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High above, the heaving cloud marched on. It moved in a peculiar way that Emily had come to recognize. Not twisting like a tornado or blowing hard like an approaching hailstorm, but an unstoppable rolling motion.

They were in the middle of nowhere. Exposed, with no shelter as the duster drew closer, dense and brooding. The bright afternoon sun faded behind the black mass, leaving an eerie twilight.

Toto fussed and whined in Dorothy’s arms as she reached for Emily’s hand. “Is it a twister, Auntie Em?”

“A duster, Dorothy. Quickly. Help me seal up the windows.”

They had learned to go nowhere now without rags and newspaper to stuff against the car windows, and cloths to put over their faces.

Emily pulled the child close to her, remembering the times Annie had held her during a thunderstorm. “Keep the cloth to your face and keep your eyes closed. Do you understand?”

Dorothy nodded and clung tight to Toto.

Within minutes, coarse grit flew against the car windows, rattling against the glass like gunfire.

The finer particles of prairie dust crept easily inside the car through the smallest gaps, peppering their skin like needles.

They coughed and sneezed, their noses and throats irritated by the abrasive dust, their eyes sore and streaming from the fine grit as the duster rolled overhead, and day became night, and the windows rattled so hard Emily was certain they would shatter.

Toto whined and barked. Dorothy tried to reassure him.

For a minute that felt like an hour, the sky rumbled and the dust rolled. Then the noise fell away, and daylight began to return.

Emily said a prayer of thanks.

“Good job it wasn’t the big one they keep talking about,” Henry said as he cranked the engine. The motor started up again as the sun reappeared. “Even that was plenty big enough.”

Emily released her grip on the child. “It’s all right now, Dorothy. It’s over. Look, even Toto is wagging his tail.”

But when Emily looked at Dorothy, she saw fear in her eyes.

“It was like my dream, Auntie Em. A terrible blackness.”

“And now it’s over, dear. Like your dream, it has gone away.”

But the dust never truly went away. It settled wherever it had been, leaving its mark on everything and everyone.

Dorothy coughed all the way home. When she sneezed that evening, black dirt discolored her handkerchief.

A terrible blackness.

Emily put the handkerchief into the copper to wash.

The dust storm was a warning and a reminder all at once.

She’d heard of more and more people getting sick with the dust. Many families across the Great Plains were sending children away to stay with relatives in states and cities where the dust didn’t blow.

For months now, Emily had watched the dusters roll through and heard Dorothy coughing at night, and she couldn’t help thinking that she’d brought the child to the worst place imaginable.

Not for the first time, she found herself lacking when it came to her ability to keep Dorothy safe, and no matter how much she wished she could turn away from the reality facing her and Henry, it was clear that Annie had placed her trust—her daughter—in the hands of the wrong sister.

The facts were clear: Dorothy would be much safer with Nell and Bill in California.

Never quite able to find the words or the courage to broach the subject with Henry, she’d put it off. Until now.

“I was thinking I would write to Nell,” she said that evening.

“That would be nice. You haven’t heard from her in a while.” Henry was distracted by a nagging pain in his stomach and wasn’t really listening.

Emily took a deep breath. “I think it would be safer for Dorothy to go and stay with Nell. Just for a while. Until the dust stops blowing.”

Henry looked up from his books. “Send her to California? Are you serious?”

Emily nodded. “I don’t think Kansas is safe for her anymore. She’d be better off in California with Nell.” She drew in a long breath and let out a sigh. “Maybe we’d all be safer there.”

At this, Henry sat up. “You want to leave?”

“No, Henry. I don’t want to leave. But I don’t know how to stay either. I don’t know how to make this work. Not with Dorothy. I’m afraid she’ll get sick with the dust pneumonia. The hospital is overrun with folk struggling to breathe. Plenty of children, too.”

Henry was silent for a long time. The facts were hard to argue against. “You really think we should send her away?”

“I do.”

He ran his hands through his hair. “I’d miss her, Em. I’d miss her something terrible. But if you think it’s for the best, then I guess that’s what we must do.”

Emily turned at the creak of a board behind her.

Dorothy was standing inside the screen door, Toto in her arms, tears falling down her cheeks.

“Please don’t send Toto away, Auntie Em! Please, Uncle Henry!”

Emily ran to the child. “Oh, Dorothy, dear.” She pulled her into her arms. “We’re not sending Toto away.”

“But I heard you talking about sending him away to California, to Aunt Nell. Please don’t! I promise I’ll look after him.”

Emily looked at Henry, guilt etched across both their faces.

Henry stood up. “We’re not sending anyone away, Dorothy. Now, how about you and Toto go to bed.”

Emily took Dorothy’s hand. “Come along. Time for bed, both of you.”

But as she tucked a curl behind Dorothy’s ear and Toto settled at the child’s feet, Emily felt the stab of dishonesty pierce her heart.

No matter how distressing it would be for the child—for them all—sending her to California was the only sensible and safe thing to do. The prairie had already taken so much from them. Emily refused to let it take Dorothy, too.

She would write to Nell in the morning.

She would beg her to take Dorothy if she must.