The wind was picking up—a gentle breeze now rustled my static-ravaged hair. The storm was moving so fast—already at the far reaches of our farm. The duster would swallow the house in minutes.

“Henry!” I shouted, my voice breaking. “Henry, hurry!”

He sprinted up the stairs onto the porch, grabbing my elbow to tug me inside. I stopped to close the door, then tore the drapes down from a nearby window to stuff them under the door—one more gap plugged, although I knew it would make little difference.

Henry had the presence of mind to take the tub of batter I’d made and drop it over the fire, instantly smothering the flames with a sizzle and a burst of oddly delicious, corn-scented smoke. Next he scooped a lantern off the kitchen table, and I followed him back to Mother and Dad’s room. While I pushed the wet towel beneath the door, he lit the lantern.

“We can sit on the bed today,” Henry reminded me when, out of habit, I moved to sit on the floor. I felt a pang of distress.

“They’re out in this,” I whispered.

“I know.”

“There isn’t even any glass in that car.”

“I know, Lizzie. They’ll stop at someone’s house. They’ll find shelter. They know what to do.”

We could see the road when we moved the sheet over Mother and Dad’s window. In that direction, it might have been an ordinary afternoon. The wind was picking up, stirring the dust around the house, but the sun was still shining. As I spread gobs of Vaseline under my nose, I stared at the road, hoping to see the Hoover cart.

The golden afternoon light was tinged with brown and gray, and then the whole world took on a red-brown sheen, as if the glass became colored. Then, so quickly I could scarcely believe it, the light faded away until I couldn’t even see the empty driveway, not three feet from that bedroom window. We had been swallowed into the belly of the beast.

“Henry,” I croaked, as swirling dust began to creep in through the cracks in the roof, the walls, the floor—carried by startlingly icy air. Henry already had his wet cloth over his mouth and nose, and he motioned for me to do the same. It had been so still all day, but now the wind began to thunder against the house, until the whole structure was shaking, and so were Henry and I. We sat side by side in a terrible, terrified silence, listening helplessly as the barn of the chicken coop collapsed, and as a window in another room of the house shattered.

“Do you think this is the end of the world?” I asked Henry after a while, my voice small.

“Don’t be silly, sis,” he said. “It’s just another storm. It’s a bad one, sure, but it’s just a storm.”