But as the “blow” approached, and the winds began, I quickly changed my mind.

“Reckon it’s a cyclone,” he said, as we looked out from the porch of his home and saw the trees bending nearly down to the ground, in winds so strong I could scarcely believe my own eyes. “Time to hunker down.”

We retreated to the room, and barred the two doors to the house from the inside.

Then the winds and rain began in earnest. His powers were useless—but Sally’s and mine proved to be of some utility, as we bent our magic to desperate measures and managed to find ways to strengthen the wood and stone of the house against a wind that tore at it as if it had been a helpless lamb and the storm a starving lion.

That day and night I envied those who were able to sleep through this. They, at least, could snatch an hour or two of rest. Sally and I dared not sleep, and only ate and drank when someone put food and water into our hands. Although the servants and slaves had never been told what we were, somehow I think they intuited that we were working to their safety, for they cared for us most tenderly.

Then there was a sudden calm, and Sally and I started up, intending to rejoice, but our host disabused us of the notion that we were safe. “This’s just a cruel, hard trick of the devil,” said our host. “But come outside an’ I’ll shew y’all.”

By now, it was sunset. We unbarred the doors and stepped out onto the porch into a landscape of utter destruction. We stood in the middle of an island of calm, and around us—all around us—the storm raged, a gigantic wall of wind and rain and fearful lightning that ringed us perfectly. Our safety, as our host had said, was an illusion. In mere hours the storm would be upon us, this time the winds howling around us from the opposite direction. I have never seen the like. Not even the worst that a winter in Mother Rus could bring could match anything so fierce as this. I hope never to see such again.

Once again we retreated into our safe room, Sally and I mustered our powers, and the storm began anew.

It was an untold number of hours of desperate work and terror before the winds began to drop again, our host told us that the worst was over, and we fell into a sleep of exhaustion of the sort I have never needed before or since.

When we emerged again, and saw the utter destruction, the houses and barns blown to pieces, the herds of drowned livestock, trees felled and the bodies of the dead being laid out by the survivors, Sally gave me such a look as told me she would be dead before she consented to live in a place that spawned such terrors.

Well, this was nothing like anything she had ever heard of before. Was this just exaggeration on Pavel’s part? “Aunt Jinny—” she began. “When yore Granpappy was in North Carolina—”