Chapter 37
Rowe
The cell phone lines are down. I’ve tried calling Pane several times, but the call won’t go through.
I only pray that he’s safe.
“Come on, let’s go,” I say to the piggycorns. “Outside, to the shelter. Now!”
The drove races toward the back of the house, skidding across the wooden floorboards. Outside, the wind sweeps fiercely across the house. Branches bang on the roof. The glass in the windows contracts and shudders, flirting with breaking.
The piggycorns scrabble over the kitchen floor, their hooves trying to gain purchase as they slide into one another, bunching up in a group in front of the back door.
I count. “Where’s Tallulah?”
They look up at me in question, worry blazing in their dark eyes. I rush back to the foyer. “Tallulah!”
She’s not in the living room, which is the new reception area, or Mom’s office, where she loves to curl up under the desk.
I take the stairs two at a time. “Tallulah!”
I toss open bedroom doors, frantically searching. She’s not in my room or the bathroom. She’s not here.
Where is she?
I rush back downstairs to where the rest of the drove sits by the door. There’s not the usual ear-pulling or hoof-nipping. They’re on edge. Worried.
“Come on. We’ll find her.”
I grab Buster the Cat from the counter and rush the piggycorns outside and down the porch steps. The sun has set, and I can barely see the horizon as debris flies through the air. Leaves slap against my face. Grit fills my eyes.
The worst storms always occur at night. Always. When you can’t see is when the worst things happen.
My hair blows in my eyes. I shove it away from my face. “Tallulah!”
There’s no reply. No little piggy grunting in a bush, hiding from me. Nothing.
And where is Pane? The bar isn’t safe if a tornado hits. The place will be ripped up from the ground, tossed into the air, and flipped upside down.
I can’t focus on that. I can’t think the worst. He’s safe. Pane is safe. He’s all right.
“Tallulah!” I call into the night that’s quickly coming.
Branches slash at my arms as I push the piggies around to the side of the house and tug on the storm-shelter door. It doesn’t give at first, but after I put my back into it, the heavy steel begins to move, its hinges groaning in protest.
The smell of warm earth and moisture hits me in the face, for the shelter is nothing more than a hole dug out of a hill. But it has a light and it’ll keep us safe.
I try to usher the pigs in, but they hesitate. So I place Buster the Cat on the floor and pull the string that’s attached to the single light bulb in the center of the room. When the piggies can see the interior, they slowly amble inside, sniffing and snorting as they go.
I slam the door shut and take a moment to study my cramped surroundings.
There’s little in the room except for brittle shelves that have been here since Jesus walked the earth, and some wooden boxes of starfizz berries that are slowly drying out.
Pane and I saved what we could from the hedges that the unicorns destroyed, and we stored them in here. The piggies immediately smell the berries and move for them.
When facing the choice of grumpy pigs or pigs with full bellies, I’ll take pigs with full bellies anytime of the day.
I push the crates toward them and let them feed. Which reminds me—maybe Tallulah’s nearby.
