by Holly Hook
* * * * *
A gentle knocking pulls me out of blackness.
I wake with a start. The room is still bright and yellow around me. The light stings my eyes. Tommy's still lying next to me. He snores. He's out. Gone. Makes sense. He only drove on no sleep last night.
The clock above the oil lamp reads two-thirty-eight. In the morning.
The knock comes again.
It's our door.
My heart leaps into my throat. My mind goes to Dorian.
I rise from the floor, leaving Tommy in his coma. The clock on the wall reads two forty-five.
Why would Dorian come here this time of night? Maybe he's found the farm and wants to strike now. Or maybe he's come to warn me about a storm coming.
They knock again.
The door has a peephole. I walk over, careful not to make any boards creak, and look through.
It's Uncle Cassius.
My heart leaps. Uncle Cassius!
He's warped through the glass. Stretched out. Tired. He stands with his hands behind his back like he’s hiding something.
I open the door so fast that Tommy groans and shifts behind me.
Blinking to make sure I'm not seeing things, I sputter, “Uncle Cassius?”
“Allie.” He checks up and down the hall and steps into the room.
“How did you find--”
“Later,” he says. He has dark valleys under his eyes, black against his gray cheeks. His gaze rolls along the floor and meets Tommy, who sits up and blinks in the light. There's no trace of a smile on my uncle's face. No trace of his normal self. “Sit down.”
He's never talked this way to me before. “What's--”
“Huh?” Tommy asks. He’s not really there yet.
Uncle Cassius paces along the length of the room. He's got something behind his back. A folded paper. It's the Williams Town Tribune. It's creased, but not enough to hide the photo on the front page. Instead of the usual town meetings, little league baseball games and fundraisers for sick kids, it's annihilation.
Broken windows. Damaged roofs. Fallen trees and leaning power lines.
My guts explode and die. I sit next to Tommy and grab the sides of the bed. I watch Uncle Cassius go to the other bed and sit.
He tosses the paper to the floor. It lands face-up, shoving the horror in our faces.
Tornado Whips Through Downtown Williams Town, Damages Being Assessed.
Uncle Cassius straightens up like he's trying to escape it. “I know why you left, Allie.” He breathes out. “I saw it on the late night news. The tornado at that open house. Then you hugging your parents at the park. I didn’t know what had really happened until after I had my own experience.”
Ohmigod.
Those people did the same thing to Uncle Cassius that they did to me.
And those storms last night that I barely escaped...he would have been at his house when they came over...
He rises from the bed and rushes me. “Allie,” he says, gripping my arms. “After the tornado hit our van, did you wake up in a barn? Tell me the truth. The whole truth.”
His eyes are big. Terrified.
I nod. “Did a tornado slam into your chest, too?”
“Yes.”
Our secrets crash together so hard he winces with the impact.
Tommy backs against the wall, watching it all unfold. Uncle Cassius turns away and buries his face in his hands. “I thought it was a dream. I hoped it was a dream.”
I gag and bunch over. The paper spreads out on the floor. That's Robin’s Ice Cream Shoppe missing its windows—and part of its roof. A power line lies on the crappy little dollar store I loved as a kid, spreading its black tentacles over the door. Glass litters the sidewalks. The road's so littered with fallen trees and leaves that it looks like all the forests in Wisconsin vomited on my town.
I'm going to get sick right here.
But I can't for Uncle Cassius's sake.
He faces the door like he wants to run back through it. “It happened so fast. It was storming. I felt lightheaded and fell to the floor. Then I was flying. And then--” He turns. He’s got one hand over his face.
“I know what happened next. I came here to get help,” I say, standing. I swallow a bad taste down. “I didn't know this happened to you. I thought it was just me. Kyle's website led me back here. The farm where it happened is just a few miles from here. I've got someone who can take me there tomorrow and--”
“I’ll take care of this.” He faces the door. “I don't want you going anywhere near that farm. Not until I straighten this out with those people. Who knows what else they'll do to you?”
I've never seen my uncle like this. I shrink back and sit on the bed. Tommy remains by my side, blinking like he's trying to focus. “But--” I start.
“I mean it.” My uncle's voice softens. His face sags and he looks down, slapping his hand to his forehead. “I don't understand why they did this to us. To you. We both could have killed someone when we...changed. If we don't do something about this now, eventually one of us will.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. No one died in Williams Town.
But I turn the paper over with my foot. It takes the tension in the room down.
Tommy blinks and picks up the paper. “Oh, man,” he says. “Downtown is screwed up.”
“Tomorrow the two of you should stay here in town,” my uncle says. “I'll go and find that farm. I'll know it when I see it. From what I saw on the tour site, it's about four miles away from here. But you figured that out already, didn't you?” He eyes me with another smile. With pride.
So Uncle Cassius figured it out like Tommy and I had.
“You’re going into that farm alone?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “By myself. I'll be fine. You shouldn't have to be the one to deal with this.” He smiles—a forced smile, but at least it's a shadow of the Uncle Cassius I'm used to. Then he sits again, hands on his lap. “I'll get something worked out so you don’t have to worry about finishing what I started in Williams Town. Though I doubt that you're that upset about the open house, considering whose it was.”
“Well, I was really freaked out. I had the reaction any sane person would have.”
“Dianna was screaming the whole time,” Tommy says. “If there's anything good that came out of this, it's that.”
“That makes me feel just a little better.”
Tommy nods. “Good.”
Chapter Twelve
