Jura said she was sure her ma and her auntie would be fine with that.
We pulled up to Jura’s house. A face appeared in the window and disappeared. A few seconds later, Miz Carver—who was as tall and round as Jura was petite and lean—appeared on the porch, opened an umbrella, and ran out to greet us.
“Thanks, Ham!” She waited for us to climb out, then waved Ham away with a friendly, “Now, go home! Before you have to swim there!” As she escorted us to the house, she poked each of us in turn. “Where have you been? You don’t call your mama when you’re running late?”
Inside, we started peeling off our wet clothes.
Miz Carver handed us towels for our hair. “Go upstairs and put some dry things on. You are staying the night, aren’t you, Genuine?”
“Yes, ma’am. If you don’t mind.”
She laughed. “Mind? You two have been joined at the hip for a month, and I haven’t even had a chance to show you my collection of Fisk fuel extraction converters!”
“Mom!” Jura protested.
“I’m joking!” Miz Carver replied. “Unless you want to see them, Genuine?”
“Mom!”
“You don’t know what you’re miss-ing,” Jura’s ma sang. “Fine. Go change. And hurry. A glass of warm milk and then it’s off to bed with you. It’s already—” She glanced at the clock. “Lordy, it’s already past ten!”
Miz Carver tucked Jura and me into her big bed and kindly said she’d take the foldout sofa downstairs. Jura’s auntie Trish said she’d hear none of that—that we girls couldn’t have all the fun of a slumber party and leave the women out. Aunt Trish promptly grabbed an armful of pillows and blankets and joined Miz Carver on the sofa bed.
We could hear their glad, sisterly chatter between the breaks in the wind—till we fell asleep, at least.
Thanks to the rough weather the next morning, TV reception was reduced to pure static. The radio was clear enough, though: school had been canceled on account of rain. Government offices were closed and so was Ham’s, the grocery, and every other business in town. Every thinking person should stay in, because a number of the main roads were flooded and more rain was on the way.
“Does this happen a lot?” Jura asked me while us four women sat around the radio with blankets snug on our shoulders.
“Hardly ever,” I told her. “But then, our autumns aren’t usually as wet as this one, either. The only other time I remember, I was real small. I think some of the low-lying houses got evacuated.”
“Are we low-lying?” Miz Carver asked her sister.
“Not especially,” Jura’s auntie replied. “I don’t think.”
Jura and I exchanged a worried glance.
By two that afternoon, the winds had picked up again and the electric went out. We found some batteries for the radio, but the DJ said he may not be broadcasting for much longer. The station’s generator was hiccoughing and the backup broke last winter.
“If you’re out there, Genuine Sweet,” the DJ joked, “wish me up some repairs!”
It was nearly six p.m., and the rain still hadn’t stopped. The water had crept up to the front door, and the house began to smell of damp.
“What should we do?” Jura wondered aloud.
“Don’t suppose you can wish the rain away?” Miz Carver asked me.
“No, ma’am,” I replied. “Sorry.”
We didn’t sleep at all that night. The ceiling sprang a leak, and despite the caterwauling of the rain and wind, it was the dripping sound that kept us up.
The only food we had left was salty canned or salty bagged. The tap water was contaminated from the storm, and we didn’t have any electricity to boil it. We were thirsty.
Still the rain went on.
Around eight the next morning, a boat floated up to the house. It was Ham and his dog, Meaty, who greeted us gladly, his pink tongue a-flopping.
“Lotta rain!” Ham shouted. “We’re all of us gathering at the Community Center. They got generators and food, and a whole mess of bottled water.”
Jura and me climbed in first, then Miz Carver and her sister.
It took nearly an hour to row to the Community Center. It sat on the tallest hill in town—and even its parking lot was a little flooded. The rain, for now, was only a drizzle, but more fat, dark clouds loomed in the distance.
“It’s got to stop sometime,” Ham observed.
We clambered from the boat and half walked, half climbed to a dry spot on the hill. Through the windows of the building, we could see lights on inside. I couldn’t help sighing my relief. Just seeing those lights after so long without electricity was proof, somehow, that something normal still existed in the world.
It was a strange thing to see pretty much everyone I knew sitting around on cots, every one of us greasy-haired and smelly from worry and lack of clean water.
It was even stranger to see the hope bloom on their faces when I arrived.
“It’s Genuine!” someone whispered.
“Thank goodness!” another someone replied.
People stood up. They smiled. They gathered ’round.
You know what they wanted, of course. They wanted me to wish away the storm.
“Leave her be,” Ham shouted. “She’s tired like the rest of you. She’ll get to it when she’s good and ready.”
“Our houses’ll float away if she waits too long,” someone said.
“She can rest after she wishes all this water away.” It was Chickenlady Snopes.
“Please—” I said softly to Ham.
He looked down at me.
“I can’t,” I told him.
“That’s what I said,” he spoke to me, but loudly enough for other folks to hear. “Too tired to wish anything right now. Of course you are.”
“No. Ham.” I tugged on his sleeve. “I really can’t. The magic’s gone.”
He looked at me as if my words didn’t make sense. “For real?”
I nodded.
“Dang.” He deflated before my eyes.