Chapter 8
The local radio station had gone out the hour before. The newscaster's voice warned them all about flash flooding then immediately disappeared into a crackle and flare of static. The broadcast had not come back. So now, when the device squealed again, Rowan’s head turned.
Hard and sharp, the three loud, long beeps preceded the words he knew were coming. "Emergency warning."
If that had been the first one, it would be more than a little late.
But at least this signal was still getting through.
As a unit, he and his mother turned away from the window.
Indie had come into the room and glared at him about something, but even she dropped her gaze to the small device, as if staring at it would make the message better.
A few moments later, they all knew the rain was expected to continue for at least another handful of hours.
His heart clenched. Belle Hollow could not take another twenty minutes of this, let alone hours.
The river was fast and swift, and that was on a normal day.
The small town wouldn’t suffer just the rain that fell from the sky.
It was the fact that Belle Hollow was, in fact, a hollow, which meant the mountains would funnel all the water from the surrounding areas into the creek that cut the valley.
In the older days, it was ripe land for farming.
When the first locals built their houses from hand-hewn logs, they did so by their own hands, with their own skill.
So when the houses were washed away once every several generations like this, they went back to the rocks they’d laid into the soil of the steep mountains, and built on the same foundations. They knew how to do it.
Today in Belle Hollow, the world wasn't exactly what he would call modern, but they certainly had most of the needed modern devices.
The people who lived here held specific, individualized jobs.
Like him. They would not be rebuilding their houses by their own hands if the river wiped them out.
There would be no barn raisings. It would take time and money and professionals.
Next to him, his mother sighed again as her fingers clutched the pendant on her neck.
It had been a rosary for years, a sign of her faith, a sign of her own mother's split with her family magic.
But now, Rowan wasn't quite sure what lay at the end of the chain.
In the years since his father had passed, Vienna Velasco had slowly been sliding back into the old ways, and Rowan hadn't noticed for far too long.
Was it too late to push her back? Would the people here even care now?
Did agreements made generations ago still matter?
Or would the same things happen—would the Velasco family finally be driven from the area?
The pitchforks-and-torches kind of mob he was certain Belle Hollow could still rouse might show up on his doorstep, and his mother's little incantations and whatever she was wearing around her neck now would not stop them. It might even be the thing that brought them. His heart clenched and twisted, and he told himself it wasn’t fear.
“We can't handle this," his mother said. He knew she didn’t mean them here in the house. She meant the town. The one that might just run her out.
Across the way, Indie simply shrugged, as if to say what choice did they have? But this time, Indie wasn’t four years old. She wasn't screaming. The water wasn't swirling around her feet, thick and dirty.
Looking down, Rowan saw his sister's long, slim feet, bare on the plush carpet. Toenails painted a shocking shade of bright blue. At least she felt comfortable enough to not have her shoes on, ready to flee. Though he knew it wasn't necessary, he felt the itch to run himself.
This time, there was nowhere to go.
He tried to imagine what was happening down near the creek.
The house he'd grown up in had been abandoned by the family his father had sold to.
Over the years the roof caved in and windows cracked.
Nothing was left but a hollow foundation, some of the cinder block even chipped.
He could still see the erosion with his own eyes.
It seemed symbolic of the other things that had eroded in that time, despite the fact that so many wonderful things had been built.
This house was one of the good things. The strong windows that held no matter how hard the rain smacked.
He wasn't worried about the shingles flying off or where he could find another pot or bucket to hold the drips from a leaking roof.
He was warm. He was dry. He was confident he shouldn't be allowed to complain about anything.
And he shouldn't have been startled by the first knock at the door.
It was Indie, already near the kitchen, who raced through to the side. Not a front door knock. Not in this weather. When had he even last used the front door? There weren't any front door people here in the Hollow. The front entry was for friends he knew from Richmond or Charlottesville.
Voices traveled through the thick walls and reached back to him and his mother. She was still clutching the pendant, staring out the window, letting Indie handle the newcomers.
"You're soaked," Indie told them.
"I'm so sorry. I'm dripping on your floor."
"Not a worry," his youngest sibling declared. "We've got you. I'll grab you some of Alder's clothing."
There was a moment, a tone, as Indie must have waved an odd question away. "The man lives in those scrubs—they'll fit everyone. At least well enough."
The sounds told him his youngest sister was ushering the visitors in.
These were not their closest neighbors. Those people were likely safe and dry.
About halfway up the mountain, several houses now sat in a neat little row, making their own tiny neighborhood next to the home his father had first built in an effort to get them above the reach of the creek.
Over the intervening years, others had built alongside them.
Until his father had moved them even further up, to this place.
His dad had seen the house finished. Pride swelled in the old man’s eyes as he opened the door and ushered them all in, like a ribbon cutting ceremony.
He’d passed not three months later. That had been three years ago, and Rowan still hadn’t figured out about the events that led to his father’s death.
The water had taken so much from him. He tried not to think about it now.
It wasn't long before another knock came at the door. This time, he heard his brother answering. Jasper's deep, bearish hum rang with sympathy. "No, come in. It's fine. We're glad you're here."
Rowan could practically hear Jasper's brain working its way through their pantry for ingredients.
Soon there would be a pot of some kind of off-the-wall chili his brother would cook to feed everyone.
Black beans, red beans, corn, ground beef, Mexican spices—who knew?
Rowan could practically taste it. His brother would be counting out however many loaves of bread might be in the fridge right now, and he would start making the next batch.
"Ford," his mother whispered again. This time she turned away from the window, as if she couldn’t bear to look. Her hand still clutched at the necklace, and Rowan looked but couldn't quite make out the design.
He shook his head. Ford wouldn't knock, but they both knew that, so Rowan didn’t say it. What he offered instead was, "Ford will be fine, Mama. Ford wasn't dumb enough to go down by the creek in this weather."
Rowan told himself Ford had a radio and he'd heard the warnings, just like everyone else.
Hell, he'd heard them from Rowan himself this morning.
Though his brother had brushed the warnings aside as casually as he flipped his blonde hair, Rowan held tight to faith that his brother was smarter than that.
He felt the third knock at the door in his gut before he even heard it.
Around here, they would have called it witchcraft, but Rowan knew it was nothing more than logic.
Obvious pieces getting put together. Two of their neighbors had already shown up.
The houses at the bottom of the mountain were at least ankle-deep in water by now, if not knee-deep or getting washed down the stream like he often saw in the horrific videos online.
In the background, his sister murmured, "I'm so glad you came."
The underlying concern, of course, was that they wouldn't. That the women's stubbornness and his own past would keep them from seeking the safety and shelter this house offered.
"Is anything left?" Indie asked. She was notably younger than Rowan and the woman she greeted, but she knew she would get a straight answer from the both of them.
"It's still standing."
The dulcet tones reached down his throat, grabbing his insides, twisting and pulling with a power he didn't know she still wielded.
He should be over this. It had been fifteen years.
She blamed him for things that weren't his fault, or things that weren't anybody's fault.
Still, he understood the devastation she'd suffered.
She needed someone to blame. So she'd ripped the two of them apart, stolen her own future, and nearly destroyed him in the process.
None of that mattered now. He hadn't been face-to-face with her since the day she'd turned and walked away. His own thoughts and feelings and needs were of no importance right now. The community was in need, and he'd always said his door was open.
It was time to prove it.
Rowan walked across the room to greet his erstwhile guests—and to reckon with his past.