Читать книгу July Thunder - Rachel Lee - Страница 6

Lightning struck the same day Elijah Canfield arrived in Whisper Creek, Colorado. It struck at precisely the same hour, and within a few minutes of Elijah’s arrival. No one took note. Not then.

The lightning struck a forest as dry as tinder. It hadn’t rained in months, and the snowfall of the past winter had been light.

Had anyone been around just beforehand, they would have known it was coming. The charge built in the ground until boulders hummed like angry beehives. Animals scurried away, their coats prickling and trying to stand on end, racing through charged air that felt as if it were full of cobwebs. It was as if the mountain came alive with anger, as if its very spirit rose to the heavens in outrage. The world hummed and buzzed with fury.

No one saw it happen. The bolt came out of a nearly cloudless sky, unexpected, unlikely.

In an instant, with a single thunderous clap, the lightning struck, picking as its target a tall, dead pine. The pine rent with another crack, lost in the rolling explosion that echoed off surrounding mountains, then burst into flame. Thin wisps of black smoke rose from the burning pitch, blown away immediately by a brisk breeze, concealing the evidence that otherwise would have been visible for miles.

But the wind did more than conceal. It lifted and carried tongues of flame with it, scattering them almost merrily among the other trees. Some died before they found sustenance. A few licked happily at dry branches and grew.

But no one was there to see.

Just as no one was there to see when Elijah Canfield pulled his car up to The Little Church in the Woods some forty miles away. Elijah was a minister, and the church was to be his new home. It was a small congregation and a small church, but it was a congregation that thirsted for the message that Elijah brought with him, the same way the flames thirsted for the dry limbs and needles of the pines. Elijah brought thunder and hoped his words would strike as lightning.

And flames began to devour the mountain.