Michael Malone - The Four Corners of the Sky

July 4, 1982

In small towns between the North Carolina Piedmont and the coast, the best scenery is often in the sky. On flat sweeps of red clay and scrub pine, the days move monotonously, safely; but above, in the blink of an eye, dangerous clouds can boil out of all four corners of the sky and do away with the sun so fast that, in the sudden quiet, birds fly shrieking to shelter. The flat slow land starts to shiver and anything can happen.

In such a storm, on Annie Peregrines seventh birthday, her father gave her the airplane and minutes later drove out of her life.

When thunder scared her awake she found herself in their convertible, parked atop a hill near a barn. Off in the distance rose a large white house with a wide white porch. A white pebble road curved away behind the car, unreeling like ribbon on a spool. Annie looked past two rows of rounded black trees to where fields of yellow wheat spilled to the edge of the sky. Her father and she must have arrived at Pilgrims Rest, the Peregrine family house in Emerald, North Carolina, toward which theyd been driving all day.

Sliding from their car, she saw him, slender and fast-moving, his white shirt shimmery, as he ran toward her out of the barn and across the dusky yard.

Annie! Reaching her, her father dropped to his knees and hugged her so fiercely that her heart sped. Im in trouble. Ive got to leave you here a little while with Aunt Sam and Clark. Okay?

She couldnt speak, could only shake her head. How often had he told her that the house where he had grown up, that Pilgrims Rest had been for him a pit of snakes, a cage of tigers?

He kept nodding to make her nod too. Okay? Ill be back. Just hang onto your hat. Pulling a pink baseball cap from his pocket, he snuggled it down onto her head. Colored glass beads spelled ANNIE above its brim; a few beads were missing, breaks in the letters.

Across the driveway a tall woman with short thick hair banged open the large doors of the barn. She called out to Annies father. Jack? Jack! Jack! Jack!

Annies father turned her around to face the woman but kept talking with that nodding intensity that always meant they would need to move fast. See my sister Sam over there? I told you how nice she is. The sound of sharp thunder flung the child back into the mans arms. Sos Clark. Theyll take care of you. Ill call you. Remember, youre a flyer. He yanked her small hard blue suitcase out of the convertible, dropping it onto the gravel beside her. Give Sam the cash.

Stop it. Where are you going!

Annie, I know. Its rotten. A drop of rain fell on his face like a fat fake tear. Drops splattered on the suitcases shiny clasps. Go look in the barn. Theres a present for you. Sorry, no silver cup.

She kicked him as hard as she could. And then she kicked over the blue suitcase. I want to go with you , she said. You! But before she could stop him, her father had run to their car and was driving away.

She raced after the Mustang, down the pebble road between the dark rows of large oak trees. It was hard to make her voice work loudly but finally it flamed up her throat and she could shout at him to come back. She was already crying, already knowing she couldnt run fast enough.

Behind her, the tall woman named Sam kept calling, Jack! Jack!

Annie echoed her, hoping it would help. Dad! Dad!

The convertible braked to a skidding stop, her father twisting around in the seat to call out, Your birthday presents in the barn, go look in the barn! Annie! Dont forget. Youre a flyer!

She screamed as loudly as she could, You stop!

The wind caught his scarf as he sped off; it flew into the air behind him. Then he was gone and the green silk scarf lay coiled near her feet. She ground it into the pebbled road with her small leather cowboy boots; they were as green as the scarf and stitched with lariats. She had wanted these boots so badly that only a week ago her father had turned their car around, drove them back fifty miles to some small town in the middle of a flat state; he took her to the store where shed seen the boots in the window and he bought them for her. Never wait to say what you want, he told her. Its no fun to go back. And sometimes you cant.