Drizzle (30 page)
Authors: Kathleen Van Cleve
I grab at little bits of the trails of vapor, pointing and swirling, mixing the vapor together until a cloud forms in front of my eyes. A large, white, puffy cloud, almost the size of the dome itself. I picture it attaching itself to the stars, little twinkling clips holding my cloud in place. Maybe this is how it works. The stars hold the cloud in place—they’re
starclips
—until tomorrow at one o’clock. Then the starclips open wide and the cloud is released, free to break apart into tiny, scattered, life-giving raindrops.
starclips
—until tomorrow at one o’clock. Then the starclips open wide and the cloud is released, free to break apart into tiny, scattered, life-giving raindrops.
It could be. Maybe not. But I do know this: Tomorrow, it will rain on our farm.
I stand there, under the sky, under my cloud, for a long, long time.
I wonder if this is what being an adult is like. I don’t really feel like jumping around or doing a victory dance. I’m glad that there’s a cloud above my head and I’m awed, but I’m sad too. Aunt Edith stopped making it rain. That’s a fact. She didn’t want to be here anymore, no matter what she says about the other reasons. And what she wanted was more important than anything else: more important than our farm, our family, or me.
I wonder what Mr. Emerson would think about Aunt Edith. There’s a part in his essay when he says
“I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me.”
Maybe Aunt Edith’s genius will cause her to write something wonderful—something that does a lot of good for a lot more people than my family and the people who love our rhubarb. Wouldn’t that be better than staying here?
“I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me.”
Maybe Aunt Edith’s genius will cause her to write something wonderful—something that does a lot of good for a lot more people than my family and the people who love our rhubarb. Wouldn’t that be better than staying here?
I slowly bring my hand down. The throbbing has mostly stopped. I stare at my crooked finger and suddenly, despite all these hard thoughts, find myself giggling. Jongy has shown up in my mind: an image of her, waggling her red-painted fingernails at me, telling me I need to be more assertive, as if she knows everything there is to know in life. If she only knew what my finger could do! Not that I’d tell her. I suddenly realize that this is
my
secret. The secret that I will hold on to my whole life, until I tell it to the next girl in our family born with a crooked finger.
my
secret. The secret that I will hold on to my whole life, until I tell it to the next girl in our family born with a crooked finger.
Before I leave the Silo, I look up one more time. Peeking behind my cloud are more stars. They look like diamonds to me, like the same ones that poked out of the ground when Grandmom died. She’s here. She’ll be with me always. It’s a good thing to know.
I check my watch. It’s almost morning. I’ve been up the whole night.
Later, as I walk up the stairs to my room, I peer out the window and see my cloud. It looks small from here—meager, almost—but that doesn’t matter. It’s still hanging from the stars, filled with water, full of life.
Even after I pull up my covers, I can still see my cloud, this time sprinkled with tiny diamonds. I can see it even with my eyes closed, even as I begin to dream.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28
Rain
When I climbed into bed, I never thought in a million years I could sleep. But I crashed, sleeping well past morning and waking up sometime around one o’clock.
What woke me up was the sound of raindrops.
SAME DAY, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28
Freddy
If I have to be honest, it wasn’t a full rainstorm. More like a full drizzle. It only rained over the medicinal rhubarb field and a little bit of the chocolate rhubarb. The regular rhubarb is still as dry as dirt.
Mom and Dad had come back to the castle to get clothes so they could stay in the hospital. I think they also wanted to check in with Patricia, Basford, and me one more time while our family was intact, in case the worst happened.
But the best happened instead. They walked out of the castle, disbelieving, even as the raindrops bounced off of their arms. If I could have taken one picture of this day, it would be this: Dad’s arm around Mom, his baseball cap off of his head, and Mom crying, simply sobbing, as her tears add to the pool of rain water gathering at her feet.
Basford was out there too, kneeling to the ground, running his fingers through the softening dirt. Patricia just kept looking from the sky to the ground and smiling. (Then, of course, she pulled out her cell phone and started to text.)
When Dad and Mom saw me, they stretched out their arms and I ran into them.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” Dad said, hugging me.
“I can’t believe it,” Mom kept saying, over and over. “I just can’t believe it. God answered our prayers, He did. He must have.”
I guess I didn’t look like I was surprised enough, because Dad pulled me a little closer and whispered, “Don’t tell me you expected this?”
I looked him in the eye. “Course not,” I said. “I just believe in magic, that’s all.”
“I think I do too,” Dad said.
He pulled me tighter and hugged me so hard, I felt his heart beating. Or maybe it was mine. Over his shoulder, Beatrice grinned at me and put her hand on Chico’s tall shoulder. She winked. I winked back.
Then, right before Dad released me, I saw Spark zipping about all of us, threading some invisible net of joy around. I glanced at the lake.
The mist was gone.
Gone.
Gone.
“You know,” Patricia said from where she was texting. “It could all stop again in a second. We shouldn’t get our hopes up.”
“It’s not going to stop,” I assured her.
“How do you know?”
“Because,” said Basford. “She’s Polly Peabody.” He smiled at me and I started to grin.
“Whatever,” Patricia said. “I hope you’re all right.”
“Let’s go see Freddy!” I yelled.
At first, when I said his name, everyone froze. I thought I had really ruined this moment. But then Mom smiled and said that yes, we should all go to the hospital immediately.
It was a good thing we left when we did. As we drove out of the farm, news vans were just beginning to arrive. I spied Mrs. Jong stepping out of a white one, a plastic bag over her hair. She tried to run in front of Mom’s car, but Mom just beeped the horn and drove through.
When we get to the hospital, we are in for another surprise. Dr. Jackson meets us at the doors to the Critical Care Unit.
“I have some news,” he says.We all stop in our tracks, waiting. Dr. Jackson is not a smiley guy, so seeing him, very serious, made us all forget for a second how happy we were about the rain.
“Is something wrong?” Mom’s voice trips up, and we all look at one another, scared.
“No,” he says. “Not at all.” He smiles then, a thin-lipped but hopeful smile. “It seems I have some reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements?” Patricia asks.
“Two medical specialists were flown here today by private plane. They are the leading researchers in your son’s specific genetic condition.”
I feel a smile growing, pulling up the corners of my mouth.
“Dr. Alexander Noble and Dr. Ella Roman are in there right now, examining Freddy. They have a number of ideas for his treatment.” Dr. Jackson stops, looks over at Dad.
“One of them is to consider the use of your own research,” he says. “Apparently Dunbar has been quite open with them about the results of your testing protocol and they feel that the possibility of retarding the growth of the mutated gene is greater than any associated risk of detrimental side effects.”
Dad picks his baseball cap up off his head, looks at it, and then puts it back on. He’s trying to hide that he’s pleased. “Well, obviously, if that’s what they think could help . . .”
Basford’s the only one who still looks confused. “What’s going on?”
I lean up and whisper to him, “Aunt Edith.”
He turns to me, surprised.
“No need to be quiet about it,” Mom says to everyone. “I knew Edith would come through.” She stops, wiping her reddening eyes. “For you kids, she’d move the world.”
Dr. Jackson leads us into the unit and we all race to Freddy’s side. I think I’m not the only one who fully expected him to be revived too—saved by the drizzle, out of his coma. But he isn’t. He’s still there, sleeping soundly, beeps and drips going nonstop. The two new doctors stand in the back of the room, introducing themselves to Dad and Mom.
I push past Basford and Patricia and lean in over Freddy. “It’s time to wake up,” I tell him.
And honestly, I can’t tell you if it was magic, or the doctors, or something inside his brain that told that stupid mutating gene to stop it already, but I saw Freddy’s eyes flutter. They didn’t open and he didn’t totally wake up, but I knew when I saw his eyes flutter, that it was all a matter of time.
SAME DAY, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28
The Book of Secrets
I went to sleep certain that my Dark Thoughts were gone for good, like the mist. And they were. But the bugs weren’t. Particularly Lester. I’m having a wonderful dream when I’m forced to wake up because there’s a Monster cricket on my nose.
“You are an official pain in the neck.” I swat him away from my face.
Lester hops off. I swear, I think that cricket
likes
to freak me out. I pull my head slowly off the pillow, and Lester lifts up his front legs and points to the door.
likes
to freak me out. I pull my head slowly off the pillow, and Lester lifts up his front legs and points to the door.
I swing my legs over the bed. “The turret?”
Lester jumps high in the air and lands right back where he started.
“Silly me. Where else?”
I grab the skeleton key and my book light and put on my slippers and follow Lester out the door. We move through the hallway quietly. He starts to hop up the circular staircase toward Enid’s turret, and I trail him, climbing up the cold stone steps. We reach the door and I unlock it.
When I push it open I’m met with twinkling Christmas lights. Only, as I look around, they’re not lights at all—they’re fireflies. About a million fireflies align the top of the turret, blinking flashes of light that lets me see the many things happening at once: more Monster crickets, jumping up and down in the corner, the ivy reaching up and twirling around as if it’s dancing, black two-headed spiders crawling over the bookshelves, and—best of all—Spark with hundreds of his best dragonfly friends.
I smile as soon as I step inside the room, closing the door behind me.
“Is this a party?” I ask.
“Yeeeeessss.” I look over the bookshelves and see the spiders stopped, mid-scramble, as each of them nods their two heads. The stinkbugs have returned, and are now dancing round and round in what seems to be the hokeypokey. Even some wasps have flown into the room, taunting me by aiming right for my head before swerving away at the last possible second.
“You guys are so weird.”
The ivy untangles itself and starts to float in my direction. I stand there as the vine encircles me, stretching behind my back. It starts to tug the two floating pieces on either side of me, pulling me over toward the window. Lester waits on top of the mosaic table. Spark buzzes around my shoulder.
“What are they doing?” I whisper.
He skywrites. R . . . E . . . . A . . . D.
I look at him, confused, but then the ivy drags me closer to the table. I glance down to see the book underneath Lester. It is brown and square and has dust all over it.
Lester looks up at me, nodding slowly with his big black head.
“Reeeaaaadd it.” I hear the spiders from the bookshelves. More of Spark’s friends have flown over here too, so I’m surrounded by crickets and dragonflies and spiders and fireflies and ivy, yards and yards of ivy.
Lester jumps off the book. I reach over and grab it; it’s heavy in my hand. The title is etched into the cover in gold letters.
THE BOOK OF SECRETS
Underneath the title, another phrase is etched in Latin.
Sapere Aude!
Someone’s taped a scrap of paper next to the phrase. A child has written very neatly on top of it.
I translated this from Horace (65-8
B.C
.)
It means “Dare
to be wise
.”
Lucretia di Falciana
,
age 10
Two dragonflies zoom down and pick up the pages. They flip over the first one, revealing a broad, yellowed sheet with handwriting on it.
I write this after the rain has stopped. I have found that it helps to soak my right finger in warm salted water after the clouds are formed, as it returns the polarized charges to their original state . . .
“Polarized charges?” I mutter as one of the dragonflies turns the page. This heading says “Weekly Rain Timing: 1:00 p.m.”
My sister, Lucretia di Falciana, died on Monday from tuberculosis. She was twelve. The time of her death was one o’clock in the afternoon. From now on, all cloud formations will occur at this time, hidden in the silo, in tribute to our beloved sister.Enid Peabody, October
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