The Storm Makers

by Jennifer E. Smith

  “Well, this seems like a nice thing, too,” Simon said doubtfully, as if trying to imagine why someone would choose a greasy auto shop over the glamorous headquarters of a secret society.

  “You didn’t think about staying?” Ruby asked.

  Daisy shook her head. “Not even for a minute.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” she said after a long moment, “that was when Rupert London took over.”

  seventeen

  WHEN THEY SHOWED UP at the garage the following morning, Daisy was nowhere to be found. There was no note on the door, no message for them anywhere, only the CLOSED sign that hung behind the dusty glass window of the office. The twins stood there looking at it for what seemed like forever, their backs to the driveway, until they finally heard the engine of the truck go quiet.

  Simon was the first to turn around. “She’s not here,” he said to Dad, who was leaning on the car door and squinting at them across the blacktop.

  “Maybe she’s late,” Dad called out, but Simon shook his head, giving Ruby a wordless glance. But it was there all over his face, as plain as if he’d said it aloud: I knew this would happen. We shouldn’t have trusted her. I told you so.

  He turned to pound on the door, making the glass rattle in its frame, and then he muttered something under his breath and headed for the truck, leaving Ruby all alone.

  It was nearly noon; the garage should have opened up hours ago. But even so, it seemed to Ruby that if she stood there long enough, Daisy might come trotting around the corner, her long hair tied back beneath a bandanna, her hands smudged with grease. On the street, a red car drove past in a rush of noise. The church bells rang out from the other side of town, and above them, the high ball of sun bore down on the sizzling asphalt.

  But there was no sign of Daisy.

  With a sigh, Ruby walked back to the truck. Simon was already belted in the front, which meant she had to climb in through the driver’s side. As he helped her in, Dad gave a little shrug.

  “I bet she has a good reason,” he said. “I wouldn’t worry. She probably just had an appointment or something. Or maybe she’s under the weather.”

  From the front seat, Ruby could see Simon raise his eyebrows. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

  When Dad turned over the ignition, the truck started with a small sputter, and they all fell silent as they eased out onto the road, leaving the garage behind. Ruby turned around to look out the back window, feeling the full weight of this latest abandonment. It was the worst kind of disappointment. First Otis, and now Daisy.

  Once again, they were truly on their own.

  These people might be good with weather, she thought as they drove away, but they aren’t great with promises.

  For the next couple of days, it was almost easy to believe that none of it had happened at all. The morning after Daisy disappeared, they woke to find that the heat that had plagued them for the past month, that had settled over the county like a heavy blanket, had finally lifted. It was the middle of June, but the air smelled of springtime, cool and sweet. Even the dogs felt the change, the two of them zigzagging through the newly planted cornfields like puppies after a month spent dozing in the unwavering sun.

  One morning, Mom dragged her easel out onto the porch, where she set to work on her newest painting, and when Dad returned from a trip into town, the worry that had been etched across his face all summer seemed to have lightened.

  “I think the corn looks perkier already, don’t you?” he asked, walking over to kiss the top of Mom’s head. He was talking about the very field she was painting, and even though most of her palette was composed of muted browns, in that moment, the idea that she might soon be using shades of green seemed entirely possible.

  Simon and Ruby were playing cards on the steps of the porch, half listening as Dad gave Mom the gossip from his trip to town—someone’s wife was pregnant, and someone’s husband was sick; a farmer lost a cow to the heat—but they didn’t look up until he mentioned the mysterious loss of a half acre of Orville Thompson’s wheat crop.

  “Apparently, a lot of it was burned,” he was saying. “And the rest of it is all chewed up. It’s just this perfect little square of destruction. Strangest thing.”

  Simon’s eyes met Ruby’s over their cards, but neither said a word.

  “Oh,” Dad said, glancing over at them. “And I drove by the garage on my way there. It’s still all closed up. I asked around town to make sure Daisy’s okay, but nobody seems that concerned. I guess she’s always done this sort of thing; she just takes off from time to time. It sounds like she has family in Chicago or something.”

  Ruby nodded stiffly. It had, of course, crossed her mind that Daisy might be working with London. What else could explain not just the earthquake, but also her sudden disappearance right as the drought started to improve? But in the end, there was too big a part of Ruby that wanted to believe in her, and how could her instincts be that wrong?

  “We’ll check again soon,” Mom was saying. “I’m sure she won’t be gone long.”

  This time, though she could feel his gaze, Ruby refused to look up at Simon. Instead, she studied her cards intently, shuffling through her pile, a shrinking collection of unappealing maneuvers.

  But by mid-afternoon she’d managed to push everything from her mind again. It was the kind of day that could make you forget about the weather entirely, and it seemed possible to Ruby that she could go on pretending forever.

  After all, Otis might never come back, and who knew when Daisy would show up again. And as for Rupert London, even if he were to return, it would just be for long enough to realize that the night of the rain was nothing more than a fluke, and he’d have no choice but to leave them alone again. They could spend the rest of the summer swimming in the pond and riding their bikes and helping Dad out in the barn.

  And if it did rain, it would just be because of a storm passing through. And if did snow, it would only be because it was winter.

  There would be nothing more to it than that.

  After lunch, Ruby stepped outside to call the dogs in, rattling a bowl of kibble. It didn’t take long for them to come bounding around the side of the house, their red tails fanning the air. But when she stooped to pet them, Ruby’s hand brushed against one of their collars, and she felt the cool touch of metal where there was usually only leather.

  To her surprise, when she pulled the wriggling dog closer to look, she found a small pin in the shape of a storm cloud. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears as she unfastened it with shaking fingers. She cupped it in her palm, then whistled for the other dog, who sat beside her as she examined his collar, where she found a second pin.

  She looked over at Simon’s bedroom window, hesitating for a moment. But then she closed her fingers around the two pins in her hand and, without waiting, without even really thinking, she took off toward the barn at a run.

  The doors were open enough for her to slip inside, and she stood there quietly until her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. And when they did, she almost laughed out of sheer relief. Stretched out on a pile of hay, his hat resting over his eyes, a stick of straw in his teeth, was Otis. And across the open floor of the barn, sitting before a mess of wires and tools, her head bent in concentration, was Daisy.

  They hadn’t forgotten them after all. Daisy hadn’t been on London’s side. Otis hadn’t left them behind. There they were again, right there in the barn.

  Ruby couldn’t help smiling as she opened her hand and held out the pins. “So,” she said, looking from one to the other. “Did the dogs get a promotion?”

  Otis sat up with a grin. “Not exactly,” he said. “But you did.”

  eighteen

  AS THEY MADE THEIR WAY down to the pond later, Ruby was almost afraid to look over at Simon. She was sure the expression on his face would be something between anger and annoyance. He’d been up in his room when Ruby had thrown open the door, insisting he come with her.

  “
Where?” he’d asked, looking skeptical. But Ruby had refused to say, and now, as they picked their way through the wheat together, the late-afternoon light falling across the fields at a slant, his jaw was hard and set. He slid his eyes in her direction, but she only pursed her lips and shook her head.

  “You’ll see,” she said in answer to his unasked question.

  When they neared the grove of trees that rose up from the surrounding flatness like a mirage, Ruby slowed a bit, a thought occurring to her.

  “Be nice, okay?” she said, and Simon shortened his stride to match hers.

  “To who?”

  “Just please,” she said. “Be nice.”

  Simon opened his mouth to ask again, but they were moving through the thicket now, the soft sounds of the water ahead of them, and before he could say anything, they came across the two figures on the dock.

  Otis was leaning against the railing in a rumpled three-piece suit, his long arms folded across his chest as he regarded Simon with the smallest hint of a smile. There was a stillness to him that reminded Ruby of a deer, the way they could be absolutely motionless yet also quivering with a kind of electricity.

  Simon had come to an abrupt halt, and Ruby saw his eyes light briefly on Daisy—who had been sitting on the edge of the pier, and who now rose to her feet with the graceful movement of a ballerina—before his gaze returned to the tall stranger.

  “Otis?” Simon asked after a moment. His face was still neutral, but it was not without effort; Ruby could tell he hadn’t yet made up his mind how to react.

  “I am indeed,” Otis said, walking over to greet them. When he was close enough, he extended a hand, which Simon made no move to take. “We met once before, actually, but you were unconscious.”

  Daisy, who was a few steps behind, couldn’t help laughing at this, but Otis didn’t smile. He was looking at Simon with the same unwavering gaze that Ruby had seen in the hospital, the same sense of quiet amazement.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay,” he said. “I would’ve liked to introduce myself, but—”

  “What are you doing here?” Simon asked, and though Ruby could see a flicker of hurt behind Otis’s eyes, he only blinked.

  “It was the soonest I could make it back.”

  “From what?” Simon demanded, his voice charged. “If I’m so important, then why do you all keep leaving? Why hasn’t anyone stuck around long enough to tell us anything that actually matters?”

  Otis only inclined his head, apparently waiting for Simon to continue.

  “You turn up in our barn, and then at the hospital,” Simon was saying. “And you try to get my sister to be on your side….”

  Ruby opened her mouth, but Otis shook his head at her, just barely. Simon was pacing now, and he swiped a loose branch from one of the trees and began whisking the air with it like a conductor.

  “And then you don’t even bother to show up when you said you would,” he said, pausing to turn around, his eyes narrow. “You know who did show up?”

  Otis nodded. “Rupert London.”

  “Yeah,” Simon said. “And he told me you’re nothing anymore, that you’re all washed up now.”

  This time, it was Daisy who moved to say something, but Otis stopped her with a hard look, and Simon watched them, tapping the stick against the palm of his hand.

  “So why should I believe anything you say?”

  All four of them stood there without speaking for a long moment as the water went still in the pond and a crow called out above the fields. Simon was practically trembling, his knuckles white around the stick. Ruby swallowed hard, waiting for Otis to defend himself, to set Simon straight, to spill all the long-held secrets they’d been waiting for. But he only stepped forward and put a hand on her brother’s shoulder.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  With the sun low in the sky, the figures ahead of them were silhouettes, blue-tinged against the gold of the horizon. As they walked, Otis bent himself to one side like a misshapen tree, leaning to listen to Simon, who looked tiny beside the soaring figure to his right. A great quiet had come over the fields. This was Ruby’s favorite time of day, when the breeze tickled the crops with a rustling like music, and the sky grew soft and pale.

  She and Daisy hung back, following Otis and Simon from a distance as they traced the edge of a field, the only place where there was enough room to walk side by side. Ruby trailed her fingertips along the wheat, which now rose nearly to her shoulders. She suspected Daisy was waiting for her to speak first, but Ruby wasn’t sure where to begin. She wanted to know what Otis and Simon were talking about up ahead, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to voice this.

  “Ask me,” Daisy said after some time had passed.

  Ruby tilted her head. “Ask you what?”

  “Anything you want. I know you’ve probably got a million questions.”

  “Fine,” Ruby said with a little nod. “Where’d you go?”

  “To find Otis.”

  “Where?”

  Daisy lowered her eyes. “California.”

  “Why was he there?”

  She shrugged. “It’s not important.”

  “But you said I could ask anything,” Ruby insisted. “I want to know why.”

  “That was just where I found him,” Daisy said with a sigh. “Before that, he was in Louisiana, and then Texas, and then Arizona. He meant to meet you at the windmills that night, but things were moving fast, and he needed to leave sooner than expected.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Daisy explained, “he was gathering information. And support.”

  “For what?”

  “For Simon,” she said simply, looking ahead. A sudden breeze stirred the wheat, and Ruby shivered. “I’m sure that’s what he’s telling your brother now, too,” Daisy continued. “How he’s been reaching out to other Storm Makers, the ones less directly involved with the Society, and those who have fallen away from it completely. Otis has been talking to all of them, telling them about Simon, about what it means to have found him.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Daisy stopped walking, and Ruby was struck by how serious she looked. “When my father was Chairman, the Society was there for a reason. You know how doctors have that mantra, ‘First, do no harm’? It’s supposed to be like that. Our job description has always been to maintain control of the environment—not to make or stop weather, necessarily, but to keep everything in balance.”

  “How?”

  “All sorts of ways,” she said, and Ruby fell in step beside her as she began to walk again. “Reducing hurricanes down along the coast, where they get hit hard year after year. Or trying to slow the effects of global warming. Things like that.”

  Ruby looked around at the dry fields. “Stopping droughts?”

  “Lessening them, anyway,” Daisy said with a nod. “But things are different now. And Rupert London…”

  “Let me guess,” Ruby said quietly. “He doesn’t care much about helping people.”

  Daisy bowed her head. “That’s true,” she agreed. “And if that were all, I’d still think he was irresponsible and hard-hearted.”

  “But that’s not all,” Ruby said, her voice flat.

  “No,” Daisy said. “It’s not.”

  Up ahead, Otis and Simon had stopped walking, and now stood facing each other. Even from a distance, Ruby could see that Simon was shaking his head, and that his shoulders were hunched.

  “Nobody ever wants to believe the worst,” Daisy murmured, and Ruby answered without thinking.

  “I already do,” she said. “After seeing him destroy the field that night, I don’t think anything about London could surprise me.”

  Daisy sighed. “His philosophy is actually pretty simple. Completely backwards, but still pretty simple,” she said. “He believes that since people are ruining the Earth with their big cars and oil spills, their endless garbage and high energy consumption, that we shouldn’t bother to he
lp them anymore. He thinks they should get what they deserve, and we shouldn’t try to steer their hurricanes off course or slow their tornadoes. He believes that nature should have a chance to fight back.”

  Ruby nodded.

  “He’s not the only one who feels that way, of course. But he’s the only one who’s taken it a step further.”

  “How?”

  Daisy’s face was drawn. “Rather than slow the destruction, or even just stand aside and do nothing, he believes that Storm Makers should actually be helping it along. Teaching everyone a lesson. It’s the reason I left the Society, and why I didn’t want to be involved anymore. I mean, if my dad could have seen—”

  “But you are now,” Ruby interrupted. “You’re involved again. Because of us.”

  Daisy hesitated a moment, then nodded. “I guess I needed some time to catch up. You have to realize how fast everything changed. My father died, and London took over. Otis disappeared, and the fire—” She stopped abruptly, sucking in a breath. “Never mind. All I’m saying is that I realize now that I was wrong. Simon showing up, and Otis coming back—it’s helped me understand that you can’t hide from this kind of thing, you know? It’s like the weather itself. Sometimes you just have to face the storm.”

  “I guess,” Ruby said, fishing a tissue from her pocket, which she held out as an offering. But Daisy shook her head, wiping her eyes roughly with the back of her hand instead.

  “I’m not crying.”

  Ruby lowered the tissue again, nodding agreeably.

  “I never cry,” Daisy said with a little scowl, and despite the way her eyes were shining at the moment, Ruby believed her. Daisy seemed tough in ways that were impossible to imagine, ways that could only be a result of things seen and survived.

  As they neared the others, it was clear from Simon’s expression that they were talking about the very same subject. Except where Ruby had been stunned, Simon seemed to be defiant, his face set stubbornly, his eyes flashing.