Thirty-Five
Joanna, Heron, Grace, and Henna ended up in the same shelter. They shared it with over a thousand other citizens and soldiers. As they squatted in the dark, in the sealed space below ground, Henna explained how the shelters were built over a century ago in order to weather the worst of the western storms. How they’d been constructed away from the houses and other buildings, so that should the buildings come down, nothing would lie on top of the exits, blocking the people inside.
But the storms had lessened in recent years and were not the ones that Henna remembered from her childhood. Even so, they could still expect one or two strong squalls each year, and winters that were long and ruthless.
Grace listened to these stories and imagined the life these people had been forced
