The rain was still pouring down when she went bed. She curled up, pulling the covers up over her ears, but could not block out the beating of the rain on the rickety roof, like a million fingers tapping out a rhythm against the metallic covering. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, tried to focus on the sound of the breath in her chest, but then she heard it again. That strange thunder echoed in her skull. It didn’t sound like thunder at all, but like moaning. It sounded like a broken heart.
She knew she wouldn’t sleep. The rain had made sure of that for the past several nights. She would lie awake in bed, waiting for the storm to soothe itself, but it never did. And the wailing echoed in her ears until the drab grey light of morning broke through the drab blackness of the rainy night.
Earlier that night, she’d heard Father speaking to mother. They didn’t know she was listening and probably thought she couldn’t hear them over the noise of the rain. The crops won’t survive this rain, he said. He’d said that at this point, they might not have a harvest at all, that no one could buy corn that had rotted away in the ground.
She lay in bed, imagining the vegetables rotting inside the earth, the golden corn turning black and melting away. They weren’t just vegetables. No harvest meant nothing to sell. And that meant no money for food or clothes. No money to buy new seeds or fresh firewood. They had always been comfortable, with enough to eat and some to share with their neighbors, but no harvest meant an end to that. She imagined not having food on the table, empty cupboards and empty stomachs. She imagined seeing their cows and pigs half-starved.
A roll of strange moaning thunder broke through her thoughts and her eyes snapped open.
She knew she had to stop the rain.
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