Her skin itched at the thought of going down into the cellar. She always felt like spiders or bugs were crawling on her body, or that a mouse was chasing across her feet.

She covered her ears at the first distant rumble of thunder, like she had when she was a little girl. Not wanting Nessa to think she was a big baby, she removed her hands when her cousin slid in behind the steering wheel. She needed a diversion, something to talk about while the lightning zipped through the sky and left another clap of thunder in its wake. “Did Nanny Lucy ever tell you the tornado story?”

Nessa started the engine and shook her head. “No, come to think of it, she didn’t say an awful lot to either me or Flynn while we were here. Do you know that story?”

“Yes, I do,” April answered. “She was deathly afraid of storms, and we relived the story every year during tornado season. I made up my mind that I would never go down in one of those shelter things again when I left home. I hated the smell even more than the spiders and scorpions that lived down there.”

“Tell me what it was that y’all relived,” Nessa said as she backed the vehicle out and started down the dirt road toward the highway.

“She and Grandpa Everett were engaged,” April started. “Grandpa was working on the railroad, and Nanny Lucy had just finished high school. He had come to see her that evening in the house south of Blossom where she and her folks lived. A storm came up, but it wasn’t just a thunderstorm like this, but a full-fledged tornado. The four of them, Nanny Lucy, her parents, and Grandpa, were crammed in a cellar along with several neighbors for over an hour, waiting for the tornado to pass over. She said . . .” April’s hands went to her ears when a streak of lightning hit a nearby tree, and the thunder that followed it sounded like it was sitting on top of Nessa’s SUV.

“That was pretty close.” Nessa’s voice quivered. “We’re more than halfway there, so what do you want to do? Go home or go on?”