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Henry had found her sheltering in an old dugout from an abandoned claim, drawn to her by the sound of Toto’s frantic barks. It was a miracle.

But although Dorothy had survived the duster, it had filled her lungs with the filthy earth and left her desperately sick.

Emily’s worst fears had come true.

She had waited too long.

It was unbearable to see the child in the hospital bed, her body weak, her face flushed hot with a fever.

The doors and windows were covered with wet blankets to keep out the worst of the dust that still blew, but too much had already crept into Dorothy’s lungs over the dry months.

The wards were full of children suffering from dust pneumonia, struggling to draw breath.

The room smelled of the kerosene and turpentine salve that had been applied to Dorothy’s chest to try and ease her breathing.

Emily sat at her bedside, utterly distraught.

The poor child coughed so hard Emily was sure she would choke. She patiently wiped the filthy black dirt from her mouth and washed away the ruby flecks of blood that settled on her skin.

Days and nights passed, and still the child lay desperately ill, consumed with a fever. Emily refused to leave her side. She remembered the promise she’d made, and she wasn’t going to break it.

“Come home, Em. Get some rest,” Henry urged.

Home.

Emily had wrestled with the sentiment all these months, yet as she looked at Dorothy now, she understood that she’d been holding on to the wrong meaning of the word.

Home wasn’t their little prairie house, or Liberal, or Kansas for that matter.

Home was wherever she wanted to be the most, and right now, that was here, in the hospital, beside her dear Dorothy.

From her bedside vigil, she read to Dorothy from her prairie journal, traveling back through the early months and years when there wasn’t any dust at all and the prairie had danced in all the colors of the rainbow.

She told her the stories of old Ireland, of the little people and magical lands.

She told her all about Annie, her mother, and her Aunt Nell, and sang the songs of their childhood.

Adelaide kept Emily company. In the aftermath of the dust storm, she’d dug her way through the drifts of dust to make her way back to the farm in the motorcar, and had found Henry carrying the sick child.

Thanks to Adelaide, they’d gotten Dorothy to the hospital hours before Henry could ever have managed on foot, saving vital hours that could make all the difference.

“What will you do now, Emily?” Adelaide asked. “Will you stick it out in Kansas, or leave?”

Emily had asked the same question a thousand times. She’d shied away from it, tried to ignore it, but she’d finally made a quiet peace with the unavoidable truth: They could no longer stay. And so they must leave.

“I wish I were free-spirited like you, Adelaide. Not tethered to one place.”

“Be careful what you wish for. There’s worry and fear in freedom, too.

The restless quest for happiness isn’t always an enjoyable road to follow.

Just around the next corner, a bit further, tomorrow, next year.

Always the lure of something else, something better, something more.

What if? Where next? It’s a trap all of its own.

And, for what it’s worth, I envy what you have. ”

Emily thought of the barren dust-smothered patch of prairie they called home. “Well, there’s not much to envy.”

“I don’t mean material things. I mean what you have with Henry and Dorothy. A family. Love.” She paused for a moment. “After Cooper died, I didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else. I was afraid to let anyone in, afraid to let anyone trust me.”

“Cooper is your brother?”

Adelaide nodded. “Named after Cooper Creek in Australia. He was such a great kid. God damn, I miss him.”

“I’m so sorry. You never told me what happened.”

“Mechanical failure on the plane. They said it could have happened any time during the performance, but it was me who insisted we push for one more trick. I wanted to prove something to all the men who think women don’t make decent pilots.

Turns out all I proved was that I’m a reckless fool.

” She took a moment. “I always go too far, Emily. Never know when to stop or pull back. It’s my fault he’s not here. My fault we crashed.”

Emily offered her condolences. There wasn’t much else she could say. She recognized the ache of loss, the guilt and regret that followed in grief’s silent wake.

Adelaide drew in a long breath. “Truth is, I lost part of myself the day I lost him. That’s why I fly solo. Take my own risks. Enjoy my own successes and only have myself to blame for my failures. I keep flying, keep moving on, too afraid of what might happen if I stay still for too long.”

“You once told me fear is a temporary thing,” Emily said. “?‘Face it, and it doesn’t exist anymore. Turn away from it and it’ll haunt you forever.’?”

“I said that? Huh. Maybe I should listen to my own advice.”

Emily tore her eyes from Dorothy and looked at Adelaide. “Maybe you should. I’ve thought about your words often. Maybe it’s time for you to team up with someone again—in the cockpit, and in life.”

“Marriage, you mean? Scares the heck out of me.”

“Scares the heck out of me, too.”

Adelaide smiled. “You know, seeing you and Henry has made me think about things differently. I always thought marriage had to be perfect, but it seems to me you’re still figuring it out.

But you do it together, as a team. I miss that—the partnership, the fun.

Someone to share the highs and lows with along the way. ”

Emily reached for Adelaide’s hand. “Then maybe it’s time for us both to face the thing we fear the most. Confront the monster in our fairy tale.”

During her visits, Adelaide also brought news of the others in town. Everyone had suffered terribly, but Emily was relieved to hear they’d all survived. All except Wilhelmina West’s sister.

“The barn she was sheltering in collapsed under the weight of the dirt,” Adelaide explained. “It was Wilhelmina who found her.”

Emily was genuinely sorry to hear it. “That’s terrible. The poor woman.”

“She’s distraught. And furious. Taking it out on the weather bureau for not issuing a warning. It’s like a madness has taken over her.”

Emily couldn’t blame her. Nobody had ever seen a duster like it. The dirt had blown as far as the White House and had turned day to night as far away as Chicago and New York. Maybe, finally, somebody would take the farmers’ concerns seriously and do something to help them.

“Folk are saying it was the rainmaker’s explosions that disturbed more earth and caused the black blizzard,” Adelaide continued. “Do you think it might be true?”

Emily shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know. Just like nobody can ever be sure if the rain would come anyway, with or without the rainmakers’ gadgets. That’s the con, isn’t it. Dealer always wins.”

“Rainmaking! Can’t believe I ever fell for it.”

“We all fell for it, Adelaide. Men like Leonardo Stregone can be very convincing.”

In the chaos of the duster and the aftermath of Dorothy’s sickness, Emily had thought about Leonardo often.

She’d blamed him for Dorothy being at the creek, blamed him for hurting Annie, blamed him for trying to steal from them and take advantage of them.

It was easier to blame someone else, but as the dust settled, she accepted that she only had herself to blame for the danger she’d exposed Dorothy to.

“Did Leo say anything to you before he left?” she asked.

Adelaide shrugged. “Not much. Just that it was time to move on.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“Said he didn’t know. That he would follow the road. And good riddance to him, I say. Turns out the man who claimed to have all the power was the weakest of us all.”

—

Through the long anxious nights at Dorothy’s bedside, Emily thought about the give and take of life.

She’d always believed that one thing was gained at the sacrifice of another.

The prospect of a new life in America came with the agonizing decision to leave family and friends in Ireland.

The price of freedom to farm your own land was a life full of uncertainty.

What would be taken in exchange for Dorothy’s survival?

She would give it all away—every last thing, relinquish her dreams for this little girl’s precious life.

In her fevered delirium, Dorothy spoke of her mother, of Toto, of a man made of tin and another made of straw, and over and over she whispered a refrain. No place like home. No place like home.

Emily wiped the child’s brow and told her to rest. “Come back to us, Dorothy, dear. Wherever you are, please come back to us. Please come home.”