left and right. In the distance, she began making out the shapes of trees that shouldn’t be. They were trees of a size, shape and kind that didn’t belong.
“Oh fuck!” she breathed.
“Don’t worry. I checked your pupils,” he said, lightly squeezing her shoulder. “Equal and reactive. Just rest easy.”
Dana shuddered, slowly lifting her arm, pointing. “Not me. That!”
He turned, following her arm. “Those big trees?”
Dana dropped, bruised buttocks complaining in spite of soft pine needles and turf. “Yeh, big. Giant. Those are Pleistocene oak trees,” she said, a slightly hysterical giggle escaping before she could slap a hand over her mouth. After a few calming breaths, she twisted around, crawling away from the vent opening, picking her way carefully around the scarred pillar of basalt. She pointed, looking back the way they fled. The petroglyph mountain was now an active volcano spewing flame and a pillar of grey smoke. She pointed. The distant scree slope was gone. Thin columns of steam and smoke were belching from several vents. The volcano rumbled. A sheet of flame roiled out of the cone.
“That was extinct, and smaller. A hundred thousand years of ice, wind and rain erosion will do that.”
“Hey, where is the ice?” Ken said. “If this is that far back, there should be glaciers. But, it’s hot!”
“Global warming all over,” she said. “Megafauna. Loads of carbon dioxide in the air, plus a lot of volcanic activity all around the globe. Don’t rush it. The glaciers will come. We are probably between glaciation periods.”
“Time travel?” He sat down facing her. “Didn’t think about that. Been staring at you. But, the lake is the same. Lodge is still there.”
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