He should stay here, help with the downed pilots. But there were plenty of folks already doing that. Right now, Aurelia—and Walter—struck closer to home for him. He glanced at Rick’s demolished plane. Besides, somebody needed to stick close to Jael right now. Rick was scared, sure enough, but he was still sulky enough to cause more trouble than not.
*
Hitch found Jael in the Carpenters’ apple orchard. The rain poured down steadily, not quite in sheets, but more than enough to soak everything. He was wet clear through his leather jacket. Somehow the water had even gotten past the tight laces of his boots; his socks squished.
Jael made her way over to him—hobbling again, although not too bad. “Hitch.” Her wet hair clung to her face, so dark with the rainwater that the silver streaks from the lightning practically glowed.
She reached him, slipped a little in the mud, and gripped his arm. She closed her eyes and breathed what sounded like a thankful prayer: “O Bozhe. I worried you would crash.”
“Don’t have much faith in my flying, do you?” But a lonely spot inside of him warmed, and he squeezed her hand on his arm. It’d been a long time since anybody cared what happened to him—except maybe Earl, and only then when he was in a good mood.
He looked around. “What’s going on?”
Before she could answer, Walter appeared in a gap between the tree rows and beckoned them. His black hair was plastered around the edges of his white face, making him look as pale as a ghoul. He didn’t wait for them to follow, just turned and ran.
Hitch followed, keeping Jael’s arm in the crook of his elbow—mostly to steady her through the mud puddles. “What’s this about Aurelia running off?”
“I do not have entire knowledge. Walter came for help to find her. Everyone is looking—his family, your brother. She has been gone since last night.”
“In this weather? That ain’t good.”
“She is thinking we are all doomed.”
“Maybe we are.” He glanced down at her knit forehead. “Though I did take out their cannon.”
She looked up at him. “That is not nothing.”
“Yeah, but this weather’s going to make it awful tough to get a plane anywhere close to it again, even without the cannon.”
The lines reappeared between her eyebrows.
So much for polishing up the silver lining. He should probably tell her about Rick. But that’d keep for a bit. No sense dumping all the bad news at once.
Somewhere up ahead, through the iron gray of the driving rain, a dog barked. Taos probably, since he’d been nowhere to be seen back at camp. He must have run off with Walter when the boy came for help. Taos only barked when he was excited—which right now, probably meant he’d found himself an unidentified person.
Hitch pulled Jael forward. “C’mon.”
They ran, slipping in the mud, until they reached the edge of the orchard. Half hidden under the branches of the outermost trees, an old pent shed had almost disappeared in the overgrowth of wood vines. The boards had weathered to a splintery gray, and on either side of the empty doorframe, the windows were all smashed in.
Outside the door, Walter hung onto Taos’s scruff while the dog kept barking. Walter cast a wild look back at Hitch, probably scared to go into the dark.
“It’s all right.” Hitch let go of Jael and snapped his fingers at the dog. “Taos. Quiet.” He patted Walter’s shoulder as he passed.
The boy reached out and caught his hand, following him.
Hitch gripped Walter’s clammy palm and ducked his head under the sagging lintel. “Aurelia?”
Despite the broken windows, the inside of the shed was dark. It smelled damp and rich with the earth and the rain, and a little sour with old cow droppings. Something shifted in the corner; someone whimpered.
He took one more step inside, then moved to the left, so he wouldn’t block the light. “Aurelia? It’s just me. It’s Hitch Hitchcock—and Walter. And Jael’s outside.”
Another whimper. Definitely Aurelia.
He took one more step and tried to pull free of Walter, so he’d have both hands. But the boy hung on fast and followed him.
More straw rustled as he got closer. His shadow shifted, and the scant light fell across Aurelia’s face. Even paler than Walter and a little blue around the lips, she stared right through him, like a blind woman. Damp glistened against her face. Dead leaves and old straw matted her hair. She lifted a hand, unseeing, and whimpered through her chattering teeth.
“It’s okay.” He crouched in front of her and reached for her with his free hand. “It’s okay, darlin’. It’s just me. I’ve come to take you home.” He pulled her nearer, tentatively, then slipped a hand around her shoulders.
Her backbone was so sharp it practically poked through her dress. She remained stiff for a second. Then, with a stuttering exhale, she sagged against his chest. “I caused this—this storm. Did I cause this?”
He held her and patted her back. “Not a chance. You had absolutely nothing to do with this. The only thing you did was call it exactly like it was—which was a heap more’n most of us had the guts to do yesterday.”
“But I knew. That man told me. I tried to tell… somebody. But they didn’t believe me.”
“That’s not your fault, Aurelia. You tried, you did your best. It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I don’t know that anybody could have stopped this from happening.”
She reared her head back and looked up at him. Her bloodshot eyes were red almost clear through. They charted his face. “I remember you. You’re Hitch Hitchcock.”
He smiled at her. “Yeah.”
“You were… you were Celia’s husband. Weren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
In the straw beside him, Walter shifted. He looked back and forth between Hitch and Aurelia, wide-eyed and interested. So he hadn’t known. He was probably too young to have met Celia, much less remembered her, so why would he know Hitch was his uncle? Nan had no doubt avoided talking about Hitch for all these years.
A shadow blocked the light, and Hitch looked back.
Jael stood there, cocking her head slightly like she did whenever she was caught off guard and trying to figure something out. The lines between her eyebrows deepened a little. Women never were very understanding about a man who would leave a woman—for whatever reason.
His throat tightened and he turned back.
Aurelia’s bloodshot eyes looked up at him without anger, without blame. “I remember you,” she said again. “You gave me a violet handkerchief.”
“Yes, I did.” Celia had washed it with his dungarees and it had come out purple.
Her lip trembled. “It caught on fire and burned up.”
“Oh, well. I’ll get you another one, how about that?” He tried to ease her up. “But first we have to get you home, all right? Nan and everybody’s worried about you.”
She darted out a hand and gripped his coat. “Wait.” Her lip trembled still more. “Do you think it is true? Will the air beast kill us all?”
Walter watched him, as intent on the answer as his aunt was.
“Aurelia, listen to me.” Hitch looked her in the eye. “You’re scared, that’s all this is. And that’s okay.” He put a hand on Walter’s shoulder and glanced at him too. “We all are, I reckon. This is something nobody could have planned on happening. But the world keeps on spinning and people keep on living—through worse things than this. This is just a couple guys in an airship. It’ll be over before you know it.”