FIVE
Dorothy
When I wake, I find the wreckage of the ceiling piled over my body. Chunks of plaster and broken boards. When I inhale, my lungs wheeze. Dust coats my tongue and my throat, triggering a fit of coughing and the jostling of the coughing sends searing pain across my ribs.
When I can finally take a full breath, I manage to call out to Toto. The sound of his claws clacking on the hardwood floor comes from my left. He appears in my line of sight, his fur a bit mussed, but otherwise intact.
“Thank god you’re okay.”
He wags his tail.
I look around to find the house is a complete disaster.
Almost everything is out of place. The kitchen table is in the living room. Uncle Henry’s favorite chair is on its side over the closed cellar door. Aunt Em’s basket with her balled yarn is resting in the kitchen sink, yarn balls scattered across the room.
Dusky blue light pours in through the jagged remains of the nearest window, edging the glass in midnight silver.
How long was I out? Is it morning or night? It’s hard to tell and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think the eerie darkness was a sign that the storm was still rolling across the plains.
I swallow, and wince against the rawness of my throat.
Water. I need water.
My movements are slow and clumsy but I manage to shift the wreckage aside so I can sit upright and then use the wall behind me to help get to my feet.
The world sways.
My ears ring.
I make my way across the room to the refrigerator and yank on the metal handle. As soon as the door is open, everything inside spills out. Glass shatters at my feet. Cream splashes across the floor. Pickled cabbage makes a splattering mess on the toes of my boots.
The pitcher of water didn’t even make it that far. It sits on the bottom of the refrigerator in a pile of glass shards. What remained of the water drips out.
I’m suddenly parched.
I try the faucet, but nothing comes out.
I turn for the bathroom and my vision seesaws. There is a dull throbbing in my head and the sudden movement causes the pain to circle around to the space between my eyes.
When I reach up instinctively to massage against the ache, my fingers come away red with half-dried blood.
“Great,” I mutter.
Trailing a hand along the wall for balance, I make my way to the bathroom and check my reflection in the mirror. Except the mirror is cracked and my reflection multiplies into a dozen tiny versions of myself.
I don’t recognize any of them.
My hair has come free of my braids. My lip is split. A purple bruise is blooming on my forehead, surrounding a deep cut above the bridge of my nose.
I’ve lived on a farm long enough to know all about concussions. I had a full pail of milk fall on my head when I wasseven and messing around in the barn. It was Aunt Em who diagnosed me with a concussion when my stomach spun and I later vomited.
I check in with the rest of my body. Do I feel sick?
My head thumps.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Wait—
