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Adelaide Watson was the most beautiful woman Emily had ever seen, a dazzling vision in khaki green, hair that fell in perfect golden waves to her shoulders, scarlet lips that formed a playful smile. Emily felt like a sack of flour beside her.

“Well, this is all quite the surprise!” she said, looking to Henry for an explanation as her arm was pumped energetically up and down like a piston.

Henry shrugged, a bemused look on his face.

“Sorry to land on you folks like this,” Adelaide said. “Took a bit of engine trouble in a duster and had to pitch her down real quick. Turns out your field was the one to catch us.”

“I watched Miss Adelaide fall out of the sky, Auntie Em! I told Uncle Henry right away!”

Dorothy’s excitement was contagious. Emily had never seen her so animated.

“Seems I chose just the right place to come down, too, Mrs.Gale. Dorothy has been such a dear. And your husband has been very helpful.”

Henry was clearly as enchanted by Adelaide as Dorothy was. “I’m sure he has,” Emily said with a wry smile. “And please, call me Emily.” She walked toward the aircraft. “I’m glad you made it down safely. What sort of plane is it?”

“This here’s a Jenny.” Adelaide affectionately ran her hand over the paintwork of the fuselage. “One of the best—or, at least, she was, in her heyday. She’s a bit beat up now, the old dear.”

“Aren’t we all,” Emily added.

Adelaide laughed. “Sure feels like it sometimes!”

“Isn’t she pretty!” Dorothy grabbed Emily’s hand.

For a moment, Emily thought the child was referring to their visitor, before she realized she was talking about the plane.

“What does the number 99 mean, Miss Adelaide?” Dorothy continued.

“I’m part of a group called the Ninety-Nines, a special club set up for female pilots and aviators. Our president is a wonderful lady called Amelia Earhart. You might have heard of her.”

Dorothy gasped. “You know Amelia Earhart?”

“Sure do! You like her?”

Dorothy nodded enthusiastically. “My mommy kept a scrapbook about her. She even had a traveling case with Miss Earhart’s name on it. I have a book about her!”

“Is that so! Then you know she’s from Kansas, right?”

Dorothy’s eyes widened. “She’s from Kansas, Auntie Em!”

Emily smiled. “Isn’t that something!”

“And a fine Kansas woman, too,” Adelaide added. “Raced against her in the Powder Puff Derby of ’29. Best female flyer I ever met, or likely ever will. She’s planning a solo transatlantic flight in a few weeks. Has me thinking about trying it myself one day.”

Dorothy asked question after question: Was it hard to fly a plane? Was it scary to be up so high? How did the plane stay in the sky?

“Say, would you like to sit in the cockpit, Dorothy?”

Emily stepped forward. “Oh, I’m not sure that’s a…”

Dorothy was already halfway inside before Emily could finish her sentence.

Adelaide took Dorothy’s hand to help her up. “That’s it. Climb up those steps there and just slide yourself right in.”

“I’m sure Miss Watson has plenty to be getting along with, Dorothy,” Emily said. “We don’t want to get in her way.”

Adelaide reassured them she didn’t have much to be getting on with at all. “Not until this old lady is fixed up. That’s the beauty of a life like mine. No schedule to follow. No appointments to keep, or miss. I make my own rules.”

“Well then, mind you don’t touch anything, or break anything, Dorothy,” Emily added as she stepped beneath the nose to admire the propellers.

“Touch away!” Adelaide countered. “No fun sitting up front if you can’t try out a few pedals and switches. Only way to learn how to fly is to have a go, right?”

Emily heard the contrast of her careful caution and worry compared to Miss Watson’s have-a-go enthusiasm.

She and her Jenny seemed to have stepped right out of a page of Dorothy’s book about Amelia Earhart, or one of the photographs she’d seen in the newspapers when Charles Lindbergh had flown the Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic.

She had followed the daring exploits of the aviators with a passing interest over the years, reading accounts of their latest achievements in the newspaper and listening to wireless reports, but it was something entirely different to come face-to-face with one in your barn. A woman, especially.

There was something about the female aviators’ bravery and glamour that Emily admired, not to mention their determination to match whatever the boys could do—beat them, even.

For someone whose life was so rooted to the earth, it was fascinating to read about these daring women in their flying machines.

Miss Watson encapsulated the sense of freedom and adventure Emily had once dreamed of with Annie when they were shopgirls at Field’s, and only seemed to exaggerate her flagging sense of direction, and self-worth.

“Have you been flying long, Miss Watson?” she asked.

“Since I was Dorothy’s age. My grandpa took me up one day and I was hooked! I’m one of the last of the barnstormers, scratching out a living from carnivals and county fairs, riding the coattails of the circus sideshows.”

Emily recalled the excitement the barnstormers had caused when they visited the prairie during the flying circus heydays of the twenties. “We used to see plenty of you loop-the-looping over the fields, didn’t we, Henry.”

“Sure did. We’d get dizzy, craning our necks to watch the show! We’ve hardly seen any barnstormers in recent years.”

“Since the federal government’s restrictions came in, we can’t perform as often as we did back then. I take my chances where I can. The circus is due to arrive in town next week and I’m hoping to run a bit of a sideshow if I can get this old dear fixed up.”

Dorothy’s excitement increased. “The circus! Can we go, Auntie Em? See the circus and Miss Adelaide’s show?”

Emily was reminded of Dorothy chasing the old circus pamphlet down the sidewalk in Chicago, and how she’d promised her there would be other chances to go.

She’d seen the Ringling’s circus posters in town earlier, and had tried to ignore them.

For so long now, she’d put Annie’s aerialist to the back of her mind, but seeing the posters and hearing Dorothy’s excitement brought it all rushing back.

It was silly to think that Leonardo might still be performing his Amazing Ascensions—after all, who cared about someone dangling from a balloon when people were performing stunts on the wings of airplanes?

—and it was even more absurd to think that he somehow knew he had a daughter living in Kansas, yet an irrational worry nagged and nagged at Emily.

For years, Leo had lurked like a shadow in her conscience, never quite real, but always there.

He was, after all, the reason she and Annie had fallen out and grown apart.

He was a dark secret she kept from Henry, even now, after Annie and John’s accident.

The task of raising Dorothy worried Emily terribly, but her greatest fear was that they would learn to love the child beyond all measure, and have to, one day, let her go.

Henry had longed for a child so dearly. If Leonardo appeared now to try and take Dorothy away, or even if he arrived and exposed the secrets Emily had kept from Henry…

there was too much at stake, too much of their life that was already precariously balanced.

She couldn’t bear to think about anything upsetting Henry so deeply.

He was hanging on by a thread as it was.

She pushed the thoughts from her head as Dorothy tugged on her arm.

“Please, Auntie Em! Can we go?”

She didn’t want to appear boring in front of Adelaide. “Very well. But you must do all your chores first.”

Dorothy promised she would. “I’ll do extra chores. I’ll even clean out the pigs!”

She’d taken a dislike to the pigs after falling into their sty—even after she’d been specifically told not to walk around the top of the fence—so this offer was a testament to just how eager she was.

“Don’t suppose I could interest you folk in a free ride in exchange for a barn to sleep in for a few nights and a landing strip in your field?” Adelaide asked, her face hopeful. “But only if I’m not imposing.”

Henry popped his head up from beneath the wheels.

“I’m sure we can manage that, although you should know that we’ve had a couple of vagrants show up lately.

Homeless folk headed west and looking for a place to rest the night.

Mostly harmless, but you’ve to keep your wits about you. Desperate folk can be unpredictable.”

“I’ll sleep with one eye open! I’m saving up for a solo transatlantic attempt. Have to take folks’ generosity and hospitality where I can.”

“A solo flight?” Emily said. “That’s very brave.”

“Brave, or foolish? My mother can’t understand why I would want to do such a thing. Know what I say to her in reply? Why not?”

The words reminded Emily of something she might have said years ago, when she’d been a fearless optimistic like Adelaide. Now her life was one of hard facts and careful calculations. She could neither emotionally or financially afford to ask such an open-ended question as why not.

“Don’t have to worry about anyone else when you’re flying solo,” Adelaide continued.

“Although I’m hoping to team up with one of those rainmakers for a while first. Travel across the prairie towns.

Take a share of the profits,” she explained.

“The closer you get to the clouds, the better those explosives must work, right? We’d be a match made in heaven. Quite literally!”

Henry was interested. “I heard of a rainmaker out Dalhart way. Might be a good place to start looking, although from what I’ve heard they seem to move around quickly, so he might already be someplace else.”

Adelaide was grateful for the tip-off. “I’ll head out that way when I have this old girl fixed up. See if I can track him down.”

“And if you do find this sorcerer, bring him back, will you? We sure could do with some rain.” Henry’s light humor hid the despair Emily knew he held in his heart. “In the meantime, you are very welcome to stay, isn’t she, Em?”

Emily smiled graciously, although she didn’t know how they would ever manage to feed the woman.

She was slender, at least. Perhaps she didn’t eat much.

And despite her reservations, and the dizzying sense that her life was spinning wildly out of control, she heard herself saying, “Of course. I’ll set an extra place for dinner. ”

“Sounds like a deal! Thank you. And please, let me provide dinner.” Adelaide reached into the back seat of the Jenny and lifted out a dead jackrabbit. “Knocked him clean out when I landed.”

Emily couldn’t help but smile. It seemed that Adelaide Watson had an answer for everything.

After they’d all eaten and Adelaide had taken herself off to the barn to sleep, Emily sat for a while on the porch, watching the stars as she turned the events of the day over in her mind.

It had all happened so quickly that she’d barely had time to process everything.

Not only was Dorothy living with them, but they now had a stranger staying in their barn.

“Quite a day, huh,” Henry said as he joined her.

“It certainly was.” Emily suddenly worried they’d all been bewitched by Adelaide’s vivacious manner and beauty and had made a mistake in inviting her to stay so readily. “Do you think she’s legit? She’s not going to rob us in the night and fly away, is she?”

Henry laughed lightly. “Yes, I do think she’s legit. And no, I don’t think she’s going to rob us in the night. For a start, what do we have that’s worth robbing?”

He made a good point.

“Besides, it’s heartwarming to see Dorothy so excited.” He shook his head. “Isn’t life strange. It’s almost like we wished for Miss Watson and she appeared, like a genie from a lamp.”

“Perhaps we did wish for her,” Emily said, remembering how she’d prayed for a sign that better times were coming. “Maybe she’s the change we’ve all been hoping for.”

There was certainly a different feeling to the house that night, a lightness Emily hadn’t felt for a long time. For a few precious hours, as they’d listened to Adelaide’s stories and laughter had filled the house, she’d forgotten about dust storms and grain yields and drought.

While the sky hadn’t brought the rain she’d prayed for, maybe it had delivered something just as valuable. Adelaide Watson was a burst of color in their faded dusty world. She was a glimpse of the dreams they’d once held, a vibrant reminder of the sense of wonder they’d lost along the way.