Twister. Genanne Walsh

crepey, still warm from her run through the fields. She pictured Sill and Rose, crouched together in that tiny sewing room, whispering, backs curved around their memories of Lance. Down the hall, the bathroom door handle smacked against the wall. Nina shrugged. “Let him have the place. Better yet, let the storm take it.”

      A far-off storm siren wailed just as the Old Man clattered back into the kitchen. Nina brushed a hand over her face and grabbed his elbow. Perry took his father’s other side and the three of them angled awkwardly toward the front door, a six-legged beast—seven, if you counted the Old Man’s cane.

      As she swung the front door wide the wind stirred her braid and lifted her shirttails—they stepped into an ocean of noise, that first lick of wind promising salvation. Lift me up and take me out of here. “We’ve got it,” Nina yelled across the Old Man to Perry. “Go do one more check for Sill.”

      Perry turned toward the back of the house.

      “He’d better move his ass,” the Old Man said, and started down the sloping hill to the storm cellar. He was moving too fast and wobbled, flailing his cane. She lunged for him and grabbed his arm but he shook her off, impatient as a kid. It struck her, as it often had, that he wasn’t holding control of the land to punish them: he was holding on as a boy holds onto his favorite toy—a prehensile greed, that aversion to sharing that most of us unlearn, or pretend to. She kept pace and grabbed his elbow. He tried to shake free again and she needed to say something sharp, pull him into line, but instead she shook him right back, pulling his elbow toward her and then shoving. He crumpled, his hand latching onto her wrist. They fell together, rolling down the slope. The Old Man gripped so hard the bones in her wrist shifted. A pebble bounced off her cheek, and she clamped her eyes shut. The air rushed by, fabric tore, someone yelled, an elbow clocked her in the head.

      They rolled to a stop, and by the time she’d disentangled her limbs and struggled to her knees Perry was there, yanking her to her feet. The Old Man still held her wrist and she grabbed him with her other hand and helped Perry pull him up. His eyes blazed as she unpeeled his fingers. “Take him,” she said, her breath snagging.

      Up the slope, a yellow t-shirt. “There’s Sill,” she yelped. Scrambling up the hill, she heard Perry yell something she couldn’t catch. Nina fell onto her hands once, the whole sky crunched, and at last she stood face to face with her daughter.

      Sill’s eyes were bruises. Nina put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. There was blood on the yellow shirt—one of them was bleeding. They had to get to the cellar. “Come on.” Nina grabbed Sill’s hands and backed down the hill. You aren’t lost, you’re here with me—it may not be what you want but this is home. We—

      Screaming wind blew Sill’s hair up and back, and her lips moved too fast, something about an album…lost…trying to find… Then Sill broke away and ran in the wrong direction. There was nothing to do but follow.

      *

      Time buckles. An hour passes in what feels like a minute, a minute catches and pulls itself out of the weave, stretches into two minutes, ten, an hour, taking on a quality of endlessness, of suspension. This generally occurs during moments of great emotion. Acts of God, battles at long last begun, knife fights, first kisses, drownings.

      The body knows before the mind, and begins preparing. A temperature rises a degree or two, a heartbeat quickens. When the event itself begins, the body hurls in and the mind, left behind, is becalmed, still at the crest of the wave while the flesh swoops down to the watery depths. The merchant Ward Mondragon checks his storm supplies and readies himself as best he can, and if you ask him later how long it took, the waiting, the readying, he will surely overestimate. The actions he can control will take on greater heft, while the moment he loses his grip—the struggle finally acknowledged, the boards of his store splintering—will tighten and shrink, becoming manageable in memory.

      In the telling the mind rearranges, the residual feeling of suspension spurring a need to tighten the loops. The body still knows the truth, of course. Look at the shaking hands and the dark circles under the armpits.

      Becalmed. Be calm.