Storming

Eighteen

ARMS SPREAD LIKE plane wings, Walter careened through the kitchen, tilting to the inside whenever he needed to make a turn around the edge of the table. It wasn’t a bit like real flying. It wasn’t even as fun as seeing a real plane fly over. But it sure beat sitting in the corner, waiting for supper to be ready.

At the table, Aunt Aurelia perched on the bench. She held the tarnished sugar bowl in both hands. “I would like to have a sweet.”

Mama Nan didn’t even look up from poking at the corn ears boiling in the big pot. She swiped a dark strand of hair from her damp face. “No. We’ll eat in a few minutes. Walter, stop running around like a wild man. Sit down.”

He imagined plane noises rumbling in the back of his throat and banked hard around Aunt Aurelia’s corner of the table. A cricket crawled along the seam in the floorboards. As high as he was in the sky, the cricket might be a cow or a tractor. He bent his knees and swooped lower to see if he could spook the cow.

Aunt Aurelia whimpered and thumped the sugar bowl against the table. “I want a sweet now.”

“Wait a bit, won’t you?” Mama Nan said. “Walter, please!”

“Don’t want to wait,” Aunt Aurelia said.

“Well, you must.” Mama Nan balanced a stack of plates on her hip and carried them over to the table. She set one at Papa Byron’s place and reached to set another in front of Aunt Aurelia.

Walter rounded the corner again and clipped Mama Nan’s elbow with his outstretched hand. The plate flipped off the edge and crashed against the floor. It broke into three big pieces.

“Walter!”

Oh, no. He stopped short and clenched both fists. Mama Nan’s plates. And not just any plates. She was using company plates, because Jael was there.

“Oh, Walter.” She pushed the rest of the plates onto the table and dropped to her knees to pick up the pieces. “Good sweet angels, sit down, can’t you? And stop making that unholy racket!” Immediately, she bit her lip and flashed him a dismayed look, because, of course, he hadn’t been making any noise at all.

He couldn’t even apologize to her. Shoulders slumped, he dragged himself over to a three-legged stool in the corner and sat down.

He was stupid. He made everybody worry because he didn’t like to talk. What he needed to do was say something. He opened his mouth and tightened his throat. But he just… couldn’t do it.

Anyway, it wasn’t the talking he needed to do to make everything right again. The real problem was that he was a coward. Whenever he got that scared squished feeling in his middle, he wasn’t able to move either. Not even when other people needed his help. Not even when they were dying.

Someday he’d be brave. Maybe that would be the day he’d be able to get the words out again.

Aunt Aurelia sniffed at Mama Nan and hugged the sugar pot closer. “Serves you right. You should have let me have a sweet.”

Mama Nan kept stacking the pieces. Her eyes seemed very tired. “Just please stop.”

The porch creaked, and a shadow blocked the late-afternoon sun. Jael stood with her hands in her back pockets.

Mama Nan would say it was unladylike if she saw.

But Walter’s heart got a nice warm feeling to it. Not too warm like the stove heating up the summer-hot kitchen. Just happy warm. He grinned.

Mama Nan glanced up, wearily. “You took Hitch’s job after all?”

“Yes,” Jael said. “It was right thing to do. I hope it does not give trouble to you too much.”

Mama Nan shrugged and returned to the broken plate. “That’s your business, not ours.”

Aunt Aurelia sniffed again. “Don’t be rid-dic-u-lous.” She always said all the parts of a word when she was upset. “Of course, it’s our business. After all, Walter wants to go flying with him, doesn’t he?”

Mama Nan glared at her. “That’s enough.”

“No, it is not. I want a sweet, and Walter wants to go be with Hitch Hitchcock. And I don’t see why not. After all—”

Mama Nan’s eyes got huge in her face. “That is enough, you hear me!” She stood up fast and snatched the sugar bowl.

Aunt Aurelia let out a scream and tried to hang onto it.

But Mama Nan pulled it away and thudded it down on the back of the stove. She stood with her hands on her hips, breathing hard.

Aunt Aurelia screamed louder. She opened her mouth wide and squinched up her eyes. Once she got going in one of her fits, nobody could stop her. She rapped her knuckles together and then slapped the table and stomped her feet. Tears boiled up from the corners of her eyes. In another minute, she’d be on the floor, sobbing. Papa Byron would have to carry her up to bed when he came in.

Mama Nan heaved a sigh and turned around. “Aurelia—Aurelia, I’m sorry.” Her voice got soft, like it only did with Aunt Aurelia, softer even than with the twins. “Please stop. Please don’t do this.” She leaned across the table to take Aunt Aurelia’s hand.

Aunt Aurelia slapped her aside.

“I’m sorry, dear. I know you didn’t mean anything. Please—”

The wail rose higher. In another second, it would start hurting Walter’s ears.

The screen door screeched open. Jael walked right up to Aunt Aurelia and took her hand. “Come. Come beside me.”

Aunt Aurelia tried to pull away, but Jael tugged again and made Aunt Aurelia look her in the face.

Jael smiled. “It will be right. Come.” She nodded toward the door and pulled again.

Aunt Aurelia kept screaming, but she was looking at Jael—actually looking at her, not just staring off into space. She let Jael hang onto her hand, and then she started to follow her. She slid right off the bench and, still bawling, let Jael lead her onto the porch.

For a second, Mama Nan stared. Then she let her chin fall to her chest. “God be thanked for that.”

This was Walter’s chance too. He eased up from his stool and ran out the door after Jael and Aunt Aurelia.

They were halfway across the dusty yard.

Jael had let go of Aunt Aurelia, but was still leading her, walking backwards, her hand outstretched. “Come.” She smiled big, like she had an honest-to-goodness secret to show them. Buried treasure or something.

Walter jumped off the porch.

At the hayfield’s open gate, Jael turned around and started running. Her bones must not be hurting her like they had been this morning when she’d left.

Walter lengthened his strides and passed Aunt Aurelia. For a few steps, he ran backwards, gesturing with both hands for her to follow.

She’d stopped screaming. Tears glistened against her face, but she stared after Jael, eyes wide open and curious.

“Follow behind me!” Jael shouted. “You must be running!”

Walter gestured to Aunt Aurelia again.

She gurgled a shriek that sounded mostly happy and started running. She ran so fast she passed him, her skirt flapping around her knees. Her pale red-blonde hair fluttered. She wasn’t a very good runner—she waved her arms around too much. But she was laughing, really laughing, all the way.

A laugh started building in his own throat, but he kept it sitting on his tongue, where he could savor it. The uncut Timothy grass wisped against his legs and pricked his bare feet. He stretched out his hands and caught handfuls of seeds. Papa Byron wouldn’t like them running through his field, but he wouldn’t get too mad once he heard Jael had stopped Aunt Aurelia’s tantrum.

Halfway across the field, Jael threw herself down and disappeared in the sea of green.

Aunt Aurelia kept running. “Where are you now?” She laughed. “Where did you go?” Then with another happy shriek, she disappeared too.

Walter pumped his legs harder.

And then—there they were. They rolled in the tall grass, giggling.

Jael saw him. “Come!”

He plopped down and joined them. The grass was tall and prickly, but it bent under his body as he rolled. The broken stalks smelled sweet and… deep somehow, if deep could be a smell.

Finally, they rolled themselves still and just lay there, breathing. He turned his head sideways, so he could see Jael. She was awful swell. She wasn’t a girl exactly, not like Molly and the twins. But she wasn’t like grown-ups either. She wasn’t like anybody.

She rolled onto her elbow and hung her head back in a sigh. “It is all so very beautiful.”

Aunt Aurelia sat up, grass and leaves sticking out of her hair. “What is?”

“This, all things. Ground, plants—dirt.” Jael grabbed a handful of the dark soil. She rubbed it between her hands, then held her palms to her nose and inhaled. “It is, how do you say it? Otlichno. It is like nothing I have ever had knowledge for.” She extended her arm, gesturing to the whole field. “You are having these of such size to grow things. Where I am coming from, we are having only little rooms that are being made of glass. Not like this. It is very beautiful.”

“But you like flying best.” Aunt Aurelia straightened her skirt. She sat with her legs out in front of her and clapped her feet together. “You are flying with Hitch?”

“Yes, and that is beautiful too.” Jael glanced at Walter. Maybe she knew he cared more about these things than Aunt Aurelia did. “He is giving me this job. I will go up on his plane, and I will walk on his wings.”

It did sound beautiful. His heart pounded, a little painfully. If only he could go up. There had to be a way.

“Nan doesn’t like Hitch anymore,” Aunt Aurelia announced.

Jael shook her head, slightly. “I think he is… giving her fear. He is not bad man, and she must have knowledge for this. He is having much bravery. Maybe he is having—how do you say more than much?”

Aunt Aurelia shrugged, uninterested.

“Well. He is also giving to people, despite he has no things to keep for himself.”

“And he knows how to fly,” Aunt Aurelia added.

“Yes. His flying is like my home.” Jael stared at the sky. “Only… with more excitement.”

“If you have a home, why do you live with us?”

Because she was an angel, and God had sent her down to help them. But of course, that didn’t make any sort of sense. Walter shook his head. If she was really an angel, she should’ve been able to say words right. And the first time he’d seen her, she wouldn’t have been all dirty and her clothes all burnt.

He cocked his head, encouraging her to tell them.

She traced her forefinger through the dirt. “Oh, it is hard to say words about. It is secret, yes?”

Aunt Aurelia applauded. “I adore secrets!”

“For all my life, I wanted to visit your world, down here, on ground. I read about it, in many books we have.”

“Storybooks.” Aunt Aurelia nodded her head in encouragement. “What do they say?”

“I am now thinking they are stories.” Jael hesitated. “They are saying Groundsmen take very little care for their families. That is why people are saying not to come down here. Because it will be bad for next children.” She doodled some more in the dirt. “But I was never having family, so I do not know about that.” She raised her head and smiled. “Our books are not right in what they are saying about you. Your families are good. Your sister, the way she gives care to you, it is good.”

“And is this the first time you’ve been to our world?” Aunt Aurelia asked it primly, as if they were at one of those tea parties for ladies.

“Yes.” Jael looked at Walter. “I am already having seen most of it from above. But this is first time I have ever been on ground. Hitch says I am his wing walker. This is truth. I am walking in sky all my life.”

What did that mean? Walter looked up at the mountains of white clouds scudding through the blue sky. That she was a pilot too? That she lived in a plane?

In town yesterday, everyone had been sure something had caused the big storm to happen. He shivered. It was a very bad storm. He was shopping with Mama Nan when the wind started ripping through town. It gusted right through the open door of Mr. Fallon’s store and scattered clothes and papers all over the place. It felt like being right in the middle of a twister.

Mama Nan had grabbed him and Aunt Aurelia and hustled them right over to the cafe, since it was built on top of a cellar where they could hide. While they were still on the street, the hail started hammering down. A stone the size of a strawberry had thunked his big toe.

Already, the nail was starting to turn black. He looked down at the bare toe and scooped up a handful of cool dirt to cover the bruise.

At least, he hadn’t almost gotten hit by lightning, like Jael had. He looked at her sideways. If the people from her home had caused the storm, did that mean they had made the lightning that hit her?

“You don’t want to go home?” Aunt Aurelia asked.

Jael shrugged. “What I want does not have so much importance. I must be going… to give help before Zlo is doing much damage to many places.”

But if she went home, they’d never see her again. His stomach cramped.

She smiled at him. “Now that I am working with planes, your mother maybe would let you come to see them. You should ask her. Tell her I would be certain for your care.”

It wouldn’t work, of course. When Mama Nan made up her mind, that was that. He bit his lip, hard. But maybe—just this once—he might sneak out anyway. Once Mama Nan understood how important this was, she would see it was all right for him to go. She had to.

And, of course, good sweet angels willing, she might not find out at all. Jael wouldn’t tell on him. It would be just once. After he rode in the plane, he’d come home and do all the girls’ chores without anybody even asking him.

He gave Jael a firm nod.

Aunt Aurelia stared at him. The look in her eyes was serious.

He’d forgot about her. She wouldn’t tell on him either. But she might say the wrong thing without realizing it.

“It’s coming back,” Aunt Aurelia said.

What? He shook his head.

“Jael’s home—it is coming back. The storm hasn’t stopped. It’s coming to get us, and I know all about it.” She raised her chin, kind of like Molly did when she was spatting with Mama Nan. “People who fly, it will get them all. First, you.” She brushed her fingertip against Jael’s nose. “It has already gotten you.” She turned to Walter and touched his nose in turn. “And now it will get you.”

Aunt Aurelia was always saying stuff that didn’t make any sort of sense. Her mind didn’t work right, after all. Everybody knew that.

But he got cold all over anyway.

Jael’s eyebrows came almost all the way together. She pushed herself up to sit. Beneath her rolled-up blouse sleeves, goose bumps appeared on her arms. “It must find me—I know because of… this.” She fingered the strange pendant that hung around her neck. “But where do you have knowledge for this?”

Walter frowned. If her home was up in the sky and she was down here, how could she use the pendant to make it come back to get her?

He pointed at the pendant and then at the sky.

She was too busy watching Aunt Aurelia to notice.

Aunt Aurelia sniffed. “Oh, I do talk to people, you know.”

“Zlo? Zlo told you this. You had sight of him?”

Walter’s insides froze up.

Yesterday, when Mama Nan had been taking him to the shelter in the diner’s cellar, Aunt Aurelia disappeared for a minute. Mama Nan stopped right in the middle of the sharp rain, her pocketbook over her head, and turned back to call for Aunt Aurelia.

Walter had looked back too.

Aunt Aurelia was standing in the door to Mr. Fallon’s store, and a man with a great bird on his shoulder held the door for her. He looked like a tramp, and his teeth gleamed when he grinned down at her.

Then Aunt Aurelia came running and they all made it to the cellar.

Was that the man who had made the storms? The one who’d robbed all the stores in town? The one who’d hurt Jael?

And Walter had been that close to him?

A sick feeling swirled through his stomach.

Jael kept her face very still. Only a little muscle at the edge of her cheek flinched. “This,” she said, “is why I am having fear.”

She was afraid too? She didn’t seem like she was afraid of anything. She rode on the outside of Hitch’s plane.

On a different day, that might have made Walter feel better. But if she was scared too, then maybe this man really was coming back.

Aunt Aurelia tsked. “Oh, he was a most polite man. You have no need to be afraid.”

“I am having fear because maybe many people will be hurt before I can stop Zlo.” Jael looked up at Walter, not Aurelia. “But I have to be staying in this place, because how else can I be going up to him when he comes?”

Walter’s stomach rolled over on him. He tried again to point at the pendant and then at the sky. It was the only way he knew to ask.

But she looked away again, and the ticking of the muscle in her cheek got worse.

Aunt Aurelia stood and stretched. She bent to pluck a long strand of grass out of Jael’s hair, then she turned toward the house. Her gaze caught on Walter’s face.

He could feel his eyes growing huge. He was clenching his teeth awfully hard.

She cooed and patted his head. “Aww.” Then she started back across the field, swaying and humming along to whatever music she heard in her head.

She wasn’t afraid anyway.

He watched her for a second. Maybe he shouldn’t fly with Hitch after all. He looked at Jael.

“Have no worry.” She smiled, but it was forced. “She has no knowledge of what she says. Her head is not correct.” She stood up and reached out a hand.

That was true, of course. Mean people said Aunt Aurelia was loony; nice people just said bless-her-heart. If he let what she said after one of her fits keep him from riding in Hitch’s plane, then he was the one whose head wasn’t right.

He grabbed Jael’s hand and let her pull him up. She put her arm around his shoulders, and he put his around her waist, holding on tight.

He jammed the fear down deep inside of himself, so deep he could hardly feel it. It was still there: beating like a baby bunny’s heart after you caught it and held it in your hand. But if he didn’t look at it, maybe, just maybe, it would go away.