Page 118 of Home Tears

“Dani, come on!” Trenton was screaming at her.

She half-heard him. People were climbing into their boat. She just sat there. She was the eye of the storm now. She was the middle of the tornado. The winds would ripple. They’d snarl. They’d curse. They’d be angry with her, because it was her that they wanted. This whole storm was about taking back what was theirs.

Her. The water was coming for her.

“Julia.”

Dani heard Trenton say her sister’s name, then someone climbed into the boat. A second person was behind her. Trenton was saying, “Jake, who else?”

Dani looked up. Her sister was there, but she left? Dani remembered seeing her go…

Julia yelled over Dani’s head to Trenton, “The nursing home?”

“It was one of the first to go. It was crushed. I’m sorry.” He swept his gaze over both of them. “Sorry, you guys.”

Dani sat there.

People were swimming past them, but she didn’t know where they were going. There was no hope. For any of them. She was alive, and that meant they’d all die. The storm wouldn’t stop, not until it claimed her.

“We have to go!” Jake was yelling.

The boat was moving. They were gliding over the water. Dani knew it wasn’t peaceful. Waves and ripples broke over the surface, but she looked down. She saw the calm beneath. She could see them, the dead already. They were in the water, their arms and hair hanging loose. They were content. Their eyes were calm.

They were home.

“My house.” Julia collapsed beside Dani. Her hand covered her mouth.

She heard and lifted her head. There it was. Julia’s house was completely overcome, but one tree still stood up. It was a rebel, in the path of the water. It refused to sink below. Dani didn’t think. She moved, going to the front of the boat where the spotlight was.

“Dani? What are you doing?”

She turned it on the tree, and there was another. Mrs. Bendsfield was tied to a branch, one that Dani remembered swinging from as a child.

Julia gasped. “Mrs. Bendsfield!”

Trenton steered the boat over, and Jake grabbed the older woman. He had to cut away at the rope she used to tie herself to the tree. Hauling her into the boat, Mrs. Bendsfield looked vanquished and depleted. She was soaked. Her arms looked like twigs, and her lips were so blue. She was shaking from the cold.

“Can we go?!” she snapped at Trenton. “I’ve already watched GoldenEye get swept up by this crush. I don’t want to follow my favorite cow.”

Julia yelled, “We have to go south.”

“Why? That doesn’t make any sense. We need to cut across the current. It’ll flatten out—”

“Listen to me, Dani!”

It had been Trenton arguing with her. Trenton who was driving, but it was Dani who Julia spoke to. She was so earnest. “We have to go south! I was told that.”

“Who told you to go south?”

Her sister sat back down. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Julia,” Trenton leaned closer, yelling over the water, “I am not turning this boat around for more flooding. If we cut across—”

“The wind is too great. If we cut across, we’ll capsize and drown.” Jake was staring at his fiancée. “Julia, who said that we need to go south?”

“Just trust me!”

“No!”

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