I could feel every heartbeat in my chest we turned and took off across the field.
We'd done this before, I reminded myself. We'd survived this before. Outran it.
We'd do it again.
Calix's little nails dug into the flesh of my forearms as he gripped them for dear life.
There was a well in my godmother's backyard, I recalled, and whenever we'd be over visiting, we'd be reminded not to go near it. It was uncovered, and bottomless, as far as any of us knew. But that was okay, because everyone was careful around it, and no one would fall in.
Until we were wrong.
My eighth birthday party was held at my godmother's house, and I still remembered the day clearly. Not having any friends apart from Echo, my mother decided it was a suitable idea to invite my entire class: bullies, boys, and idiots not excluded.
Idiot #1 (who also happened to be a boy) decided it was a good idea to dare the most timid girl in the class to walk the ring around the well without holding on to anything. When said timid girl declined (because the timid girl was not actually stupid), Idiot #2 (who was also a bully) decided she would berate the poor child until she took up the dare.
Her name had been Emilee, and all it had taken was a single missed step.
When I was later lectured at home concerning the issue - the same conversation in which it was revealed that I would not be allowed at my godmother's house again - I recalled my mother mentioning that just because it was Emilee who had fallen, that it wasn't necessarily the other children's faults.
That well had been a grenade.
Everyone had been careful around it, but it had always been there, just lying in wait. There would always be one oversight. Just one occurrence that someone would slip up on, and it would result is a death.
And now this cloud was the same way.
This cloud was the well that we had walked around. The well we had avoided at all costs.
We were bound to make the wrong mistake at the wrong time.
The cloud rolled in over us, and thunder started, alerting us of an oncoming storm, and we stopped, laughing at ourselves in relief. Because this was a regular cloud we were running from, not a poisonous one.
We celebrated too soon.
A bolt of lightening hit the ground some twelve feet in front of us, and the horses reared in fright, sending the four of us to the ground. They retreated a small distance away, leaving me to scramble to my feet and reach for Calix. But he was gone.
The air was becoming thicker, and the wind was blowing stronger as I turned around wildly, shouting my brother's name. I felt Echo grab my shoulder from behind and turned to see Madeline running toward my brother's figure which was huddled on the ground.
It took mere seconds to recognize the scent of Cyanide and whatever it was mixed with, and then I turned suddenly toward where my brother was and screamed: "No, Madeline! It's not just a storm!"
Lightning struck again, so close that the ground beneath my feet tremored. The wind whistled in my ears, and then it was gone, and only the rain was coming down from the cloudy sky.
I turned once more toward Madeline and Calix and squinted in the distance, attempting to make out their forms in the rain. She was cradling him, I saw, and then my heart stopped.
"Calix!" I screamed.
Not my brother...
I took off toward them, my heart racing in my ears as I screamed his name over and over again.
Dear God, not my brother. Anything but him...
"Calix!"
I saw Madeline look toward me as I skidded to a stop nearly two yards from them and looked at her, silently begging for some form of the answer I was looking for. Some confirmation that a miracle had happened. That the star I had wished on just five days before had not gone astray...
But Madeline's brokenhearted silence spoke even more words than all the reassurances I wished for combined.
Wishes didn't come true, and no God would send a miracle such as this to a person like me.