A Christmas Family Wish by Helen Scott Taylor

Chapter One
    Rachel Carne lay awake, her heart pounding with alarm,
unable to sleep for the noise outside. Wind howled around the house, sending things
clattering along the street. Rain pelted the windows in a torrential downpour,
drumming against the glass.
    She climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom to peer
through the window at her small red car parked in the road. A wooden box
skidded past it and banged into another vehicle. Her hand pressed over her
mouth. She half expected to find her car wrecked in the morning, but there was
nothing she could do except wait for the weather to pass.
    After peeping in on her little boy, she climbed back in bed
and pulled the covers over her head. So far Toby had slept through the noise.
She hoped he stayed asleep. Her shift at work started early tomorrow. She would
feel bad leaving him in day care if he was tired and irritable.
    A new noise started outside, a groaning, wrenching sound as
though the very earth was screaming. Rachel's already frayed nerves strung
tight with fear. She hated this. Hurricane-force winds were rare in England. In
all her twenty-seven years, she didn't remember a night like this before.
    The groaning increased, then her house trembled. A crashing,
tearing sound filled the air. The trembling became a shudder, the horrendous
noise almost deafening.
    Fear streaked through her. She must get to Toby. Rachel
yanked her covers aside and scrambled out of bed, tripping as the loose fabric
caught around her legs. She kicked it aside and reached for the light switch.
She clicked it up and down with no result.
    Then her little boy's terrified scream cut through the
cacophony.
    "Toby! I'm coming, sweetheart."
    In darkness, she pulled open her bedroom door. Cold, wet
wind hit her, knocking her back a step.
    Her son's terrified wails spurred her on. Tree branches
poked through the splintered wood of her son's bedroom door. The old oak tree at
the roadside must have blown down and hit her house.
    Frantically she pulled apart the damaged door and pushed
into Toby's bedroom. Rain drove through the gaping hole in the wall where the
massive trunk laid balanced precariously on the crumbling brickwork, Toby's bed
right underneath.
    Breath sawing in and out in painful jerks, Rachel fought her
way between the spiky branches, barely noticing the pain as twigs scraped her
exposed skin, and rubble and splinters dug into her feet.
    "Mummy, Mummy," her son wailed in fright.
    "I'm coming, Toby. You're all right, baby. Mummy will
be there in a minute." Her sodden nightdress clung to her body as she
crawled under the trunk to reach the bed. Rachel snapped off some twigs and
blindly extended a hand.
    "I'm here, sweetheart. Wriggle out to me. Come on, you
can do it, baby." He crawled out from under the trunk resting a few inches
above him. If it slipped…
    As soon as her hand grasped his arm, she dragged him from
underneath the tangled branches and hugged him against her.
    "You're all right, Toby. You're all right."
    He wailed and clung to her as the bitter wind and rain
lashed at them. She had to get him to safety. He wrapped his arms and legs
around her. Half crawling, half crouching, she fought her way back to the door.
She grabbed the door frame as the house tilted and a section of damaged wall
collapsed and tumbled to the ground outside with a crash.
    Rachel stumbled, pressing her hand into the soggy carpet to
help her stand. She tripped into her bedroom on bruised feet and slammed the
door behind her to keep out the wind and rain.
    Toby's fearful cries filled her ears, his little body stiff
with terror in her arms.
    Please, God, let him not be hurt. Please. She laid him on
her bed and ran her hands over him in the dark. He was so wet from the rain,
she had no idea if he was bleeding. She grabbed her mobile phone and switched
on the flashlight app. The volume of Toby's screams increased as she shone the
blinding white light at him. She stroked back his hair and examined his