We Speak in Storms

by Natalie Lund

  “The cars?”

  “Yeah, there were two cars that must have been carried by the tornado.”

  Dot closed her eyes like she was trying to concentrate. “I remember the storm, I think. And my face hitting the steering wheel. It might be the first thing I remember. Or I might be remembering the other one, the one I—”

  Brenna nodded; she understood not completing that sentence. “What do you remember next?”

  “Corn. As tall as the VW.”

  “The VW?” Brenna could hear her own heartbeat.

  “My dad’s bus. It was too damaged to drive, so I just left it there in the field. I’m not sure if it’s still there.”

  Brenna couldn’t contain her excitement. “No, but I know exactly where it is.”

  MANY OF US REMEMBER

  Many of us remember watching, slack-jawed, from our stoops and driveways the day Detonator Dorothy’s father returned. He emerged from a van we’d never seen before. He was as tall, stick-slim, and sallow as we remembered, except his face had bloated and cracked like dried mud in the years of his absence.

  Dorothy was the one to open the door, and we tried to read her face. Shock? Terror? Anger?

  “Dotty,” he said, opening his arms for a hug, but it was all wrong, like he was telling a tall tale about the size of a fish: It was this big. She didn’t step into his arms. He waited, his arms hanging, until her mother appeared behind Dorothy, in the doorframe.

  We remember being shocked by how pleased she looked. It was as though she hadn’t been the one chasing him with a knife, screaming You pervert as he peeled away four years before.

  He leaned in and, with a wet-sounding smack, kissed Dorothy’s mother on the cheek. Dorothy cringed and slid outside—freer to escape if she needed. She stood barefoot on the pavement.

  “Run,” those of us there whispered, and her toes curled like she’d heard us.

  “You look swell,” her father said, glancing at Dorothy and her mother, as though the compliment was for them both.

  Dorothy took another step back—more space between them.

  “I came because I wanted to give you something, since I haven’t been around much.” He said this as though leaving were his idea, like he hadn’t been chased out by her mother’s knife.

  “I got this van, and I see you still only have the Wayfarer.” Dorothy turned her head and looked at the vehicle behind her. The Rock-a-Gals had their first show with their new front girl coming up. Bands need vans.

  “We don’t need another car, Elmer,” her mother said.

  Dorothy’s eyes fixed on her mother and she made a face that we were sure meant: See me for once. Really see me.

  “Well, you can sell it or something. For the money,” he said.

  “I’ll take it,” Dorothy said, her voice louder than we expected. Bold.

  “What do you need a van for?” her mother snapped. Maybe she hadn’t told her mother about the Rock-a-Gals yet.

  But he offered the keys on his palm. “It’s yours,” he said. We held our breaths. She reached for them, and he snapped his hand closed, grasping her fingers before she could grab the keys. She looked at her mother desperately, as though she wanted to be saved again.

  “Can Dotty and I have a moment?” he asked her mother.

  Now, finally, a look of doubt passed over her mother’s face, but it blew past like a cloud. She nodded and backed into the house.

  “I don’t know what your mother told you back then,” he said. “About why I left. I’m sure you know now that kids have big imaginations. They make things into something they’re not.”

  Dorothy wrenched her fingers free, but he continued talking: “And I’d like it if you would come to a better understanding now. So we can be in each other’s lives.”

  She looked so terrified, some of us were afraid she’d snap and grab the bat the neighbor boy had left in the yard. Instead she plugged her ears, sank onto her knees, and shrieked like she had as a girl, a sound that raked our bones. He didn’t try to speak again. He dropped the keys in the grass and started down the street on foot, heading for the train station.

  When her mother drifted to sleep, Callie shut herself in her bedroom. Her father was still cleaning, slamming cabinet doors and kitchen drawers. She organized her school binder, opening and closing the three rings with satisfying clinks in response to her father’s slams. You aren’t eating. Clink. You’re a terrible friend. Clink. You’re a worse daughter. Clink. You might be talking to dead people. Clink.

  Callie needed to go to St. Theresa’s, but the only way she was getting out of the house was a school-related excuse. Or her mother.

  Downstairs, her father was wiping off the ceiling fan from a ladder in the kitchen. Fuzzy clumps of dust floated down, gathering on the counter and floor. Callie wanted to point out that he’d just have to vacuum again, but she wondered if that was what he wanted: another excuse to roar through the house.

  “Mom asked for more frankincense,” she said, trying to keep her face stony. She was lying again. And all for what? A creepy old woman?

  He looked down at her, gold eyebrows raised. “I thought Toni brought more by the other day. I’ll go check the nightstand.”

  “She’s asleep, Dad.”

  He sighed and returned to the fan, swiping another gray clump. “You can help me clean for the realtor when you get back.”

  Callie felt the knot in her throat again, pulsing like it had its own heartbeat. “There’s nothing we can do to keep this place? Like, what if I got a job? Or maybe Toni can help. Please.”

  Her father looked down at her, the fan casting strange shadows across his face. “I don’t think so, Cal,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Entering St. Theresa’s lobby made Callie feel like she was diving into a bowl of wedding mints. Curtains in baby-duck yellow, couches in pale blue, tiles marbled with spring green and pink.

  “Can I help you?” a woman seated at the front desk asked. She looked old enough to be a resident herself.

  “I’m looking for someone who lives here,” Callie said.

  The woman smiled with pity, clearly thinking Callie was some lost granddaughter.

  “What’s the name, dearie?” she asked.

  “Ellie Vidal.”

  The woman frowned and typed something into her computer. “Spell it for me?”

  “V-i-d-a-l.” She wondered if Ellie was short for Eleanor or Ellen.

  “No, I’m sorry. I can’t find that name.”

  “Okay. Thanks, anyway. Do you mind if I sit and make a phone call?” If Mrs. Vidal had ever been involved in the society, Mrs. Greenley—the museum docent—would know her.

  The woman smiled pityingly again. Callie used her phone to search for the historical society’s number.

  “Mrs. Greenley, this is Callie Keller. I was in the museum yesterday, working on a school project.”

  “Of course, of course, Cath’s girl,” the woman said.

  Callie cringed at her mother’s name. How much longer would people call her that—even though it would never cease to be true? “Yeah. Uh, my mother was hoping you could do us a favor. I’m looking for the address of a society member: Ellie Vidal. Mom has something to send her.” This was the second time in an hour that Callie had used her mom’s cancer as an excuse for lying.

  “Yes, let me see what I can do.” She huffed into the phone like she was climbing a staircase. “What was the name again?”

  “Ellie Vidal.”

  “I’m embarrassed to say I thought she’d passed quite some time ago. She bequeathed an antique car to the society, and we sold it to a collector, I believe. But I can see if we still have her information on file.” Passed away? An antique car? So was it true?

  While Mrs. Greenley was puffing away, Mrs. Vidal rounde
d the corner into the lobby, wearing the same floral dress, her perm slightly looser than before, her eyes just as sharp. “Callie!” she said, waving excitedly. “It’s so great to see you.”

  Callie waved back. “Never mind, Mrs. Greenley. Thanks for your help.” She hung up without waiting for a reply.

  “Come, dear, there’s never anyone in the game room at this time,” Mrs. Vidal said.

  Callie glanced back at the desk, but the receptionist had walked away. Callie followed Mrs. Vidal down the hall.

  “I was just looking for you,” Callie said.

  “Usually I’m pretty easy to find. I don’t move very fast.” She chuckled and led Callie into a room carpeted in pale pink. The walls were white with pink candy stripes, like this was a baby’s nursery and not a place where humans able to formulate opinions and speak might live. There were four tables in the room, each of which was topped with an unfinished jigsaw puzzle.

  Mrs. Vidal sat down at a table and gestured for Callie to do so as well. The outside edges of the puzzle had already been assembled and sat like an empty frame. The remaining pieces had been sorted by color into piles.

  Callie picked up a puzzle piece and tried it before setting it back down and taking another, smiling when it locked into place.

  “Brava,” Mrs. Vidal said.

  Callie reached for another piece. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done a puzzle like this, and she was glad, because it had probably been with her mother, like everything else in her life.

  “How’s your mother?” Mrs. Vidal asked as if she’d read Callie’s mind.

  “She’s okay,” Callie said carefully. “But I asked her, Mrs. Vidal, and she doesn’t know you.”

  Mrs. Vidal’s eyebrows rose above the red frames of her glasses, but she didn’t respond. Callie decided to try a different approach. “Do you go by another name?”

  “What do you mean, dearie?”

  “I didn’t find anything when I searched online for you, and the woman in the lobby said Ellie Vidal wasn’t a resident here.”

  Mrs. Vidal’s strikingly blue eyes met hers. “My name is Eleanor Peterson. I went by Vidal, but I never legally changed my name to my husband’s. Too much busywork.” She flitted her hand dismissively. Callie felt the buzzing, hopeful belief sprout further—not just beneath the skin on her arms, but under her cheeks, her stomach, all the way along her spine.

  “You’re the Eleanor Peterson who founded the historical society? Whose ancestors built the house I live in?”

  Mrs. Vidal smiled. “You must be good at puzzles.”

  “So you remember when it was an inn?”

  “Oh, of course. But so would anyone my age,” Mrs. Vidal said.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, why’d you sell the house?”

  Mrs. Vidal cupped a puzzle piece in her palm. “We lost my daughter, Celeste,” she said softly. “And it felt as though every sound was her trying to speak to us. It was just too hard.” She shook her head. “Frederic found good enough owners—the Gallaghers, who had it before your family—but I’ve regretted it ever since.”

  Callie’s breath caught in her throat. So she was definitely Celeste’s mother, but Mrs. Greenley had said Mrs. Vidal had passed away and bequeathed an antique car. Callie had to be sure that this newly awakened thing prickling her spine wasn’t a false hope, wouldn’t fail her.

  “Mrs. Vidal, are you—” Callie swallowed, gathering her courage. “Are you a spirit?”

  “A spirit,” Mrs. Vidal repeated, as though puzzling out the word. “The house spirits spend all their time knocking about. Am I just knocking about?”

  Callie shook her head.

  “I didn’t think so. But maybe what your question really is—the crux of it all—is have I died? And the answer is yes.”

  Callie’s hearing went out, her ears humming, her mind swimming, dizzy—everything else distant and tinny. When the sound returned to Callie, it was loud and hard, like Mrs. Vidal had thrown bricks. She swallowed, recovering herself, tried to put her thoughts in order. So it was true. And if Mrs. Vidal could die and return, what did that mean for Callie’s mother?

  “I didn’t want to scare you, so I lied about living at St. Theresa’s. I mean, it’s where I used to live. Before. But I lied about living here now. I’ve just been visiting, wandering, talking to those who can hear me.”

  Callie wasn’t sure what to say. What could someone say after their world had been turned upside down? Or maybe it had simply been righted? “We might have to sell the house too,” she blurted.

  Mrs. Vidal pushed her glasses down the bridge of her nose and looked over the top. “What? Why?”

  “The doctor bills, I guess. And without my mom working, they can’t afford the mortgage.”

  “Well, we have to do something.”

  “My dad will try to find a good buyer.”

  “We were lucky with the Gallaghers. And again with your family, but we may not get lucky a third time.” The woman’s eyes glittered with tears, which only enhanced their sharpness. “It’s home. It’s where I last saw my mother. And my daughter. Someone else might tear it down.”

  Callie looked down at the picture on the puzzle box, smiling faces leaning over the white table, an old couple at the center, a turkey on its platter, and all she saw was her mother with a bucket of soapy water, running a mop over the floorboards. Her mother wrapping her hand in masking tape to pull hairs off the heavy drapes. Her mother trying a lamp in three different positions, each time looking at Callie with a hopeful smile—here? Her mother was the house, golden and chestnut and warm. The thought seared beneath her breastbone.

  “I have an idea,” Mrs. Vidal said. “We’ll sell my car.”

  The black car Mrs. Vidal had driven away had looked battered. Had it been crushed in the tornado like the Pontiac? “I’m not sure it’s worth much, Mrs. Vidal.”

  “Of course. It’s a classic, but they towed it the other day.”

  “Who is they?”

  “This place.” She waved her hand at the room around them. “I overheard them talking about how the car didn’t have a parking pass and they couldn’t locate the owner. Of course, I couldn’t stop them. They can’t see me like you can. Did you drive here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then let’s go find it.”

  Callie shook her head. “I’d be happy to help you find it, Mrs. Vidal. But you’re not going to sell it for my family. If anything, we’ll sell ours. I can take the bus and Mom—” Callie inhaled.

  “Your mother doesn’t need a car anymore,” Mrs. Vidal finished, her blue eyes unblinking.

  Callie exhaled and nodded.

  “Let’s get my car. I insist,” she said. Callie agreed, if only to spend more time with the woman. Mrs. Vidal understood dying and what came after.

  Joshua raked right in front of the bay window, so he’d be seen by Ruthie, and then worked his way to the side of the house, outside her periphery. He dropped the rake, walked a few houses down, jogged across the street, and then snuck up behind his neighbor’s house.

  He’d spent so much time trying to keep Ruthie from figuring out what he was up to that he hadn’t considered what he’d say to the Wolverine. For all he knew, the man might laugh in Joshua’s face, dismissing him as a crazy kid. But Joshua had too many questions. Was he dead? A Storm Spirit? More important, how on earth could Joshua survive the next four years in Mercer? How could he stop the town from getting him down?

  Joshua knocked on the back door. No response. He cupped his hands over his eyes and peered through the kitchen window. The house was as empty as before.

  Where else could the man have gone? The only other place Joshua had seen him was outside the firehouse.

  Even though he’d memorized every word, Joshua pulled the love letter out of his pocket for clues.

  I discov
ered new landscapes.

  Something clicked inside Joshua. For that kind of love, you went back. The Wolverine would be at the Pontiac.

  Without bothering to be stealthy, Joshua ran to the apple tree and unchained his bike. He swung a leg over and pedaled madly down the driveway. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the curtains move in his own house. Another month’s allowance for Ruthie.

  Joshua lowered the gear and spun his feet quickly, ignoring the sweat that tickled the backs of his knees. He was biking the same path as he had after the storm—except now he wasn’t fighting wind or the fear that his grandparents’ house had been demolished by a tornado. He was going to see if love survived even death.

  SOME OF US HEARD

  Some of us heard Connie sobbing in home ec because Luke had broken up with her. We expected Eddie to follow suit and dump his sweetheart, Carolyn, a flautist in the marching band. Luke even bought a Route 66 bumper sticker for Eddie’s Pontiac. There was talk they’d drive west together, end up in Hollywood, where we’d heard it was safer for people like them. Eddie, with his golden allure, could act on the big screen. Luke could work on the cars of the famous.

  It was—we all agreed—time for them to leave; they were getting sloppy with their secret. We’d spotted the Pontiac just outside town after dark, shadows moving behind fogged glass. We knew it wasn’t Carolyn, whose preacher daddy demanded a nine-o’clock curfew. We’d also seen the hole in Luke’s jumpsuit, right at the heart, and smirked at the explanation that it had been snagged in the wash.

  Not long before the night of the storm, a few of us were downtown for lunch, drinking floats and eating fries on the hoods of our cars. Eddie pulled into Luke’s shop, Carolyn in the passenger seat. We crept closer, pretending to admire the Pontiac. Luke slid out from beneath the car he was working on, squinting into the sun. When he registered Carolyn, he made a face like he’d been bitten.

  Eddie chirruped a hello and Luke stared, still on his back, his face hard.