Lauren Wolk - My Own Lightning

Western Pennsylvania

1944

I didnt know there was a storm coming.

Had I known, I might have done things differently.

But Id promised to help my teacher, Mrs. Taylor, clean the schoolhouse before she locked its doors for the summer.

So I made my way up the lane from our glen to the top of the hill, past Tobys grave (though I stopped for a moment to lay my hand on his headstone), down again through a field of young wheat, and into the woods of Wolf Hollow.

The trees themselves were friendly enough, and the sunlight filtering through their leaves tried its best to cheer me up, but the path through the hollow awakened dark memories Id tried to put to rest. Memories that never slept soundly and were apt to startle like birds at the smallest twitch, rising as they woke, while I fell deeper and deeper into gloom.

Just months before, Id tried to save my friend Toby from a girl named Betty. She, a bully through and through. He, a ruin of a man who made an ample target for a girl practicing her aim. Both of them gone now, except for the marks theyd left on me. The marks Id left on myself, trying to be of help.

Since Tobys death, I had been distracted by might-have-beens and if-onlys. Consumed with what I could have done differently. Not quite trusting myself as I once had. All of which laid me low. Especially when I walked through the woods that had once been Tobys home.

But Mrs. Taylor was waiting for me, her broom and scrub brush, bucket and mop ready for work, and I was glad to join her for a task that would set me straight again, face forward, my memories folding their wings and settling again in their nests where they belonged.

And how is your summer so far, Annabelle? Mrs. Taylor asked as she polished dust and stove-soot from the windowpanes.

June was an odd time: school was outwhich meant a pause in my most important jobbut there was so much farmwork to be done that I was busier than ever.

Its been fine, I said, sweeping up boot-mud and dried bits of nimblewill. Lots of planting to do. Strawberries to pick. She didnt need to be told. Most of us in the township were farmers. Everyone knew what that meant. But I love being outside. So.

She nodded.

We worked on in easy silence, the schoolhouse strange without the squeak and shuffle of children at every desk and the patter of Mrs. Taylor huddled with one small cluster after another up at the chalkboard, the smell of warm bag lunches: meat sandwiches, oily cheese, a whiff of boiled egg.

Instead, we shared a silence punctuated only by the squeal of newspaper wetted with vinegar that Mrs. Taylor was using to clean the windows. The hush, hush, hush of my broom. And then, unexpectedly, a knock at the door.

Mrs. Taylor looked at me and I at her.

Who on earth? She climbed down off her stepladder and went along quickly to find out who had come and why.

I followed her, standing back a little but able to see that there was a man on the stoop. Past twenty but not yet thirty. Someone Id never seen before.

I would have called him handsome, but he wasnt. He was beautiful.

Can I help you? Mrs. Taylor said, wiping her hands on her apron.

I hope so. He smiled, his teeth even and white.

He had a well-trimmed mustache, though no beardwhich was unusual in these hills, where the two usually went hand in handand green eyes, my favorite kind. A big man, especially across the shoulders, with a barrel chest, like a lumberjack. Except he was dressed more like someone from town, in clean, tidy clothes, his cuffs buttoned, the kind of hat my father wore to church.

The word gentleman came to mind, but his eyes were curiously flat, and I had a vague suspicion that he might not be quite what he seemed. Perhaps hed been in the war and was still finding his way all the way back from that. Or

Im looking for my dog, Zeus, he said, and I relaxed.

I liked people who liked dogs.

My name is Graf. From Aliquippa. Far enough so I doubt youll see Zeus around here. But Ive been looking for most of a week, and I guess Im grasping at straws. He made a small, helpless gesture with one hand.

What kind of dog? I asked.

A bull terrier. Brown. With a white patch on his shoulder.

Im sorry, Mrs. Taylor said, but I havent seen a dog like that. Have you, Annabelle?

I shook my head. Lots of dogs around here, but not one like that. Id remember.

Well, let me know if he turns up. Mr. Graf pulled a strip of paper from his pocket and held it out. Heres my telephone number.

Mrs. Taylor took it and slipped it into her apron pocket. Of course we will.

It seemed that we were all done, Mrs. Taylor raising her eyebrows as if to say,