The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(33)

I paused in the doorway with Bree and stared after them. I expected Bree to be as rattled as I was, but she only smiled and tugged on me until we were heading for the oak, too.

Liz was loosening the twine around her bundle, drawing out a large quilt. The others opened small sewing bags to withdraw scissors, needles, thimbles and spools of thread. Deftly they stretched the quilt into a four-legged frame, then settled back in their chairs. Bree and I took our seats, and the five of us tucked into the quilt as if the wind weren’t howling or the clouds about to split open.

The scene was so outrageous, so surreal, I couldn’t speak.

Molly handed me a needle, spool and thimble, and Jessie did the same for Bree. Numbly I snipped off a length and bent to thread the needle, but of course it was impossible with the wind whipping the thread, and though it was only midmorning, it had grown as dark as dusk. I was about to give up when Molly passed me the needle she’d just threaded, apparently with little trouble.

Conversation would only have been drowned out, so the women bent to their own work, needles darting.

Thunder exploded directly over our heads in a long, furious roar that rattled the windows of the house. I could taste the electrical charge.

“We should go inside!” I shouted.

The women paused long enough to stare at me, then shook their heads. Molly leaned in close. “This is nothing, Joanna. Just wait.”

Thunder again, followed hard by lightning. I stared about, my heart in my throat.

Then, just as I was about to bolt for the house, everything abruptly changed.

The banshee noise broke off as suddenly as flipping a switch. The thrashing branches of the oak eased till they were rocking like cradles. A rift began to open in the clouds directly overhead, wider by the second, splitting apart to expose a strip of cobalt blue sky. Shafts of yellow sunlight cut through the rift and hit the oak tree.

“There, now,” Jessie muttered with a sigh. “Much better.”

She and the sisters laid down their needles and calmly began to tuck their hair back in place. I watched them, stunned. I could only guess we were in the eye of the storm, although I’d never heard of thunderstorms having eyes. But they must, for this storm was clearly far from over.

On every side of us it still raged, hammering down the grass all along the bowl of the valley, whipsawing the trees. Fields of corn and wheat rolled like great waves. Clouds boiled, black and green and sickly yellow. In the distance, rain fell in flat unbroken sheets. Lightning flashed—not in single jagged bolts but in branching spectacles that lit up the sky. Thunder bellowed, but it wasn’t rattling the windows anymore.

There was chaos all around while we sat undisturbed in an acre of oasis.

Liz began to rub her shoulder as if she’d strained it. “About time,” she muttered. “Couldn’t hear myself think with that racket.”

“I . . . I don’t understand,” I said. “What’s happening?”

Liz frowned at me dismissively, then turned to Bree. “Honey,” she said, “tell us about the wedding. At the hotel, is it?”

Bree looked relieved to lay down her needle. “Middle of December. Reuben says it’s a slow time at the ranch. Joanna, you’re more than welcome.”

I stared at her, still confused. December was a long way off—I couldn’t imagine still being in Morro by then. Bree was just being polite.

“Thank you,” I managed finally. “If I’m still here.”

Jessie dropped her hands to her lap and stared toward the barn just as Olin emerged with a deck chair under each arm, Laurel trailing behind. “Speak of the devil,” she muttered. “What’s that old fool up to now?”

He stopped in a patch of grass well within our sight and set the chairs side by side facing the western end of the valley, which was now bearing the brunt of the storm. Then the two of them took their seats to watch as calmly as if they were in a movie theater.

Liz was bristling, clearly feeling provoked. Molly was stifling a smile.

“Pay him no mind,” Jessie said airily. “Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

Olin pulled the caps off two pop bottles and handed one to Laurel. It was then I noticed Bree studying me curiously.

“Joanna, summer’s about over,” she said. “School’s starting soon. Will you be enrolling your daughter?”

The question caught me off guard. The last time Laurel had left school, she’d brought home her first-grade certificate, launching our escape.