By the time he’d joined Aaron at the front door, guests from cabins three and four were standing on the porch looking out at the wind, which was sending pots of flowers, a birdhouse, and even a folding chair scurrying across the lawn. A few people were pressed up against the wall to stay out of the wind, but most seemed to want a better view of what was happening.
“The temperature has already dropped ten degrees in the last fifteen minutes, and there are reports of possible tornadoes.” The Englischer who was speaking was holding a phone in his hand and swiping through screens as he talked. From what Sharon had explained to Caleb, the phone was a type of handheld computer.
“Do you want the horses in or out?” Caleb asked.
“That barn is solid, especially the portion banked against the hillside. Outside, they could be hit by debris.”
“Outside they have a chance to run from whatever’s coming.” Caleb’s heart was racing. He realized they were taking a giant chance either way. If a tornado did hit where they were standing, they would have more to worry about than the welfare of the horses. Perhaps they should put the people and the horses—
“Guide them to the back stalls. They won’t be able to hear as much there. It should calm them. Our property is relatively small, and I’m afraid they’d run out into the road. We’re going to have to trust their instincts.”
Caleb didn’t bother answering. He was already running toward the horses that had been left grazing in a pen next to the barn. How had the weather turned so quickly? How had they not noticed while they were working? It didn’t seem likely it could have happened as quickly as the Englischer had suggested.
He knew he could count on Tim and Jeanette to warn Julia, Sharon, and Ada. The basement under their home would be a safe place to wait out the storm. God would protect them. Even as the wind whipped the hat from his head and sent it flying toward the river, he prayed, Please, Gotte, protect my family.
The horses stomped and tossed their heads, but they allowed him to lead them into the back stalls of the barn. He fought the barn door, throwing all of his weight against it and finally latching it shut before running back to the front porch. By the time he reached the bottom step, more than thirty people huddled under the roof overhang and inside the small office building, which Aaron had unlocked.
The rain started falling in sheets, and he could tell the temperature had dropped even more. In addition, it had grown dark—nearly as dark as night, though it was still early afternoon.
Most of the cabin guests were on their phones.
Snippets of conversations washed over Caleb, but he wasn’t actually hearing the words. He was thinking instead of what Ada had said a few hours earlier. Her words echoed in his mind, striking against his heart like the pieces of hail which now pounded against the roof over their heads—“It was a terrible day. Priscilla said she thought it might be the end-times—first the heat, followed by the tornadoes, and then the blizzard. So much death and so many things destroyed.”
The cat who had adopted the cabins, Pumpkin, rubbed against his legs. He bent to pick up the orange tom. When he did, a flash of lightning streaked across the sky and he saw the funnel.
It was still a long way off, but it was barreling straight toward them.
Chapter 33
Julia had been working in the kitchen, making extra amounts of everything on the menu. They had suspected the day might be busy, and they were right. She occasionally glanced out the window over the sink or past the countertop into the breakfast room and larger dining area. What had once been their sitting room had a wall lined with windows. She wasn’t completely oblivious to what was going on outside.
An hour before she’d been called to a table in the front dining room to accept a woman’s compliments—the apple-cinnamon pie was apparently the best she’d ever had. While walking back to the kitchen, Julia had heard several guests commenting about the unusual heat. Most were making predictions that the weather could turn nasty.
It was always a possibility. She’d been born and raised in Wisconsin, in this very house. Their worst weather was by and large in the depths of winter. When they had opened the café, she’d worried about how light the crowds could become once the snow and cold temperatures set in. Today, she found herself thinking of such problems fondly.
Somehow Julia had managed to take any worries over the weather and push them to the back of her mind. She focused on feeding everyone and surviving the lunch crowd. She counted the moments until Caleb would be home at three thirty. They could discuss the weather together and what, if anything, should be done.
Ada had gone upstairs for a nap around one o’clock. She had seemed more disoriented than usual. It pained Julia to see her that way, but she was learning there would be good days and bad ones. Apparently today landed squarely in the worse-than-usual column.
All of those thoughts were colliding in her mind as she frosted an additional Lazy Daisy oatmeal cake. She’d baked three the night before, but the last was nearly gone. Surely one more would see them through the rest of the afternoon. That was her final normal thought when she glanced up and saw Sharon standing in the doorway of the kitchen.
Her face was as white as the kapp covering her perfectly braided hair. It was her eyes, brown, wide, and as frightened as a doe’s, that caused Julia to drop the bowl of frosting into the sink.
What had happened? Why was Sharon standing there looking as if the sky had fallen? Looking more lost than the first night she’d appeared on their doorstep—
Unless something terrible had happened. Unless something had happened to one of their guests or to Ada.
“Was iss letz?”
Once Sharon began speaking, a part of Julia’s mind keyed in on the conversations going on in the next room and the fact that most of her customers were now standing at the windows, staring out at the weather.
“It’s the storm. They say it’s coming.” Sharon’s eyes widened even more, and she clasped her hands in front of her. She glanced back over her shoulder, as if whatever she feared might follow her into the room.
Wess stepped closer. Julia hadn’t even noticed he was there until he put his arm around Sharon’s shoulder to try to still her shaking.
“Wess, you went home an hour ago. Why are you—”
“My family’s on their way.”
“Here?” Julia wiped her hands on her apron as she moved across the room to peer out the window.
“They sent me over first to warn you. Everyone needs—” He too glanced over his shoulder. “Everyone needs to get into the basement. Dad said to hurry.”
Julia saw it all then, saw it in an instant as clearly as she could see a recipe coming together. As understanding dawned on her, a memory from her past surged forward. She’d been a young girl, still clutching a baby doll. Her father had grabbed her hand and told her mother to run.
A shiver snaked down her spine.
The sky outside had grown unnaturally dark. Wind from the north was blowing the trees so hard they were bent nearly to the ground, and the temperature in the kitchen had dropped. When had it become so cold?
A baby cried out from the front dining area.
How many customers remained? Fifteen? Twenty? How many would the basement hold? Her mind blanked. Suddenly she couldn’t picture it.
She glanced past Sharon and Wess to the people gathered at the windows. They would have to fit. They had no other option.
“Wess, go with Sharon and help Ada down the stairs. Carry her if you must.”
Flipping off the burners to her gas stove, her heart racing as if she had run from Tim and Jeanette’s house, she rushed into the main dining area.
“We’re under a tornado warning,” an Englischer declared, frowning as he stared down at his telephone.
A middle-aged woman sitting near a window was holding hands with an older woman. “My daughter just texted me that one has already hit a town south of here.”
“We need to leave.” A younger woman, the
one with the baby who had been crying, began gathering up her things.
“Leaving would be a mistake.” Julia stepped forward and forced her voice to sound calm. “Driving during a storm like this is very dangerous.”
“How can you know anything about a storm like this? The news is reporting that the temperature has dropped nearly twenty degrees in the last forty minutes.” The same man who had told of the tornado warning was still staring at his phone. His frown had deepened to a scowl. Everyone in the room quieted as he read from a news page.
“The national weather service is declaring an imminent emergency. An arctic front has slammed into the warm humid air system this area has been under.” He glanced back up at Julia. “You can’t know what to do. There’s never been a storm like this.”
“Actually, there has been. The year was nineteen eleven.” Ada limped into the room. Her prayer kapp was askew, revealing wispy white hair that showed her age in a way Julia hadn’t yet come to terms with. In spite of her disheveled appearance, her eyes were clearer than they had been all day. “And my dochder is right. Driving now would be dangerous. We need to all go to the basement before we feel the storm’s full wrath. The Lord will keep us from all harm.”
At that moment a tree cracked and splintered. Several people screamed and jumped away from the large windows. The tree fell next to the house, its branches crashing into one of the panes and scattering glass throughout the room.
“What is she talking about?” asked the middle-aged woman who had seconds earlier been sitting near the window that had just shattered.
“A storm happened long ago. It was much like this one.” Julia shook her head. “There’s no time to explain. Go out the back door and to your left. Keep your left hand on the house and within ten paces you’ll bump into two steps and a door which opens down to the basement. It’s latched on the outside, so two men should lead the group—unlatching and opening it in this wind will be difficult. More stairs lead down. Everyone be careful and stay together.”
Ada moved to sit in one of the chairs, but Julia stopped her. “We need to go now, mamm.” The teenagers were at her side before she could call out for their help.
“We’ve got her,” Wess said.
“What about your parents?”
“They just pulled up out front.”
Julia turned to run to the door to check on them, but the baby began crying again. Its wails were barely discernible over the howling of the storm. Grabbing a quilt off of a stand positioned against the wall, she wrapped it around the infant, who looked to be only a few months old.
“Thank you,” the young mother said. “I’m so afraid, and my husband didn’t come because of business. I came with my sister instead.”
“We’ll help you. Hold your boppli tight. I’ll walk on one side of you and your sister—”
“Khloe.”
Julia smiled at the other woman, who had long black hair and seemed almost paralyzed by all that was happening. “Khloe will stand on the other side, nice and close. Right, Khloe?”
Moving next to her sister, Khloe nodded, and they started toward the back porch.
As they moved, Julia prayed that everyone was out of the house, that Caleb had found a safe haven at the cabins, and that the storm would move over them quickly. She prayed that this day would not be like her mother’s long-remembered day of destruction.
She’d made it to the back door when Tim and Jeanette caught up with them, their two younger girls and Bandit huddled between them.
“Hurry, Julia.” Tim’s face said all she needed to know. They had run out of time. Still, she paused at the back door. Would her home be standing when they emerged from the basement?
“Don’t look back. Just go!” The words were practically torn from Tim’s mouth as the front door of her home was ripped off its hinges. The last thing she saw was it slamming into the Elliots’ car, straight through the windshield.
Had that happened? How could that have happened?
Jeanette had moved in front of their group and was now holding their youngest girl in her arms. Zoey clutched Bandit to her chest and buried her face in his fur.
“Put your hands on my shoulders and don’t let go!” Jeanette was screaming to two of the guests, but the words could barely be heard over the noise of a train screaming in Julia’s ears.
She glanced down at her feet. Though she remained inside the house, the floor of her home was now ankle deep in leaves.
Tim thrust Victoria into Julia’s arms. She staggered under the sudden weight of the ten-year-old. Then a hand was pushing her out the back door.
With one arm, she clutched Victoria to her, and with the other she encircled the shoulders of the young mother, the woman whose name she didn’t know. Together they stumbled into the afternoon that had become total darkness, in the direction Julia knew would lead to safety. Slamming her knee into the basement door, she nearly fell, but Tim was behind her, pulling her back to her feet. Before she could regain her balance another force, a stronger one, picked her up, then pitched her back down again—down and into the hole.
Her feet never touched the steps.
Julia did her best to fall to the side, to not land on Victoria or the mother holding the infant.
Behind her she was aware that Tim and someone else was struggling with the door. That was why he’d given her his child. He had known he would need to stay out in the storm. He’d known he might not make it into the basement.
Tim and the man who had stayed at the opening to the basement were screaming for help. Wess and the man with the phone rushed past her. She could just make out their figures in the cracks of lightning that were now almost constant.
Victoria’s arms were locked around her neck, and she was aware the child was sobbing, but her attention was focused on the door at the top of the stairs.
Still it wouldn’t close. Why? What was wrong? Had the wind broken it? Would they all be pulled out of their only safe haven?
Bandit barked as if all of their lives depended on him.
Tim shouted, his voice reminding Julia of her father the one time she’d seen him angry—angry with a force he couldn’t battle. Angry with a storm that threatened his family.
“On three!”
The wind tore the first two numbers, but when he shouted “three” again there was a thump. They were suddenly shrouded in darkness and silence.
Then she heard a sound she’d only heard twice before, and it knocked loose a memory she’d buried somewhere in the deep recesses of her heart.
It was the sound of a bar sliding through a lock.
Chapter 34
Caleb moved through the darkness to Aaron’s side.
Some part of his mind registered the sounds around him—people praying, some weeping, the horses stomping and making a noise he’d never heard before. Pumpkin yowling as if he could save them with the intensity of his cries. Over and above all that was the storm, unleashing a fury he could never have imagined. He couldn’t imagine it still, and yet it was wreaking destruction around them.
“We need to make sure everyone is here,” Caleb said.
“What does it matter? No one could—”
“We need to make sure.”
He had his arm across Aaron’s back and felt his shoulders slump. In that moment he knew that his friend was struggling with the same emotions, the same fears, he was. “Lydia is in Gotte’s hands. We need to care for these who are here. Let’s be sure.”
“All right.”
“Flashlights?”
“Near the front if you can find them in the dark.”
“You can use my phone.” A hand reached forward from the darkness and handed Caleb a cell phone. The hand was shaking, but the voice persisted. “There’s no cell service, but the flashlight app works.”
The teenage boy pushed a button, and a bright beam of light emitted from the device.
“Danki. Do you have something to write with?”
“Nah.”
&n
bsp; “I do.” An older woman with short spiky hair handed him a pen.
“We’ll need two.” He had to shout to be heard over the rain and hail.
She fumbled around in her purse until she found another, which she gave to Caleb.
“I don’t have a fancy phone, but I have a small flashlight I keep with me.” An older man with a short-cropped gray beard handed over his device.
“This will help, and we’ll return your items to all of you once the storm has passed.”
“If it passes—” the teenager said loudly.
“All things pass, son.” Caleb turned toward Aaron. “You take the right side. I’ll take the left. Ask their cabin number and if everyone in their party is here. We’ll meet at the back wall.”
He didn’t tell him to hurry. There was no need. The screaming sound from the front of the barn was all the warning they needed.
If anyone was missing, he didn’t know how they would go and look, but it was better that they do something. As he made his way down the last three stalls, where the Englischers were huddled, he reminded everyone that they were in the safest possible place, that the barn had stood for more than a hundred years, and that Gotte would protect them.
A few of the women were weeping and some of the children wouldn’t raise their heads to look at him, but the men seemed like a solid group. The fact that he and Aaron were checking to see that all the guests were present and accounted for had a calming effect on everyone.
Caleb reached the back wall as Aaron was speaking to a couple huddled together.
“What’s wrong with them?”
“The man was hit in the head with some flying debris. He doesn’t seem to have a concussion—he’s aware of where he is and what has happened—but he’s bleeding more than I’m comfortable with.”
“One of the women on my side has medical training. I’ll go ask if she can help.”
Caleb made his way back down his side until he found the woman, who was middle-aged with red hair. She followed him to the wounded man, but he didn’t stay to hear her assessment. If anyone was still outside, the window of opportunity to fetch them was quickly closing.
A Wedding for Julia Page 25
