“Perfect.”
The pond was only five feet at its deepest. As she lowered herself into the water, getting wet up to her neck, Maggie listened to the flow of the brook over the stone dam. Olivia splashed her, and Maggie splashed her back. They shrieked with laughter as if they were twelve again.
Maggie ducked her head underwater but popped up almost immediately. “Whoa, that’s refreshing,” she said. “I think I have goose bumps.”
Olivia eased back up onto their sunny boulder. “Don’t get hypothermia,” she said.
Maggie splashed her. “Just like you to bring up hypothermia.”
Olivia pointed at her. “Purple lips, shivering, goose bumps. You tell me.”
“All right, all right.” Maggie climbed up onto another boulder and stretched out her legs. She had purple-blue knees, too. She reached for a towel on the stone wall—of course Olivia had remembered towels—and draped one over her legs. “It’s still hot as blazes.”
“It won’t be for long.” Olivia nodded up at dark clouds looming above the trees to the west. “Looks like a storm’s headed our way.”
“That does look nasty,” Maggie said. “I guess we’re done playing hooky for the afternoon.”
She dried off as best she could and slipped back into her shorts and T-shirt. Olivia did the same. Thunder rumbled in the distance, the kind of low, deep, rolling thunder that suggested a strong storm was bearing down on them.
They headed to the parking lot by the much newer Frost Millworks building. Dylan was there, getting out of his car. “We’re not going anywhere right now. Knights Bridge is under a severe thunderstorm warning.”
Maggie shook her head. “I have to pick up the boys at the library. I’ve driven in loads of storms—”
“Not like this one. I’ve seen the radar.”
“We can duck into the mill,” Olivia said. “Where’s Noah?”
“And Brandon,” Maggie added. “He’s not in that stupid tent, is he?”
“They’re at Carriage Hill,” Dylan said.
They hurried up to the mill. No one else was there late on a Sunday afternoon. Maggie used the phone in the small front office and tried calling the library but no one picked up. Her mother would have dropped off the boys by now but Maggie called her just to be sure.
“I dropped them off twenty minutes ago,” her mother said. “Phoebe’s there alone. We get thunderstorm warnings all the time, Maggie. It’ll be okay.”
But Maggie heard the note of worry in her mother’s voice. They promised to keep each other updated.
“Stay at the mill,” her mother said. “Promise me, Maggie.”
The phone went dead.
Maggie cradled the receiver and went into the outer room. She could see wind whipping through the trees on the other side of the pond. Small limbs fell into the water. The ground was quickly littered with leaves and twigs.
Then came the hail.
Olivia and Dylan held hands. Maggie wrapped her arms around her middle and watched the pebble-size hail hit the walk and the rock walls. It pelted into the brook and collected on the grass.
She jumped at a simultaneous flash of lightning and crack of thunder.
“It’s just the edge of the storm,” Dylan said.
Maggie insisted he hand her his iPhone. The local weather radar was still up on the screen. Reds, yellows, purples. It was a dangerous, severe thunderstorm, and if it stayed on course, Knights Bridge center was taking a direct hit.
Maggie’s stomach lurched. She bolted for the door but Dylan grabbed her. “I have to get to the library,” she said. “The boys—Phoebe.”
“Phoebe knows what to do in a storm,” Olivia said, white-faced.
“If she knows it’s this bad…”
“We wait this out,” Dylan said. “Then we go.”
*
“Aunt Phoebe! Aunt Phoebe!”
“I’m here,” she said, sitting up, wincing in pain. It was Aidan screaming her name. She tried to keep from moaning and further scaring her nephews. “It’s okay…”
“Listen,” Tyler told his younger brother, his tone reassuring. “You hear the sirens? Uncle Chris will get us out.”
They were alone in the library attic. They’d lost power but that was the least of their troubles. Despite the heat, Tyler and Aidan had wanted to see the attic and Phoebe’s secret room. They didn’t care about sewing, but someone had mentioned there were ghosts in the attic. Phoebe told them about the antique marbles she’d found, and they’d charged up the stairs ahead of her.
What harm was there in a spooky little adventure on a hot summer afternoon?