The Dysasters (The Dysasters #1)(57)

“Okay, tell me again about how you got the willows to be your air orchestra,” Tate said. His voice was calm, but he and Foster were clinging to each other’s hand as if they were living lifelines.

Foster didn’t look at him. She stared at the funnel. He could feel the trembling of her body through their joined hands.

“Hey,” he pulled her so that she had to look at him. Her green eyes were wide and a little glassy. Her face was almost completely drained of color, and her pretty yellow dress had wilted against her skin like the long, dank strands of her muted hair. He thought she looked as terrified as he felt, and Tate knew that was bad. Real bad. So, he touched her cheek and spoke softly to her, like they had all the time in the world to chat and not like they were standing in lashing rain directly in the path of a descending tornado.

“Hey,” he repeated. “We’ve got this. I flew. You played an air symphony. We’ve been practicing for two weeks. So, remind me. What did you say about the willow music?”

“I—uh—I said it’s a-a-b-bout how I’m feeling,” she stuttered at first because her teeth were chattering from cold and fear, but as she spoke Foster steadied herself and got stronger. “If I’m negative, things don’t go so well, but when I’m relaxed and not really trying—or just having fun—then air is almost easy to control.”

“Okay. So. Let’s have a good time.” Suddenly, Tate grinned. “Hey! You said Cora liked the Rat Pack. Do you know the words to Sinatra’s ‘Luck Be a Lady’?”

In typical Foster fashion, she frowned and then rolled her eyes at him. “Seriously? You want to sing right now?”

He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Seriously. And dance. And make beautiful air music. If it’s about how we feel, it could work.” Then, not caring that he definitely looked like a crazy person—after all, the only person who could see him was Foster, and she already knew his kind of crazy—he started snapping his fingers to the rhythm of the old Sinatra tune. He crooned the first line.

“Luck be a lady tonight.”



And then nudged Foster expectantly.

“Luck be a lady tonight,” Foster repeated, speaking more than singing the line.



But Tate nodded reassuringly, picking up the tempo and starting to walk forward, doing a little sliding dance step, while he snapped his fingers.

From beside him, Foster’s strong, pretty voice picked up the next line.

“Luck if you’ve been a lady to begin with…”



Tate took both of her hands and began guiding her into a swing as he joined her singing “Luck be a lady tonight!”

They’d made their way to the beginning of the fields, all filled with ripening pumpkins and squashes, and Tate saw Foster’s eyes get huge as she stared over his shoulder at the the whining, rain-wrapped wall of wind and destruction.

“Sing it with me, Foster!” Tate shouted over the storm. Together their voices raised in harmony.

“Luck be a lady tonight!

Luck if you’ve been a lady to begin with…”



That’s when Tate heard it. The air around them quieted and stopped screaming in anger. Instead it picked up the melody and began to wrap it around them in shades of yellow and pink and blue.

“It’s working, Foster! Don’t look, just sing and dance with me!”

Foster’s green eyes found his, and he smiled at her, trying to show her with his touch and his expression how much faith he had in her.

And she did it. Foster nodded and sang as he moved her around the soggy, pumpkin-filled field while the air around them was colored by happiness and filled with music.

“Luck be a lady tonight!”



As they paused before the next lyrics, Tate met Foster’s gaze and dropped her hand. “Now, air! Sing with us!” He lifted his hands then, just like he’d seen her doing earlier that day, making little upturned, flicking motions with his fingers as he sang the next lines.

“Luck be a lady tonight!”



Tate could hardly believe it. He wasn’t even really thinking about the tornado, just about the song and how cool it would be if air played along with him—and as he flicked his fingers up, the funnel stopped descending. He heard Foster’s gasp from beside him, then her hands were raised, once again maestro-like, and she, too, was moving her fingers in time with the melody as she sang with him.

“Yeah, Foster! We’re doing it!”

She sang the finale notes with the lyrical timing of a perfect Sinatra swagger. He lifted her, spinning her around with him while the music began to fade. Then, breathing heavily, they finally looked up at the sky … and the funnel, in perfect time to the end of the air music, disappeared into the roiling wall of clouds.

Tate laughed joyously. “Foster! It’s working!”

“It’s fantastic! But it’d really be nice if the wind dried up this rain and sent it to, uh, Seattle,” Foster quipped, grinning up at the sky as she squinted her eyes against the droplets.

As if she’d pressed a mute button, the rain shut completely off.

“That’s perfect!” Foster giggled. “Thank you, wind!”

“And I think it’d be great if that wall cloud cleared off, so the sky could be like it was earlier today—super clear and super pretty.” As Tate spoke he made motions in the air, kind of like he was wiping off the whiteboard where his dad used to draw the team’s plays.