Although her mother had warned a storm looked imminent, Percia waited outside the Wyndton Arms for the post wagon, as she did every delivery day, rain or shine. The rest of her life had lost its color; her heart revolved around these treasured letters. Marcot was a faithful correspondent, and she rarely walked away empty-handed. This morning, with a friendly wink, the driver handed her an envelope, which she ripped open.
She read through his news about continuing to hunt for a home for her family in West Park and his father’s keeping company with a woman named Duchette Lolethia, but lingered over and reread his avowals of affection, then tucked the letter into her purse.
As she walked through the familiar streets toward her dance barn, tugging Barley’s reins, she wondered if it was selfish of her to expect her mother and Tilim to move to Cascada just because she happened to have fallen for Marcot’s dimples. But Marcot was doing everything he could to make them happy. And her mother kept reassuring her that a change would be good for all of them: that the house reminded her too much of Papa, and that in the capital Tilim would have broader opportunities.
And Marcot had promised that if they weren’t happy in Cascada or at the palace, he would approach his friends, the duke and duchess of Maritima. He said he was eager to earn his keep with honest work and would welcome the opportunity to supervise their estate and holdings. Percia could open a dance school in Queen’s Landing. But then Mama and Tilim would have to move a second time.
Percia dawdled, staring through a window at a dressy hat, but not really seeing it. The windowpane reflected the dark sky behind her. She would take cover in her dance barn in a minute. She pulled her cloak closer around her as the wind picked up.
Goody Gintie, on her way to the market, hailed her. Talkative as ever, Gintie regaled her with the latest bits of local news, raising her voice as the gusts made more noise.
They were just chuckling over the tale of a new father’s faint upon discovering that his wife had borne twins—“We all shoulda guessed; that gal was as big as a house, but Ribat, he just falls like a tree!”—when Percia suddenly realized that the horizon looked strange. Ackerty, driving by in a cart, reined in his horse; he too stared in consternation. Goody Gintie’s story about reviving the father died on her lips. The old lady who owned the sweetshop came to her doorway, and Kittie, her hands still covered with flour, dashed out of her house into the street. Before long, all the shopkeepers and their customers had come pouring out-of-doors to point and gawk.
A light patter of leaves and twigs began falling on them, but that wasn’t what was disturbing. The sky had turned decidedly greenish.
“What is it? What’s happening?” villagers called to one another in alarm.
“Look there!” someone called, pointing to a black, funnel-shaped cloud, wider at the top and narrow at the bottom, that whirled around in a most unnatural manner.
Percia stared at the cloud openmouthed. She had never seen its like nor imagined that such a thing could exist.
Sister Nellsapeta appeared in the doorway of the Church of the Waters. “Take cover! Take cover!” she screamed, motioning that they should join her inside. Percia grabbed Goody Gintie’s arm; together they fell in with the crowd hustling down the street. No one objected when Percia pulled Barley inside after her. Barley wasn’t the only animal; one boy had brought his dog, and one lady carried in the calf she’d been bottle-nursing.
By the time they were all inside, the wind had grown so it took four people to push the door closed. Everyone ran about trying to latch the wooden shutters on the side windows; they rattled ferociously, and three immediately tore out their hinges, pulling away from the wall and letting gales of wind inside. The glass window behind the little fountain broke with a hail of fragments and these shards, mixed with Nargis Water, flew around the room.
Just at that instant a ferocious slap of rainwater hit the roof, drumming down hammer strokes. Rain came pouring in through the open windows, making deep puddles that quivered on the floor. Even above the sound of the rain, however, they heard a horrible, unearthly noise—a noise that Percia could only compare to carts hurtling headlong down the cobbled streets of Gulltown. Percia, like everyone else, dived for the floor. She took cover with Gintie, Dewva, and Dewva’s toddler under a wooden bench. They held on to the bench tightly, though the wind sucked at it, trying to pull it away. The roof creaked ominously. The loose shutters slammed against the wall with a tremendous clatter. Barley screamed and reared.
And then the strange, loud cloud had passed over them, heading southwest, and the horrible noise abated, though the rain still fell in torrents.
Percia sat up and looked around. Everyone was wet because of the rain, and a few people had sustained cuts from pieces of airborne glass. Gintie brushed a piece of glass out of her own hair and reached over to pull a shard out of the back of Percia’s hand where it had impaled itself.
“Is everyone all right?” Sister Nellsapeta called out.
Dewva, Percie’s friend since childhood, sat up, the child in her arms too frightened to fuss. Dewva’s eyes tracked the direction the funnel cloud had moved, and she screamed, “The school! It’s headed straight toward the school!”
Disregarding the heavy storm, the villagers poured out of the church, taking in that a few of the stores and cottages had collapsed. Ackerty’s cart had been blown into the door of the dry goods shop, and his horse—sounding vigorously aggrieved—was all tangled up in the traces. Chimney bricks littered the street. The old oak tree in front of the church was uprooted and leaned precariously against the roof. Watering troughs overflowed.
The blacksmith’s helpers stopped to rescue Ackerty’s horse, but everyone else took off in the direction of the school. The wind and rain slowed the townsfolk’s progress, and the street had turned to mud, snatching at their shoes. People from outlying farms joined the crowd, everyone racing toward the school.
Downed trees snapped in two blocked the road to the schoolhouse. The men vaulted them and ran ahead; the women, dragging their wet skirts, helped each other over the obstacles, crying out the names of their children or kin.
By the time they neared the building, set half a league outside of town, the sky behind them had started to brighten to a light gray and even the rain had slackened. Percia saw some black-and-greenish clouds scudding away in front of them, but nothing as ominous as Wyndton had just faced.
Finally, Percia and Dewva turned a corner in the road and the building came into sight. It had lost its roof, and one wall looked as if it had been smashed in by a giant fist. The men who got there first were busily untangling the heap of sixty-some children huddled on top of one another in a corner.
“Tilim!” Percia shouted as she ran the last paces. “Tilim!” He turned at the sound of her voice. He looked uninjured; at least he was walking. The light rain washed just a trickle of blood off his temple.
“Percie!” he said, grabbing her around the waist. “Are you all right? Is Mama safe?”
“I’m sure Mama’s fine. The cloud didn’t go that way. What happened?”
“This thing, this wind hit the school out of nowhere. Help me with Daverly, would you? I think he broke his elbow and he looks near to puking.”
It took a while to sort out the students and masters and take stock of the casualties. This task was made harder by the children’s fear: several had hysterics so badly no one could calm them down. By the Grace of the Waters, no one had perished. One master had a concussion from being struck on the head by a wooden strut. The healer, Goddard, who had had the presence of mind to bring his bag, set a few broken bones, the disaster making him less gruff-tempered than usual. Carneigh, the blacksmith, fetched a carriage to take the injured and distraught to town; and Hecht, the peacekeeper, formed men into a crew to clear the roadway for the horses.
The master who wasn’t concussed informed everyone that this kind of storm was called a “tornado,” and to his knowledge this was the first such event in the Eastern Duchies.
“Will it happen again?” Dewva, clutching both her toddler and her five-summers boy, asked him repeatedly, but she could get no answer.
The rain stopped altogether and the sun came out, making all the broken glass sparkle amidst strewn-around slates, chalk, hats, and books. Percia and Tilim, feeling weak in their knees, sat morosely on the edge of the school grounds on a downed tree trunk, watching some neighbors examine the damage to the building and conclude that it would need to be totally rebuilt.
Finally, Percia stood up and gave herself a little shake. “Can you walk to town, Tilim?” Percia asked. “I’m really anxious about Barley—I left him inside the Church of the Waters. I hope he’s not drinking from the fountain or pissing on the floor, but I suppose, given everything, that if he did, no one would be wroth today. Then we must get home; Mother must be frantic. No one will be dancing today. And I’m dying to take off my sopping hose.”
“I can walk,” said Tilim, and he stood up to prove his hardiness.
“Are you sure? I could fetch the horse and ride back for you.”
But Tilim had already taken a few strides. Then he bent down to pick up something that had glittered in the sun and caught his eye. He held it out to Percia. It was a tiny bird, just a common nuthatch, with its characteristic white throat and the black stripe on its head.
The innocent little thing’s neck was broken. Percia bit her lip at the waste and cruelty of the sudden calamity.