Chapter 4
The sky changed. Britton always warned us about the first storm of the season, but this feels different. Heavier somehow. It feels like the sky is falling, just waiting for the mountains to catch it, and I don’t like looking at it. It doesn’t hurt my eyes the way the sunshine does in the summer, but it’s scary because it makes me sense I’m waiting for something to happen. Something bad. It’s true, thunder never fazes me. I understand that it’s a long way off and that it can’t hurt me—Sharon explained this the first time it happened when I was a puppy. She told me that the clouds were racing real fast to get out of the rain and bashing into each other, the way I sometimes skitter across the kitchen floor because there’s no carpet for my claws to find purchase.
But she doesn’t tell me that story now.
She stands next to me on the porch, smoking, and staring at the sky like she’s searching for something bad too. “I’ll need to go shopping before this storm hits, Dill.” She reaches d…
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