Wide Open by Deborah Coates

Brett asked as she finished putting a dozen glasses into a side cupboard.
    “Everything,” Lorie said. “I answer phones and do invoices and take inventory on new shipments. I—”
    She was interrupted by a loud crash of thunder followed by a rumble so low, Hallie could feel it in her chest. It went on for what seemed like forever. A brief rattle of hail on the roof, then rain, slashing down like they were suddenly in the middle of a rain forest in monsoon season. Hallie went to the kitchen door and opened it. People who’d been in the yard talking or getting ready to leave ran for the barn or the porch or their cars. Lightning struck in the field not more than two hundred yards away.
    Then it was done. Water dripping off trees and the porch roof, droplets glistening in the sun, which had already reemerged.
    “Jesus,” Hallie said.
    “That’s the way it’s been,” Lorie said. “Weather all the time.”
    *   *   *
     
    After the rain stopped, Hallie went outside to look for her father—she was ready to be gone, had had enough of people and shaking hands and hugging. None of it brought her any closer to understanding how Dell had died or what she’d been doing out on the Seven Mile. And another day was nearly gone.
    Down by the barn, she found Tel Sigurdson and Tom Hauser looking at an old Farmall tractor that probably hadn’t been moved in thirty years, grass tall around it and the dried vines of morning glories winding through the steering wheel.
    “Those turbines are twice as efficient for their size,” Tel was saying. “I’ve seen the data. And the demo, with that machine he’s got? It’s way beyond cloud seeding. He can bring the rain. He can—” He stopped at Hallie’s approach.
    “Are you talking about Uku-Weber?” Hallie asked.
    There was a moment of guilty silence. Then Tel said, “It’s a hell of a thing. They’re planning another demonstration next week, split a storm front. If you’re around, you should—” He broke off as if he’d remembered exactly why Hallie was around. “I mean—”
    “Yeah,” she said.
    “What do you think about Martin Weber?” she asked. “Have you met him?”
    Tel shrugged. “He seems sincere. Not like a lot of these guys you see coming here because they think we’re dumber than shit and we’ll work cheap. You see him around, too. He comes to town meetings and he’ll come into the Dove, you know, for breakfast. He listens to what people say, doesn’t just try to tell us what we ought to think. He seems all right.”
    Hallie looked at Tom, but he didn’t add anything to what Tel had already said, just looked across the field like the answer was out there somewhere.
    “Have you seen my dad?” Hallie asked, letting him off the hook a bit.
    Tom looked at her then, waved a hand toward the road. “Headed up that way, last I saw,” he said.
    “Thanks.” Hallie walked back toward the vehicles parked along the lane; it was completely possible that her father was sitting in the pickup truck, waiting for her to show.
    She was thinking about what Tel had said, about weather and Uku-Weber, when Jennie Vagts fell into step beside her. Neither of them said anything right away. Dell drifted backwards in front of Hallie as she walked.
    Hallie stopped. “Did you want something?” she said.
    Jennie looked startled. “I was heading out.” She gestured up the lane, presumably toward her car.
    “Oh.”
    “It was—” Jennie shifted from one foot to the other.
    Dell laid a ghostly hand on Jennie’s face. The sun emerged from clouds in that same moment, and in the bright afternoon light, Hallie almost missed it. Along Jennie’s jaw was the same lightning bolt configuration she’d seen on Dell’s neck.
    She grabbed Jennie’s wrist. “What’s going on?” she asked. “What does that mean?”
    “What are you talking about?” Jennie tried to jerk her arm away.
    It looked like a faded tattoo, like a watermark.
    Dell drifted away. The mark