Page 3 of Reckoning

“Everything,” he said.

Ellen turned and looked straight at Tate Bandy. He was just a little boy with black hair and the darkest brown eyes with tiny flecks of gold, like dust from the sun. When he laughed, they sparkled. His eyes were shiny right now, but he wasn’t laughing. They were filled with tears.

Delores Caldwell, one of the other teachers, came up behind her. “Ellen! Are your students okay?”

“Briar has a cut on her knee, but it’s minor. Lord, lord, Delores! Tate Bandy saved us all,” Ellen said.

“He’s a strange boy,” Delores said.

Ellen frowned. “No, he’s blessed. Maybe you’d rather be dead?”

Delores shrugged. “Still…you know how Pastor Wells feels about—”

Ellen lowered her voice to a whisper. “Pastor Wells wasn’t here, was he? What would you have had him do? Pray that storm away? We wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation if it wasn’t for that little boy.”

Delores knew she was right, but then one of her students called her name and she quickly turned and walked away.

* * *

Abel Bandy was at work when the storm began building. When the sky turned dark and the wind began rolling trash cans all over the streets, his boss, Curly Gibson, shut down the station, and everyone headed for their homes to take shelter.

Lilith was at home alone and bordering on hysteria. Abel was at work and Tate was at school, and she didn’t know who to worry about first.

All of a sudden, the front door flew open, and Abel came running into the house. “Get to the shelter!” he shouted.

“What about Tate?” Lilith wailed.

“We have to trust that the teachers will get them to safety,” he said, and grabbed her by the hand and ran to the aboveground shelter in their utility room.

By now, the wind was howling over their heads, and the moment they were inside and locked in, Lilith felt for the flashlight they kept on the bench. Once she found it, she was trembling so hard she couldn’t find the switch to turn it on.

“Let me, darlin’,” Abel said, turned on the light, and then pulled her down onto the bench beside him, wrapped his arms around her, and held her close.

The roar was horrifying, and they were wondering if they’d even have a house left when it was over. When the storm finally passed, they came out of the shelter on the run. Clearly, the funnel had lifted before it came through town. There was obvious wind damage, but houses were still standing. Their biggest worry was their boy, and from the line of cars already heading up the mountain, they weren’t the only ones.

Every parent in the surrounding area who had a child in school was in a panic. Some parents were headed to the public school on the east edge of Star Ridge to get to their children, while others were headed up the mountain to the Holy Water school.

Some of the fathers had the foresight to take chainsaws, because the chances of downed trees blocking the road were high. The school was a mile up from town, and to their growing dismay, the higher up they went, the more destruction they saw. Several times they had to stop and clear away downed trees before they could proceed.

Shock followed when they began looking for the roof of the church to gauge how much farther they had to go and there were no rooftops in sight. It only took a few moments for them to realize they were nearing their destination, but every building was gone.

Parents froze, then mothers began bailing out of their cars and trucks and running, leaving their men behind to continue clearing the road.

Unable to wait another second, Abel pulled their car off into some trees, and he and Lilith got out, joining other parents who were running up the mountain on foot.

One woman who was far ahead of the others suddenly stopped. Nearly blinded by the rain, she kept swiping her eyes as if unable to believe what she was seeing, and then they heard her scream and saw her drop to her knees.

“It’s gone! It’s all gone! Nobody is here!” she wailed.

People started crying and shouting the names of their children, and then all of a sudden, Mr. Wyeth appeared as if from the bowels of earth, standing in the downpour, waving his arms.

“We’re safe! We’re in the basement!” he shouted, and the horde of parents began running toward him. He shouted back down to the teachers. “Bring up the children!”

Only this time, there was no running, no pushing or shoving. Just an orderly procession of children coming up from below, desperately searching for the faces of their parents in the crowd.

Roger and Mariah Lowe were pushing their way through the crowd, shouting Briar’s name, and then they saw her, and then the steady flow of blood on her leg washing away in the rain. She was limping, and the little Bandy boy was holding her hand.

They began screaming her name. “Briar! Briar! We’re here!”