Chapter Three. Dorothy
THREE
Dorothy
Strong hands shake me awake.
My eyes pop open but there’s only darkness and the howling of wind. It takes my vision several long seconds to register the figure standing over me as Uncle Henry.
“What—” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Storm rolling in. Going to secure the barn. Get in the cellar with Em.” And then he’s gone.
I sit upright and blink through the sleepy haze. It isn’t the first time I’ve been dragged from bed to the storm cellar, but sometimes it’s nothing more than a lot of rain and thunder. I hate spending the night in a cold hole beneath the house with nothing but dirt surrounding me.
I’m not afraid of the dark. I just hate the discomfort of it all. I like my warm bed with its crisp cornflower-blue sheets and the thick white quilt Aunt Em and I made together the second summer I lived here.
Toto barks at me from the foot of the bed. He’s staring out the window, his back legs on the footboard, his front legs braced on the windowsill. His tail is wagging. He yips, then yips again.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I’m getting up.” I toss the quilt back and set my bare feet to the hardwood floor.
Knowing it’ll be cold in the cellar, I yank on socks and then my worn leather boots.
“How’s it looking, Toto?” I ask, still a little groggy as I join him at the window. “Is it worth climbing in a hole?”
He glances at me over his shoulder, tail still wagging as the glass rattles in the pane. Outside, the weather vane at the peak of the barn spins round and round. The big oak to the side of the driveway is shifting back and forth with the churning wind.
Rain beads on the window as thick clouds roll in, promising a downpour.
The air is charged and violent.
Across the cornfield, I spot a flash of light.
“Edward.”
The flashes are a pattern that repeats over and over.
B. Safe.
“Dorothy!” Aunt Em calls as I hurry to my bedside table and yank open the drawer.
“Just a minute,” I tell her.
I grab my flashlight and return to the window, clicking the light on. Then off. Then on again.
You 2, I respond.
Edward’s light makes an X motion, then goes out.
Love you, he means.
I clutch the light to my chest, finger hovering over the switch.
Outside, the barn door slams open. The weather vane shifts directions.
The sky is turning bruised.
In the morning, when the storm is clear, I’m going to tell Edward yes.
I will be safe with him. I will be loved. I will be cared for.
How can I want for anything different?
My stomach knots.
Toto races to my open bedroom door and barks at me.
“I’m coming,” I tell him and toss the flashlight onto the bed. I slip into a sweater as I chase after him. But when I meet him in the living room, he darts away, barges through the screen door, and disappears into the storm.
“Toto! Get back here!”
“Dorothy, wait!” Aunt Em sticks her head out the open trapdoor. She’s in her robe, her hair tucked away in a silk scarf. “It’s not safe!”
I can’t leave Toto. I don’t care how dangerous it is.
I push through the door and immediately I’m pelted with dust and debris. I lift my arm, using it like a shield, and step out into the night.
“Toto!”
Barking comes from my left and I follow it to the end of the porch. I find Toto with his back rigid, his tail sticking straight up. He’s barking at the night. “We have to get inside! Aunt Em is waiting for us—”
The air changes.
The hair at the nape of my neck stands on end.
Toto growls.
I follow his line of sight and spot a cyclone making its way across the Gilbert cornfield.
Panic fills my body, making it hard to breathe.
Lightning flashes in the whirlwind and the night roars like a freight train.
But there is something different about this storm.
The tornado is glittering.
“Toto,” I say but my voice is drowned out by the rushing of the wind. “We have to get inside!”
Fighting against the wind, I bend down and snatch him up, hugging him tightly to my chest as the wind cuts across the porch.
Every step is agonizingly slow. The boards beneath my boots rattle against their fastenings. One finally gives and shoots upright and flies past my face.
Glass shatters somewhere in the house. I glance at the barn but don’t see Henry anywhere. There’s a cellar in the barn too. I can only hope he made it in.
“Dorothy!” Aunt Em screams.
I can’t suck in enough air to respond.
The thundering of the cyclone grows closer.
The metal shine of the door handle finally comes into view. I reach out for it just as a milk crate barrels past, slamming into my outstretched arm. My sweater tears. Something wet and warm runs down my forearm.
Hurry, Dorothy.
Hurry.
Hurry.
I could die out here.
I will die if I don’t get inside.
I reach out again, but the wind is so strong, I lose my balance and fall to my knees. Toto barks, squirming in my grip. Tears stream from my eyes.
I’m not going to make it. Why did Toto run? He never barks at storms, not like this—
The door flings open and Aunt Em appears in the gloom. “Take my hand!”
Relief floods through me. I grab hold of her and she fights against the storm, yanking me inside with everything she has.
“Stay down!” she yells, the ends of her tied silk scarf flapping around her neck.
A window shatters and glass shoots across the living room.
Aunt Em ducks down and crawls for the cellar.
I follow closely behind her.
“We’re almost there!” she shouts.
We can make it. We’re going to make it.
The house groans like a ship fighting against the ocean.
Aunt Em reaches the ladder to the cellar and scales down the rungs. “Hand me Toto!”
I scoot forward on my belly, shifting my grip on Toto, but the world suddenly heaves.
CRACK.
Light flashes.
I’m airborne, weightless, sailing toward the ceiling.
Then boom.
I slam back to the floor, then up again.
The house goes sideways and I slide down the floorboards and then go vertical on the opposite wall.
Uncle Henry’s favorite chair skitters across the room and bangs into my legs. Toto barks in my arms.
“I’ve got you!” I tell him. “Hold on!”
The plaster ceiling cracks and pebbles rain down around us.
I slide down the wall and turn myself into a ball using my body to shield Toto tucked into the bulk of my sweater.
My head is ringing and pressure builds against my eardrums.
“We’re going to be okay,” I tell him and breathe in his scent. It’s spicy and sweet. Very much him. Aunt Em always said he had the oddest smell for a dog, like burning oak trees.
Right now it gives me comfort as the world turns and turns.
Please let me live.
Please let us survive this.
The ceiling undulates like a wave. The crack spiderwebs outward and then a beam snaps in half, shooting through the plaster.
And it flies straight toward me.