The heat was blistering Cordelia’s face, the inside of her skull beating like a hammer on brass. But if another tire went, if the pressure built in the gas chamber, or if the fuel itself burned intensely enough, it could cause a fireball that might engulf them. She couldn’t leave them there.
Eustace approached, coughing, grabbing at her. “Cordy, get back!”
Where is rain when you need it?Cordelia glanced to the sky, her mind repeating it over and over.Where is rain when you need it? Where is rain when you need it?
Another tire blew, spewing a stream of fire across the asphalt, setting several branches of the fallen tree ablaze. Cordelia reflexively pushed her sister toward safety. Gordon curled over Browning’s prone form. Several explosive pops caused her to nearly jump out of her skin. She dug her fingertips into the earth and cried, “Where is the fucking rain when you need it?”
Something tickled her knuckle, and she opened an eye. Beads of water were bubbling up around her fingertips, rolling along blades of grass toward her hands, pushing through the earth like daisies. She didn’t know how exactly, but she felt her connection to it, as if tethered by unseen marionette strings. Digging in, she focused on the runnels of water, watching as they gathered in an impromptu stream around her, running toward the men and the car. Cordelia concentrated and darkness crept in, thunder crashing like cymbals in the sky. She felt the first gelid drops sting her face, sloughing away the heat in her head.
“Rain?” she croaked at Gordon.
“Sleet,” he told her, disbelieving.
A deluge of slush and water dumped over them. The car hissed as the fire began to snuff out in sections, unable to withstand the onslaught.
Sirens cut through the downpour, lights sparking through streams of smoke like they were in a disco. The paramedics wheeled their gurney forward and pushed Cordelia out of the way.
“You can stop it now,” Eustace leaned over and told her as she shivered at Cordelia’s side.
She jerked, a delicious tingle coursing through her despite the cold.
Ice gave way to rain and rain to drizzle. It all ended as fast as it had begun.
Eustace flashed Cordelia a shit-eating grin.
She frowned, her understanding of what had just occurred and how she was connected to it still beyond words. But even if she wasn’t ready to claim it, Cordelia knew she couldn’t deny it anymore. The door and the rain—both had been her doing. Inexplicably, maybe even subconsciously, but resolutelyherdoing.
She walked over to a man placing an oxygen mask on the appraiser. “Will he be all right?” she asked him. But he ignored her.
Another EMT tried to guide her and Eustace toward the back of a second waiting ambulance as fire trucks lined the street. “You should let us check you for smoke inhalation.”
“We’re fine,” Cordelia told him, pulling away. “Just please make sure he gets all the care he needs,” she added, pointing at Mr. Browning.
Walking Eustace back to the house, she noticed Gordon watching her as he sat in the ambulance. She knew leaving might look insensitive, but she couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t the smoke. She was choking on guilt. Maybe she had saved Mr. Browning’s life, but she’d also set this accident in motion, like the bats and the ghosts and the seance gone wrong. Something inside her attracted mayhem and destruction, created it. How else could she explain all the catastrophes she’d been at the center of? It was her attempt to dig herself, and Mrs. Robichaud, out of one hole that had landed her, and Mr. Browning, in another.
The house felt more sinister as they approached it. She knew something in that house had stopped Mr. Browning. Something wouldn’t let the clock leave. The same thing that wouldn’t let them leave either.
Inside, she sunk into an empty chair, her phone buzzing on the nearby table. A text from Molly had come through, twelve hours too late.The appraiser will be there tomorrow,it read.11A.M.
Cordelia felt her stomach drop.
I sent him a picture of the house. He can’t wait.
GORDON FOUNDCORDELIAsitting on the front porch when he came striding across the lawn, the skeleton clock in his hands. It was nearing evening; he must have left in the ambulance, and someone dropped him off at home. She’d been waiting for him. The house felt too small around her. She was stifled by all that ornamentation, the heavy drapes and musty antiques, things she’d been so ready to slap a price tag on.
“How is he?” she asked, standing at the railing as he walked up.
“No spinal injury. Just a decent concussion and seven stitches above his right ear. He’s lucky.”
“Looked pretty unlucky to me, traveling up that road at the moment that tree decided to fall.” She was angry. Angry at whatever was responsible for nearly killing that man. Angry at herself for bringing him into it.
Gordon looked up at her. “Good thing you were there.”
“You pulled him to safety. I just panicked.”
“Seems the sky pays attention when you panic.” He touched the back of his neck.
Cordelia felt her lips tug down. She was still processing what had occurred at the roadside. Admitting it to someone else—someone besides her sister, someone steeped in the town’s unflattering mythology—seemed unnecessarily risky. “I don’t control the weather,” she said. “No matter how it looks.”
