The Coming Storm by Regina M. Hansen

Author:Regina M. Hansen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN June 20, 1950

Beet MacNeill

Boy! Boy!” That old mottled-winged gull has just landed on the rose garden gate, and Joseph is bouncing up and down like he’s seen his best friend. He’s such a beauty, our Joseph, and watching him like that makes me long even more to keep him safe. I haven’t seen Marina since the dance, but I know it’s not the last of her. The bird tucks its wings against its sides and cocks its head in Joseph’s direction, then turns a considering eye on Deirdre and me. It’s been three days since what happened at the dance, quiet days, with no evil horse monsters or magical singing or drowned strangers coming back from the dead. The only curious thing—besides Lily Soloman not opening the library yesterday—is that the gull shows up everywhere I go, ever since I saw it perched on the chain link fence outside the courthouse. Even when I go inside, I can see it through the windows, still as a sentry. The sight of it gives me a shiver, though it’s not the oddest thing I’ve seen in the last while.

“Boy! Boy!” Joseph calls out again. “ ’ook, Mama! Boy!”

Deirdre is standing beside me in her yellow dress, a basket of cut roses by her feet. Her face is ashen pale, except for the shadows under her eyes. She puts a gloved hand on Joseph’s shoulder. “Not boy, sweetheart. Bird. It’s a bird.”

He just keeps saying “boy, boy, boy,” making me laugh.

The three of us have been out here in the back garden for half an hour. Under the clear sky, Dad’s roses are starting to bloom—rows and rows of pink, white, red, and pale yellow. Their smell is cool green and candy sweet at the same time, nothing like that perfume Jeannine sometimes nicks from her mom’s bureau. As pretty as Dad’s roses smell and look, I’ll never come near them again without thinking about Gerry—his ghost in the bare April garden, that sad, sad music and that scent of rotting flowers all around me. I almost never come back here anymore, and I wouldn’t be here at all if Mom didn’t need all these roses for the MacLeans’ ruby wedding anniversary. It’s too bad, because I used to love this garden. Maybe I will again someday, but I can’t see that day yet.

Deirdre adds another deep-pink American Beauty to the bouquet she’s been gathering. They’re having the party up in Rollo Bay tonight, and Mom wants three dozen roses to place on the tables in the hall. Dad, Lou, and Les are playing, but I’m not allowed to go this time—too late an evening, Mom says, too far a ride home. Beyond the fence and the low cliff path down to the beach, the Strait rises and falls in swells that say a storm is somewhere out in the Gulf, somewhere not far. The high tide rolls into shore with the low rumble of crowds talking, and the breeze blows in cool from the water, sending a shudder through the back field and into the spruce wood beyond.

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