chapter 1

ZAVION

The wind wrapped itself around the two-by-fours that held Zavion’s house straight and tall. The wind pushed and moaned just beneath the drywall. Papa had said they needed to get to the attic, to the highest point in the house.

But the attic didn’t seem high enough.

The wind snuck through the walls. First blowing up and then pounding. Then sideways. Pound. Then down. Pound. Then down again with a piercing squeal. Zavion didn’t know where he would feel it, or where he would hear it next. His teeth chattered. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that didn’t stop the wind and that didn’t stop his body from shaking so hard he thought his heart might shake right out of his chest.

Zavion closed his eyes and pictured Grandmother Mountain. He imagined climbing to its top. A real mountain would rise above this wind and Zavion would be safe.

—

“Zavion!” Papa called through the wind. He sounded far away, but he was only downstairs.

“Papa!”

“I’m coming up!”

Zavion’s eyes darted around the room. Nothing was where it should be. Papa’s rolls of canvas caught and tore on nails protruding from the walls. They flapped in the wind like shredded flags. Zavion crawled over to the window and held on to the sill. He peeked outside. It was morning, but it seemed as if the wind had blown the hours forward into night.

The dark sky poured rain on Zavion’s street. Only it wasn’t a street anymore. It was a river. The wind came again and Zavion’s hands shook as he gripped the wooden sill. He pressed his chin against his hands to still them, but then his chin shook too.

Outside lay an enormous oak tree split in half. A work boot, jammed between two dangling branches. A lamp, sucked in and out of the water. A piece of the roof had broken off his neighbors’ house and sped down the river. Someone clung to the roof. He strained his eyes to see who it was and— Was it? Yes. His neighbor’s daughter. Zavion took care of her sometimes. It was so easy to make her laugh.

The wind gusted. She slipped on the wet roof.

Zavion closed his eyes. When he opened them again, a man was pulling the little girl out of the water.

The attic was definitely not high enough. It was not the top of a mountain. A mountain would rise above this.

This was the end of the world.

Zavion had lost all control—for only the second time ever—and this was the end of the world.

Zavion’s fingers dug into the wood on the sill. He tried to calm himself. He remembered the bench outside his school where he sat to tie his sneakers before he ran home every afternoon after cross-country practice. His bed neatly made with his pillow squared and his book tucked into the top right corner. His peanut butter and honey sandwiches wrapped in wax paper and lined up in the refrigerator.

“Sweet Jesus!” Papa stood, soaking wet, at the top of the attic stairs. “The first floor. It’s flooded. Sweet Jesus. I couldn’t save anything.”

“What about your paintings?” asked Zavion.

“All my murals. All my paintings. They’re gone.” Papa dropped an armful of cereal boxes and two cartons of juice onto the floor. “This was all I could get.”

“What about the second floor?”

“I don’t know. Everything is shaking—”

“What about my room? Mama’s mural?”

“Oh, Zavion, I just don’t know—”

“I’ll get the survival kit,” said Zavion. He’d made it himself, put it in the downstairs hall closet. He’d check on his mural when he went to get it.

“There are water moccasins down there, Zav. Snakes swimming in our kitchen.”

“What?”

“You’re not going downstairs.” Papa stood like a fence in front of the stairway, but his eyes moved frantically around the room. “We have to leave.”

Zavion pulled ruined canvases over to the window, and he and Papa waved them like flags, trying to get the attention of the helicopter flying overhead. But it kept on going.

The wind gusted and flung Zavion to the attic floor.

“The walls are breaking,” Papa said. “We have to get out of here.”

The wind found a path that it liked. It was a violin bow then, squealing back and forth across the two-by-fours. Back and forth, back and forth. Screaming. It splintered the walls of the attic and set itself free. But the wind stayed inside Zavion. The screaming wind filled him. Stayed twisted around the bones in his body.

Zavion pulled himself up. He and Papa waved the white flags again, and this time, when a helicopter flew overhead, it shone its lights on them. But then it just kept on going.

It kept on going.