Shuttered Sky

a life out of cinders, but sifting out those ashes from a trillion particles of dust—and although Okoya told them this was possible, Dillon’s own faith was sorely lacking.

To Dillon’s right, Michael hunched on all fours, straining to keep the winds churning around the low-pressure eye. To Dillon’s left, Winston tried to tell him something, but Dillon couldn’t hear a thing over the roar of the wind.

The particles of dust churning in the air were already coalescing into a rougher grit, taking on texture and color. Particles of leaves, bits of bark and feather down. The memory of the dust over Dallas.

Dillon reached a hand out of their protective bubble, feeling the grit sift through his fingers, and he began to concentrate his thoughts on Tory; the way she looked, the sound of her voice, the feel of her cleansing presence— every memory he could find. The patterns of the wind changed as he thought of her; slim dust flares snaked down through the swirling clouds.

And when Dillon pulled back his hand, his palm was ashen gray.

He brushed the dust from his fingers onto a spot he cleared in the brush, then thrust both hands into the maelstrom, and repeated the process, again and again, each time brushing the milligrams of dust from his hands until the dust became a small pile. How much would it take to substantiate her? How much of Michael’s body had they needed for Winston to bridge the gaps? Dillon knelt down to Michael and screamed in his ear. “I think we’re going to need water!”

Michael nodded. He didn’t open his eyes or change positions, but in a moment the air around them fogged and the brush grew heavy with dew.

Dillon reached his hands into the dust cloud again, thrusting them up to his elbows, while on the ground, the pile of fine ash condensed into tiny particles of bone.

* * *

In the Durango, Drew and Okoya waited the better part of an hour in the swirling winds, isolated, with only static from the radio. Okoya was hardly a comforting presence. He made no conversation, and spent much of the time grooming himself, brushing his hair and admiring his reflection in the vanity mirror, obviously pleased with the effect Dillon’s presence had on his tartared teeth and mangy hair. His motions were so feminine, it reminded Drew that he was in fact both genders at once—that their subjective designation of Okoya as a “he” was for convenience. He recalled that Tory and Lourdes had both considered Okoya a woman.

Finally Drew heard the sound of the wind diminish; a long, slow exhale, and the direction of the wind changed, blowing back to the north. Dust flowed across the windshield but the dust began to thin, giving way to something else entirely. A storm of leaves and flower petals of every color now blew across their line of vision, until the wind died, leaving the car draped in a floral blanket. To the north Drew could see the wind storm retreating, trailed by a swarm of leaves and petals. The telephone poles reemerged from the cloud, then the farm house and the trees beyond it.

He opened his car to a fresh organic aroma pervading the air. Sap and chlorophyll, magnolia blossom and rose.

Out in the field a small oasis had bloomed. Saplings and shrubs were woven together by ivy and brightly colored trumpet vines. A shock wave of rats, rabbits and field mice exploded outward, while up above every bird from blue jay to crow took to the sky. A menagerie of life drawn back from the dust.

Drew took to the field, stomping through the thick dew-covered brush, kicking up swarms of insects, anxious to see with his own eyes what was now hidden within the heart of the oasis.

* * *

She was aware. She was aware, but only barely.

She could hear several people asking questions, voicing exclama­tions, but her mind had not congealed enough to attach any meaning to the words. The voices were ones she recognized; their timbre and rhythm familiar enough to set her at ease. She tried to open her eyes, but a grit of sand beneath her eyelids made opening her eyes painful, so she kept them closed. She felt hands brushing dust from her and she laughed at their touch, a bit intoxicated by the unexpected tactile sensation. She did not even attempt to dredge up how she came to be here. For once, if only this once, she was content to be in the inebri­ating now.

She tried to open her eyes again, and this time found it a bit easier, although her vision was still clouded. Someone had slipped a robe around her, and now she was being carried through a lush field.

Michael was the first face she locked onto and identified. “Hey,” he said gently, when he saw her gazing at him. “How’ve ya’ been, Tory?” His voice sounded tired, strained, as if the simple phrase took great effort to push out. She opened her mouth to speak, but found her throat clogged. She coughed, spouting a flurry of flower petals. How odd.

Her legs and arms were still exposed to the cold day, and she could feel her fingertips and toes chill. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. She wiggled her toes, to find a fine grit between them; indeed, the fine sand covered her body, as if she had been rolled in the white sands of a gulf beach. But it wasn’t just on her, the grit was in her—deep in her, but migrating outward, expelled in a powdery smoke with her breath, exuded through her pores.

Up ahead was a red car. An SUV. She was pushed in, and by the time everyone else had piled in and the doors had closed, her level of awareness had tuned itself enough to start formulating the fundamental questions of where, how, and how long.

She knew all the faces around her. Michael to her left, Winston to her right. Drew and Dillon in the front seat, and behind her—

Okoya!

She flinched, throwing Michael a panicked glance. “No! We have to tell the others! Warn them about Okoya.”

“Easy.” Michael said. “Okoya’s not the problem now.”

“Okoya’s not the problem now,” she repeated, trying to make the absurd suggestion stick. “Then what is the problem?”

Dillon spoke up next. “Ask again later,” he said flatly, as if she had hit the null response of a Magic 8- Ball.

She accepted his advice, not really caring to know what could be worse that Okoya. “I’m hungry,” she told them.

Winston chuckled. “Death must be like sex,” he said. “Makes you hungry.”

“How would you know?” teased Michael. Winston burned him a glare, and Tory grinned. Just like old times. But the times weren’t old, were they? And did someone say death?

Drew started the car and the heater came on. In a few moments it was pouring warm air over her. The SUV rocked uneasily over the dirt, then climbed a slight embankment up to the road. As Tory’s lucidity continued to grow, she did remember the collapse of the dam, and the way she and Michael had tumbled through the sky.

She turned once more to glance at Okoya, who offered her a nod, and the faintest of smiles. Her downy sense of contentment almost completely gone now, she found the questions mounting faster than she could process them.

“Where’s Lourdes?” she asked. “Why isn’t she here, too? Is she dead?”

“Might as well be,” grumbled Winston.

Drew pulled from the narrow shoulder, and onto the two-lane highway, accelerating to sixty-five. He took his eyes from the road for a moment to scan through local stations. No stations are programmed, Tory thought. Does that mean we’re far from home? When did Drew get a Durango? When did Drew start driving?

Michael put his arm around her, and she found herself sliding deeper into his grasp, wanting to be up against him. She looked at him, and he only smiled. Were we in love? She thought. No, but perhaps they should have been. Tory closed her eyes, and forced the questions away, allowing herself to enjoy her growing sense of well-being.

* * *

Dillon expected their powers would surge again with the addition of Tory. What he didn’t expect was what Okoya called “syntaxis.” It began as a subtle thing; none of them really noticed the visceral pull toward one another at first. There were too many things to think about as they drove from Tory’s birthing place. Drew, for instance, who suffered to sustain himself within their spiked fields of power, his hands shaking as he gripped the wheel. “I