The Storm Makers

by Jennifer E. Smith

  She propped her bike on its kickstand, then took a step forward. The man smiled graciously, like a host happy to see that his guest had finally decided to join the party. There was something about his features that made him seem almost a caricature of himself, his nose a bit too long, his eyes large and owlish. Ruby stared up at him as she tried to collect her words, to put together some kind of question, but after a moment, he nodded as if she’d already asked it.

  “I’m here to help your brother.”

  Ruby wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that. She took a small step backward. “He doesn’t need any help.”

  The man tipped his face up to the falling rain. “Not yet,” he said. “But the winds are starting to change.”

  His smile was infuriating, utterly cryptic and completely untroubled even in this strangest of situations. And at that very moment, the winds did change, the rain coming down at an angle, blowing the wheat sideways. It stung Ruby’s face, and she wiped at the end of her nose, where the water had collected into a single drop. Above them, the windmills continued to churn, the water falling in sheets from the blades. She narrowed her eyes, suddenly angry.

  “It’s not right, you know,” she said. “Staying on someone else’s property.”

  “I’m only visiting,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Well, don’t.”

  He grinned. “Or what?”

  “Or else I’ll tell,” she said, though this sounded silly even to her. “I’ll tell my parents. Or call the police.”

  “You would have done that already.”

  Ruby blinked, feeling the color rise in her cheeks. A flash of lightning whitened the sky, and in that brief moment of illumination, she saw a look of worry cross his face. The thunder that followed reached them with a scraping sound, like the sky itself was being hollowed out by the storm. They watched a second fork of lightning touch down in a nearby field, a blue-tinted scribble in the surrounding grayness.

  The man reached into his pocket and glanced down at what looked like a watch. His eyes narrowed. “You better get back now,” he said, but Ruby straightened, holding her ground in the mud. He slid off the wagon in one fluid motion, and once he was unfolded, she could see just how tall he really was. “Go on.”

  “No,” she said, so softly it was nearly lost in the weather.

  He gave his hat a little shake, but it was too soaked through to wear now, a flimsy, dead-looking thing. “Simon needs you.”

  Ruby stared at him. “How do you know his name?” she asked, but he was already walking away from her, pushing back the damp stalks of wheat until he seemed to disappear altogether into their midst.

  By the time she turned into the long drive leading up to the farm, Ruby was shaking all over, and her fingers were numb on the handlebars of her bike. The storm had only grown stronger, and the wind blew with such force that, every so often, she had to stop and plant her feet on the ground for fear of tipping over.

  As she neared the barn, she could see Dad pulling open the heavy doors, his legs braced against the gravel drive. When he saw her, his whole body slackened.

  “There you are,” he said, jogging to meet her. Ruby had been expecting him to look thrilled about the unexpected arrival of the rain, but his face was grim. He threw an arm up over his eyes to keep out the cutting rain. “I was about to drive out to look for you.”

  “Sorry,” Ruby said, swinging herself off her bike. “That came up fast.”

  “I’ll meet you inside,” Dad said, grabbing the handlebars. He began to wheel the bike toward the open barn, then paused and turned back. “Your brother’s not feeling well. Mom’s upstairs with him.”

  Ruby froze, her stomach suddenly tight. What had the man said about Simon? That he’d come to help him? The wind ripped the leaves from the corn and set them loose like confetti, and the sky was an angry purple now, the light almost completely snuffed out, though it was only mid-afternoon. She hurried toward the house.

  Inside, the downstairs was quiet, and Ruby stood in the hallway, water dripping from her hair. The rain beat at the screen door, and she could hear the dogs moving restlessly in the kitchen. She was still there, standing in a small puddle on the wooden floor, when Dad came in, unzipping his jacket.

  “What’re you doing?” he asked, frowning. “You’re gonna freeze.”

  “What’s wrong with Simon?”

  Dad shook his head. “I think he’s got a fever. He was feeling hot out in the barn, and came in to grab a drink. Your mom said his hands were like ice, so she put him right to bed.”

  “But he’s okay?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he said. “You better go grab some dry clothes or you’ll catch something, too.”

  Ruby nodded and began to climb the stairs slowly. At the top, she peeked into Simon’s room, where Mom was sitting on the edge of his bed. Ruby watched them for a moment—the way Mom fussed with his blankets, the way Simon’s eyelids fluttered in sleep—and she didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Mom looked over, put a finger to her lips, and then tiptoed out of the room.

  “You’re soaked,” she said, closing the door behind her and then leaning to kiss the top of Ruby’s head. “Go get changed, and I’ll make us a warm drink.”

  “Is he okay?”

  Mom nodded, pressing her lips into a straight line. “This fever came out of nowhere, though.”

  Later, as the three of them drank cups of tea in the kitchen, watching the weather report through the static on the television set, Dad said the same thing about the storm.

  “It came out of nowhere,” he muttered, glancing out the window, where the rain was still thrashing against the house.

  “It’s a good thing,” Mom said. “We need it. Badly.”

  But Dad looked unconvinced. “How could nobody have seen it coming?”

  Ruby stared off in the direction of the barn, her thoughts drifting to her conversation with the strange man. She thought of the way he’d smiled up into the rain, and then the look of concern that had passed over his face at the first sign of lightning. I’m here to help your brother, he’d said. But what could that mean?

  She took another sip from her mug, shivering as the old husk of a farmhouse trembled beneath another fit of thunder.

  All afternoon they took turns checking on Simon, who tossed and turned in his bed, his sheets in a sweaty knot at his feet, his forehead damp. Outside, the clouds broke across the sky like the yolk of an egg, green running into yellow, and Ruby sat in the doorway to his room and watched her brother thrash and murmur in a strange kind of half sleep. There was something about it—his gritted teeth and the flatness behind his eyes—that made him seem more than just sick. Ruby couldn’t shake the feeling that she was watching him do battle with something greater, raging inside him in time with the storm outside.

  It wasn’t until dinnertime that they finally decided it would be best to take him to the hospital, after Dad had tiptoed in to sit by his side and Simon had failed to recognize him, howling like he’d been visited by some kind of ghost.

  And so now Ruby stood at the window and watched as Dad carried Simon to the truck, listing sideways in the rain, his head bent low over his son. Mom waited just inside the doorway, her coat flapping around her knees like a poorly secured tent, and she brushed the hair from her face and motioned for Ruby to follow.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It’ll pass.”

  Ruby wasn’t sure whether she meant the fever or the weather, but it was the combination of the two that sent her heart up into her ears, a thumping rhythm that nearly swallowed the sound of Mom’s voice. A piece of newspaper blew in through the front door and settled itself against the wall, and Ruby nudged at it with her toe, feeling very small in the face of the weather.

  Mom looked impatient now; Dad had started the truck, and the beams from the headlights struggled to reach them through the rain. But still, Ruby just stood there. Because
it seemed more than just coincidence or timing. There was something about it—the escalating storm and the rising fever—that made a kind of sense to her, though she couldn’t have said why.

  Maybe she was crazy. Maybe it was only a storm.

  But it certainly didn’t feel that way.

  five

  JUST OUTSIDE THE EMERGENCY ROOM waiting area, there was a small hallway with three vending machines. Ruby stood rattling the coins in her hand as she tried to decide what to get. After an hour-long wait, Simon had finally been admitted, but only Mom was allowed to go back with him. When he realized it was dinnertime, Dad had fished $2.37 in change from his pocket and sent Ruby off in search of some snacks.

  As she scanned the rows of candy, someone stepped up behind her, and Ruby had already started to move aside when she realized it was the strange man from earlier.

  “Milk Dud?” he asked, holding out a box.

  “Rule number one,” she said with a frown. “Don’t take candy from strangers.”

  “What’s rule number two?”

  “No guests in the barn.”

  One side of his mouth inched up into a smile. “I’m fairly certain I was bunking in with at least a handful of mice,” he said. “So it seems like you have a pretty generous open-door policy.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t have any traps big enough for you.”

  He looked amused. “How’s your brother?”

  “How did you know…?”

  “Not important,” he said. “How’s he doing?”

  She shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Any strange visitors?”

  Ruby raised her eyebrows. “Stranger than you?”

  A nurse pushed past with a cart of food trays, and Ruby flattened herself against the vending machine to let her by. Once the hallway was empty again, the man stuck out his hand.

  “Let’s try this again,” he said. “I’m Otis.”

  “Otis?”

  “Otis Gray.”

  Ruby stared at his hand, hesitating a moment before finally taking it in hers. It was cool and rough as paper, but his grip was gentle.

  “I’m Ruby,” she told him, and he smiled.

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve come to ask for your help.”

  In spite of herself, Ruby couldn’t help feeling flattered. This, however, didn’t last long.

  “Your brother’s very special,” Otis said as Ruby followed him around the corner and toward the doors that led to a courtyard in the center of the hospital grounds.

  “Yeah, I know,” she said shortly, and Otis shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “You don’t.”

  He shoved the metal bar on the double doors, ducking a bit beneath the frame. It was still raining, though not nearly as hard as before, and so they stood beneath an overhang amid an array of scattered twigs and fallen leaves, debris from the sudden storm.

  They were the only ones in the courtyard, and Ruby realized she should probably be nervous. But for some reason, she found herself trusting Otis. There was something sincere in the way he’d asked for her help, and despite the oddness of their encounter by the windmills earlier, and the fact that he’d been hanging around in their barn—or maybe because of these things—she was curious about what he had to say.

  “Have you ever noticed anything strange about your brother?” he asked, leaning back against the railing, his arms folded across his chest.

  “Strange how?”

  Otis pulled his hat from his back pocket and smoothed it out. “Does he ever have bad dreams? Does he get sick a lot?”

  “I don’t know,” Ruby said. “Not any more than I do.”

  “Ah,” he said. “But does anything ever happen when he does?”

  Ruby shook her head impatiently.

  “What about today?”

  She bit her lip and looked off toward the trees that lined the little garden.

  Otis smiled. “So you do know.”

  “I don’t,” Ruby said so suddenly it surprised her. “I don’t know anything. I just… today, when he… and the storm… it was like something…”

  “Very good,” he said, looking pleased. “I knew I was right about you.”

  Ruby was desperate to know what he meant, but she forced herself to swallow back her questions, and waited for Otis to explain.

  “You have to understand that there are certain people who are…” he began, then trailed off, looking uncertain. He reached up and placed the hat on his head, then left his hand there, as if he’d forgotten to reclaim it. “There are some people who are just different, and your brother—”

  A thought struck Ruby then, one she hadn’t considered before. “There’s something wrong with him, isn’t there?”

  “No,” Otis said quickly. “Not like that. I’m sorry. I know I’m not doing a great job here, but I’ve never really done it like this before.”

  “Done what?”

  He stood up a bit straighter and took a deep breath. “The timing of all this—it’s not a coincidence. Simon’s fever and the storm? They’re connected.”

  Ruby felt a little flutter of recognition inside her, because as strange as it sounded coming from this mysterious man, hadn’t she been thinking the very same thing?

  Otis tilted his head, gauging her reaction before pushing ahead. “Your brother…” he began, then paused and cleared his throat. “Your brother is one of a very small group of people in the world who have the ability to influence the weather.”

  It seemed to Ruby that he was speaking much too fast, and she closed her eyes and played the words back in her head, one at a time, making sure she understood what he was saying.

  “What’s that even supposed to mean?” she asked, letting her eyes flutter open again. “That he has superpowers or something?”

  “Not exactly,” Otis said with a small smile. “More like an enhanced sensitivity to the elements. Simon’s a Storm Maker.”

  Ruby narrowed her eyes at him, shaking her head. “No way,” she said, surprised by the force of her voice. “That’s crazy.”

  Otis raised his eyebrows as if to say, Is it? and something about his expression—so perfectly composed, so maddeningly patient—made her want to scream.

  “This is stupid,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m going back inside.”

  With a small shrug, Otis stepped aside to let her pass, but even though Ruby meant it—even though all she wanted to do was walk back into the hospital and pretend none of this had happened—she found herself rooted in place, unable to leave just yet.

  “There’s no such thing as a Storm Chaser,” she said, her fists balled at her sides. “He’s just a regular kid.”

  “Storm Maker.”

  She glared at him. “Why don’t you leave us alone?”

  “I’m here to help,” Otis said simply. He used his hat to mop up the puddles on one of the benches. Ruby sank down numbly, her head buzzing.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, peering up at him.

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “You do.”

  She shook her head.

  “If you didn’t believe me, you wouldn’t be so upset. If you really thought it was so ridiculous, you’d be laughing the whole thing off.”

  “Ha,” Ruby said, forcing a laugh that emerged roughly, like a bark. “Ha.”

  “Look, I know how this must sound, and I realize you have no good reason to believe me,” he said. “This isn’t how things are normally done. Usually, the person would be told directly, and in my experience, they always already have some sort of inkling.”

  Ruby’s eyes were fixed stubbornly on her feet, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking the question: “What sort of inkling?”

  “Spontaneous dust clouds,” Otis said, sitting down beside her. “Sudden wind gusts. Scattered showers. Freak snowstorms. Nothing major, because nobody’s that powerful when they first flare up. It’s all just reactionary weather at that stage, the result of dreams or illnesses, things like that. Th
ey can’t really control themselves at first, so it’s all a bit haywire, but it makes them pretty easy to spot. I’d say a good thirty percent of all weather anomalies turn out to be rookies.”

  Ruby had no idea what he was talking about, but she couldn’t help thinking of all the times this summer when the dogs had shied away from Simon, as spooked and skittish as they were during thunderstorms. Or a few weeks ago, when he’d struck out during his baseball game, dropping his bat and kicking at the ground so angrily that when a strong breeze had blown through, swirling the dirt from the baseball diamond into little tornadoes, it had almost looked to Ruby like he’d summoned it himself.

  “Stop,” she said to Otis. “Please.”

  There was a twitch just below his left eye, the first sign of any impatience. “I wish there were an easier way to tell you this, and I wish we had more time to do it gradually, but I’m afraid we don’t.” He looked at her carefully. “I know I wasn’t wrong about you. Whether you want to admit it or not, I have a feeling you understand exactly what I’m telling you.”

  Ruby ducked her head, but didn’t answer. Because Otis was right—she should have been laughing or shaking her head or turning to leave. But instead, her chest had tightened and her head felt light, and she had to remind herself to breathe, because as crazy as it was—and it was!—there was a small part of her that believed him even so.

  Just this morning, her brother had managed to short-circuit both a toaster and a truck for absolutely no apparent reason, and somehow Ruby knew—almost as if she’d always known it—that what Otis was saying could very well be true.

  “I wouldn’t be burdening you with this if it weren’t incredibly important,” he was saying now, an urgency to his voice.

  Ruby took a deep breath. “Fine. Simon can control the weather,” she said, testing out the words, struggling to keep them from coming out as a question.