The Thunder Between Us

How it begins

Every repaired violin sent one note into the rain. Celia Voss had blamed the acoustics until the rain began answering in tune.

She worked above a bookshop, in a room crowded with patient instruments and jars whose labels only she could read. At forty-three, she could identify a cracked seam by touch and a dishonest customer by the phrase only a small job. She did not believe in messages from storms.

On Thursday, she replaced a bridge on a school instrument. The first note rose cleanly. Outside, rain struck the window in four measured taps. She played the phrase again. The rain completed it.

Celia opened the window.

A man stood on the fire escape, though she had heard no footsteps on the metal stairs. Water ran through his coat without darkening it. His hair moved in a wind that did not reach the room.

'Please don't stop,' he said.

She held the violin closer. 'Who are you?'

'Arun.' He glanced upward, as if the rest of his name might cause a disturbance. 'I look after the weather above this city.'

'Badly, at present.'

A small smile crossed his face. Down below, the rain softened. Celia noticed the connection and wished she had not.

He touched the window frame. The wood was dry beneath his fingers. 'Your repairs reach a place I haven't been able to leave.'

'And now?'

'Now I can hear a way back.'

Across the street, the grocer pulled an awning over crates of oranges. A cyclist hurried through the puddles. Thousands of ordinary lives were moving beneath the weather Arun carried. Celia looked from them to the stranger on her fire escape.

She wanted to play another note. The desire was sudden, private and dangerously easy.

'Before I do,' she said, 'tell me what happens to everyone else if I keep calling you down.'