A Perfect Storm Read online

  “What kind of disturbance?” asked Lily.

  “It feels weather related,” Lady Azura replied as she laid a few crystals out on the table. “It is coming on very quickly, though. I think perhaps a storm is brewing outside.”

  A storm? Well, that was no big deal. “Well, I guess that makes me feel better, that it’s not all my doing,” I said.

  Lily stood up. “Like I said, no worries,” she repeated, playfully tapping me on my shoulder. “I don’t know what I would have said to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers anyway! Come on. Let’s go upstairs and get ready for bed.”

  We thanked Lady Azura and headed out into the hallway. My dad was coming down the front stairs.

  “Oh, good,” he said, noticing us right away. “I was coming to look for you. There’s a storm coming up the coast that’s supposed to make a turn to the west and may head straight for us over the weekend.”

  “A big one?” asked Lily. “Like one that would cause atmospheric disturbances?”

  My dad furrowed his brow and grinned at her good-naturedly. “Could be, Lil,” he said. “Right now it’s out to sea and categorized as a full-fledged hurricane. Hurricane Seymour, they’re calling it. The storm is still quite far south and east of us, and they think it will be downgraded to a tropical storm by Sunday morning,” he said. “Still, people in these parts don’t play around with big coastal storms. They know how to batten down the hatches. Local businesses are already boarding up, and the lines at the store are getting longer. Our house is close enough to the water that we should take it seriously. Get ready for power outages and that sort of thing.”

  I swallowed. I’d never been in a hurricane before. Was this what Lady Azura had been sensing? It must be. I was really impressed. But also worried. Weren’t hurricanes really serious?

  My dad saw my anxious face. He put his arm around me. “Don’t worry, kiddo,” he said. “Your wonderful father here has already installed the hardware for hurricane panels on all the windows. I’ll put up the actual panels tomorrow. We’ll be safe and sound if the storm does come.”

  Lily and I stayed up pretty late talking. She kept saying how lucky I was that I had a great-grandmother as cool as Lady Azura, who could not only talk to spirits, but also know stuff about the weather. It felt good to listen to Lily gush on and on about her. I loved knowing that two of my favorite people liked each other so much.

  It was past midnight before we finally unrolled Lily’s sleeping bag on the trundle bed. As soon as we were both comfy under our covers, I confessed to her that I had changed my mind about Mason. That I definitely like-liked him.

  “Well, this is obviously not news to me,” said Lily. “I’ve been able to tell for a while now . . . even if you didn’t realize it. Anyway, he likes you too.” She was lying on her stomach, the trundle perpendicular to my bed, and had her chin propped in her hands.

  “I’m not so sure,” I said. “He’s so . . . hot and cold with me.”

  “That’s because he’s scared of you, Sar,” said Lily.

  “Why would he be scared of me?”

  “Have you looked in the mirror? You’re totally gorgeous, for one thing.”

  I flushed and quickly changed the subject. If Mason was scared of me, it was because we shared a freaky secret together. Not because he was intimidated by my looks.

  “What about you? I couldn’t help but notice you were checking out Calvin yesterday afternoon.”

  Lily scrambled up to a sitting position. “Oh no! Was it that obvious? Was I acting like a total dork?”

  I laughed. “No. I just know you well enough to be able to tell when you’re smitten. Kind of like the way you knew I liked Mason before I did.”

  In the rosy glow of my bedside lamp, I saw a dreamy look appear on Lily’s face. “Well, he is pretty amazing-looking, isn’t he? And wouldn’t it be great if you went out with Mason and I went out with Calvin? We could double-date.”

  “Yeah,” I said. My eyelids were growing heavy. “If only they didn’t live two towns away,” I said, reaching for the light.

  Lily sighed in the darkness. “Yeah. That does stink.”

  We were sound asleep in minutes.

  And then I had another dream.

  It was very much like the other one I’d had. In my dream, I found myself standing in the blue bedroom, wearing my nightshirt. The floorboards were cold beneath my feet. Except it didn’t feel like nighttime in my dream. It felt like a late afternoon in the winter. Outside I could see that it was snowing. Snow had piled up on the windowsill.

  I looked over at the writing desk, knowing what I would see, and I was right. There I sat again, scribbling away in the little book, my long—way longer than real life—hair falling over my face and obscuring my features. But it was me all right.

  Even in my dream, it felt weird to address myself. I walked over to me. The other me didn’t look up.

  “Hey, Sara,” I said. “What are we writing about?”

  The other me stopped writing. She looked up quickly, and then quickly looked back down. “I’m choosing to ignore you,” she said, staring at her book. “Because I know you’re not there. You can’t be. I’m just imagining you. So please, go away, okay?”

  I stood there awkwardly, wondering what to say next. She hadn’t started writing again. I could see that her knuckles had grown white, gripping the pen.

  Then a shadow moved across the window. I turned toward the opposite wall to see what—or who—was casting the shadow. The weak, late afternoon sun was still bright enough to make it hard to see the dark figure standing in the shadows near the big wardrobe. Was it a man? A woman? A spirit of some sort? All I could see was that it was wearing some odd hat. And then the dream faded and I woke up.

  My bedroom was dim but not completely dark. I could see that outside there was an almost-full moon. Lily was breathing regularly next to me. The clock said 4:14. Once again, though, it felt bitter cold. Was the window open a crack?

  Moving as quietly as I could, I slid down to the end of my bed and stepped onto the floor. Lily grumbled something, then turned and went back to sleep.

  I tiptoed over to the window. It was wide open. Had I forgotten to close it? As I looked outside at the moonlit yard below, I could feel how calm everything was. Not a leaf stirred. There was no wind. All was deathly still. And outside, the air felt weirdly warm. Much warmer than in the room. I closed the window anyway. Tiptoed back to my bed and burrowed under the covers. And the next thing I knew, it was morning.

  Chapter 5

  “Hey, girls! Get up! It’s almost ten!”

  I opened my eyes. Sunlight streamed through the windows. Lily was sitting up in bed. I could smell bacon cooking downstairs. And coffee. Even though I’m not a coffee drinker, I still think the smells of bacon and coffee are two of the best smells in the world.

  Lily slid off the trundle bed and padded over to the window. She shoved it open, raised the screen, and stuck her nose outside.

  “Wow, it’s bizarrely warm outside,” she said.

  The chill I’d felt in the middle of the night was gone. My dream didn’t seem quite as eerie by light of day. Now I wished I’d paid more attention to what the other Sara had been writing. And who the spirit was in the room, if in fact it had even been a spirit.

  “I smell bacon,” said Lily. “Do you think it’s for us?”

  “I’m sure it is. My dad is on a health kick and only eats oatmeal for breakfast these days,” I said. “And Lady Azura would never be up this early.”

  We got dressed quickly and were soon down in the kitchen, where my dad was just pronging the last piece of bacon from the pan and laying it out onto a paper-towel-lined plate.

  “Morning, lazy ones,” he said, plunking down the plate of bacon and giving my ponytail a playful tug. “Eat up. Change of plans.”

  Lily was pulling a couple of juice glasses—she knew where everything belonged in our kitchen, just as I did in hers—but she paused and turned toward my dad.

&nbs
p; “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “The storm. It’s not being downgraded after all. It’s going to remain a hurricane, and it looks like it might be a direct hit on New Jersey tomorrow. They’re saying around midafternoon sometime.”

  Lily and I exchanged looks. My stomach did a little flip-flop.

  “So, not to be a party pooper,” my dad continued, “but Lily’s mom called to say Lily needs to come home to babysit as soon as you two have had breakfast. She and your dad need to get to the grocery store and the hardware store to stock up on supplies in case the power goes out.”

  “Can I help her?” I asked. Somehow I didn’t feel like being by myself to stew about a huge storm if I could help it.

  “Sorry, kiddo,” said my dad, as he dried a pot from the drainer. “I’ll need you around here to help me storm-proof this old place.”

  I nodded.

  After a quick breakfast, we hurried upstairs. I grabbed my camera as Lily packed up her stuff. Then I walked her back to her house. The air was very still, and weirdly warm.

  “Do you think this is what they mean by ‘the calm before the storm’?” I asked, snapping a picture of the sun peeking through the branches of a tree above our heads.

  Lily shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been through a hurricane before. It feels odd around here, though, somehow, in a way I can’t really describe.”

  “It’s the light,” I said, snapping another picture. “It’s a funny yellow-green color. It’s really strange.”

  Lily looked around uneasily. “It’s true.”

  As soon as I got back home, my dad put me to work closing the shutters on all the windows so he could hang the hurricane panels.

  “Since the hardware is already installed, I just have to put up the panels and fasten them with wing nuts,” he told me, looking pleased with himself.

  My dad is king of planning for the worst-case scenario. Now, though, I was very glad to be the daughter of Mr. Disaster Preparedness.

  “While you’re busy closing the shutters,” he said, “I’ll be outside sandbagging the casement windows so no water can get in.”

  I started at the top of the house. My dad had said there wasn’t much I could do about the attic windows, which didn’t have any shutters for me to close. They were small and round, with thick, old-looking panes of leaded glass that blurred the landscape outside. My dad had told me he would come up later and put up plywood from the inside. But I wanted to be sure my mom’s trunk was protected. It was full of her dresses. They were inside an interior room without a window. Lady Azura referred to it as the cedar-lined storage room. After making sure the trunk was sealed tightly and pushed to a far corner, I closed the door to the storage room, feeling satisfied my mom’s dresses would be safe.

  After closing the shutters in my craft room and the other room on the third floor, I headed to the second floor.

  I took care of the shutters in my room, and then my dad’s. In the pink room I found one of our resident spirits, seated in her rocking chair as usual, rocking slowly back and forth. I knew her pretty well. When we’d first moved in, I used to hear her crying all the time. But Lady Azura and I had worked with her and helped her cope with her grief for her son, who had died very young. I’m not exactly sure how we did it, but by helping her come to terms with his death, she was somehow reunited with him. She wasn’t sad anymore. Sometimes I’d even see her with her spirit baby in her arms.

  “Hello,” I said cordially. “I hope you don’t mind if I just close the shutters. A big storm is coming.”

  She looked at me, her dark eyes reflecting no light. She nodded and smiled briefly, but then her eyes went back down to the sleeping spirit baby I could now see in her arms. I went about my business quickly and carefully, closing the shutters and making sure they were latched tightly.

  “Bye,” I said to her as I headed out.

  “Please don’t be afraid,” she said suddenly. “I see in your face that you are concerned about the storm. This house has weathered many, many storms over the years. You should take solace in being home safe and sound, here with your family.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “You take care in the storm too. You and Angus, I mean.” I gestured to the sleeping baby in her arms.

  I hesitated on the threshold of the blue bedroom. Though I had been dreaming about it a lot lately, I almost never went in there. It was in this room that I had seen the spirit of the sailor or sea captain or whoever he was. The same one I’d been surprised to see outside of Scoops the other day. He’d never been friendly, or even acknowledged that a modern, living family inhabited this house with him. He was just one of those spirits I’d decided it was best to have nothing to do with. I took a deep breath and hoped he wouldn’t be there when I entered.

  But when I walked in, there he was.

  He stood with his back to me, staring out of the window, the only one in this room that faced the sea. He was muttering something in a low, raspy voice.

  I nodded toward him to be polite, even though he didn’t seem to know or care that I was there, and moved toward one of the other three windows, so I could get the shutters closed.

  I finished closing the first window’s shutters and moved to the window in the middle, and closed them. Then, warily, I approached the third window, where he was still standing, muttering.

  “Um, excuse me?” I said softly. “I just need to get in here to close the shutters.”

  “. . . the clouds gatherin’ thick upon us, and the winds singin’ and whistlin’ most unusually—”

  “Um, see, because there’s a storm coming? I’ll only be a minute. I just—”

  He turned around suddenly, causing me to jump back a little. It was as though he hadn’t known I was in the room until this moment. “ ’Twas the great September gale of ’21. We were visited by the winds on a Monday evening, blowin’ in from the northeast, swellin’ and roarin’ as it were by fits. The sky nigh turned black upon us, and my company were not a little shaken.”

  “Wow, that sounds rough. But, see, I just need to—”

  “ ’Twas a very heavy sea running, and I feared she would part her cables. The stern and bower anchors holding steadily, the wind shifted suddenly four or five points, blowing with increased fury heavily upon the land; the anchors yielding to the force of the winds and waves, began to drag.”

  “You know what? I’ll come back later,” I said hastily, edging away from him. Not only was the spirit talking about some storm, but it was really hard to understand his strong accent.

  I turned and was about to leave the room when I heard him speak again, this time louder.

  “—was like ye as two peas.”

  That made me stop. Slowly I turned and regarded him.

  “Who was?” I asked, hardly daring to breathe.

  “Tha’ art her reflection as she gazes in the looking glass.”

  Was he talking about my mother? He could have been referring to anyone, really, but something told me, in my gut, that he was talking about my mother. My dad always told me that I looked just like her. Maybe he had seen her, and I was reminding him of her? I knew that she had come to visit Lady Azura in this house, at least a few times, even though I also knew that Lady Azura and my grandmother—Diana, her name was—had not gotten along all that well. But maybe my mother, Natalie, had stayed in this room. I knew she hadn’t been able to see spirits, the way I could, but what if this spirit had known her? My heart was thudding hard inside my chest.

  “Take care. Do not tarry battening the hatches. I’ll warrant with the full moon ’twill be as the gale that swept in and tore me sails to pieces. My Phoebe lost her bowsprit and was laid upon her beam ends.”

  I tried to be patient. “Did you—it sounds like you have seen a lot of big storms before. You seem like a knowledgeable sailor. Did you also happen to remember a woman who came to this house from time to time, whose name was Natalie?”

  He was starting to shimmer around the edges. “Must hearken
to me sloops. The gales are changing direction.”

  “Please don’t go just yet. Did you know someone named Natalie Collins?”

  He looked at me with his piercing black eyes, which were the only distinct feature that remained on his rapidly fading self. “Aye, and she left that message for you.”

  I jumped as though I’d been stung. “A message? What message? My mother left me a message? Where?”

  But whether he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, the spirit faded away. He was gone.

  Chapter 6

  I sat down on the bed, releasing a small cloud of dust. I sneezed twice. No one had slept in this room in a very long time, and I doubted anyone had dusted in here either. I stared at the place where the spirit had been.

  He was hard to understand, that was for sure. But I was positive he’d said my mother had left me a message. What kind of message?

  I needed to talk to Lady Azura.

  I finished closing the rest of the shutters on the second floor as fast as I possibly could, which wasn’t as fast as I wanted it to be, because some of the old windows were stuck closed by years of paint. But except for one, in the hallway, I got all the shutters closed.

  I took the stairs down two at a time and stopped. Would Lady Azura even be awake yet? It was after eleven. Sometimes she didn’t emerge until well after twelve.

  I met my father in the front hallway.

  “I’m heading out for some supplies,” he said. “I’ve got the hurricane panels up on the south and west sides of the house, and I’ll finish the rest when I get back.”

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  “You okay, kiddo?”

  “I guess so. It’s just weird to think that there’s a storm coming when it’s such a beautiful, warm day out.”

  “Yep. But they’re saying it might be a doozy. We have to be prepared for a long power outage and a storm surge. The boardwalk could be in trouble, I’m afraid.”