by Holly Hook
It turns out there’s a bed and breakfast in Evansburg. Dorian walks us there in the dark. It’s the biggest old house in town, a white one with purple shutters. The shutters have little hearts carved in them and an old, white picket fence surrounds the yard. It’s actually pretty cool. If my parents owned this place, they’d want to rip out the fence, replace the shutters and trim the messy shrubs into squares.
I miss them. They’ve got to be so worried about me.
“Staying here should be cheap since most people are gone to the State Fair right now,” Dorian says. “You’re lucky you got here now. We get a lot of old tourists here every other time of the year.”
Dorian leaves, and Tommy pays for the room and heads back out to get his car. I head upstairs before the old guy behind the desk can ask any questions. The stairs creak and I haul my duffel bag past old oil lamps on the walls. They’ve been replaced with light bulbs, of course, but it’s still pretty neat.
The room’s got a couple of beds and another oil lamp on the table for decoration and no television. Tommy sets his laptop down on his bed and opens it up. “Cool place,” he says. “Do we at least have wi-fi? We need to make sure there aren't any more storms on the radar. We don’t want to waste our phones on that. My battery was down to one bar last time I turned it on.”
Translation: Tommy had forgotten his charger, too.
“So was mine,” I say. “And yeah, we’d better check.”
“Bingo!” Tommy pumps his fist. “We have the Net.”
“You’d explode without it,” I tease.
“And we’re good,” he says, tapping the top of the computer. “No storms tonight. I don’t see anything until Thursday. You don’t have to worry about your curse until then.”
“Which I'm hoping will be gone tomorrow.” I flop down on the other bed and stare at the ceiling. Grooves and patterns form before my eyes. I’m so tired that I don’t even care that Tommy and I are sharing the same room.
Tommy appears above me. “Hey, Allie, we'll figure out how to cure this tomorrow. If that woman's in charge of that tornado force or whatever, she'll know a way to take it out of you.”
“Maybe.” The tired creeps into my voice. The word's heavy, weighing me down and pushing me into the floor.
“We will.” Tommy lies next to me, his hair molding with mine. “Sorry Bethany's being so crappy about this.” I don’t miss the way he says her name, like it’s chalk.
I haven’t been this comfortable in a while. I want Tommy to stay here all night.
“Not your fault.” My eyelids droop. I'm willing to bet that if I turn my phone back on, there won't be a single message from her. A trillion from my parents, of course, and maybe a couple more from Uncle Cassius.
They've got to know that something major is up.
I need to call Uncle Cassius again in the morning and try again to tell him the truth.
I close my eyes and listen to my breathing. Tommy's breathing. We say nothing. I wonder if Tommy's seeing massive tornadoes behind his eyelids, shredding farms and flattening livelihoods. If he does, he doesn't show it.
I see the blue car pulling up to the side of the road.
Dorian getting out. Running after me, and taking my arm. It’s so real that I’m sure I’m in that field again.
Staring at me with those desperate eyes in the restaurant booth. They’re deep. They’re pain.
Help, they say.
Right before I lose myself among twisting images from the last two days, I nod.
I will.
