Later that night, the three brothers were on their porch, watching lightning flickering along the horizon. Overhead was clear and the starlight was spectacular. The light wind was crisp, but coming from the direction opposite the lightning.

"I don't like it," Jason said. "Can't say why, but I don't. Maybe we should take a couple more days off until the weather settles."

"Maybe we should take a couple days to get as much work as possible done before the weather gets unsettled," Josh countered. "We can't make no money by not working."

"We aren't spending any, either. Everything will still be there when we get back. "

"But in what condition?"

"Maybe we'll get lucky and the storm will do the felling for us."

"More like make toothpicks out of spars."

"As long as it doesn't make meat patties out of the men. That's my concern."

"We'll have plenty of warning before it gets that bad."

"Usually but not necessarily."

Jeremy, off the porch and at the edge of the street, was barely listening to his brothers. It was a normal discussion for them, following the usual lines of reasoning for each brother. He was thinking, not for the first time, that they were both right. They were just looking at different things.

What he was really doing was feeling the weather and watching it. The lightning was dim and far away and didn't seem to be moving closer. There looked to be more stars, not fewer whenever he looked up. The wind was mostly chill, but every now and then there'd be a puff of warmth, like when you blow on your hands in the cold. The little short breath-bursts seemed to wrap around him before whispering away.

"J-jason, I want to go up on the roof." Jeremy hurried back to the porch.

Jason stopped mid-sentence. "Why would you want to do that? And since when do you ask?"

Jeremy grinned. "I c-can't ask you when you're not here, can I?"

Josh laughed.

Jason smiled. "One of these days, maybe you'll learn to answer questions in the order asked. Why do you want to go up on the roof?"

Jeremy looked up at the sharp edge outlined by starlight. "It's closer to the sky."

"He's gotcha there," Josh pointed out.

Jason agreed with a nod."And why do you want to be closer to the sky?"

"B'cause that's where the weather is."

"Go ahead," Jason agreed, with a laugh and a gesture, while Josh doubled over laughing.

Jeremy stood at the peak of the roof, feeling the wind blow in his hair. He looked up at the stars, and had the thought that if Jason was to say they were close enough to touch, he'd believe him. Even though he knew better. He laughed.

A bright star with a blue-greenish tinge winked at him, and laughed back.

Jason, now off the porch, crossed his arms and kept an eye on his surprising youngest brother.

Jeremy looked at the spine of the roof, and wondered what Jason would do if he lined up his spine exactly with the building's, and stretched out along it, so he could look up at the stars without tilting his head up. And he could reach both arms up and hug the whole sky.

He laughed quietly at himself. That sounded like something out of one of Jason's books. A good feeling, but a bad idea.

But, he wasn't here to look at the stars, except to note that they were clear. No clouds, even to the edges visible. Especially not the direction the wind was coming from. He was here to feel the wind and look at the lightning.

The lightning was far far off on the horizon. It was faint, frequent but not continuous. It was hard to tell if what it outlined was clouds or mountains. Even on clear days, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

Since he was up here, he looked all around. Where the lightning started and stopped. He raised his hands, thumbs together horizontally, with his fingers standing vertically to measure the length of the area. He didn't know what it meant, exactly, but if he saw it again he might be able to know the next time. If he was home on the mountain, he'd have a better idea.

The wind teased the hair at the back of his neck and tickled the backs of his ears.

What, he wondered, would he think about the weather if he was home?

That would take some thinking on, but he had to do it. His brothers would want to know his thoughts before they decided whether or not to work tomorrow or until the weather passed.

He lowered his arms and headed down, where Jason was waiting for him.

"I was beginning to think you were waiting for your arms to turn into wings and I was going to have to catch you when you fell."

"That's silly."

" Come on, Josh has fresh coffee." They went inside.

"Well, weather wizard, what's your opinion?" Josh asked.

"Go to work," Jeremy said. "Nothing much's gonna happen tomorrow."

"Yeah, we'd about decided on that. But if we're wrong, are you going to be okay here alone?"

"Of know that, Josh. And if I'm not–" Jeremy glanced at Jason, "I c-can go to L-lottie's, right?"

"I'd like to think you would," Jason replied promptly. "Not that you wouldn't be fine on your own."

Jeremy smiled. "Yeah." He changed the subject. "You're going to be able to tell w-what the w-w-weather on the mountain w-will be if you're on the mountain. Not from here."

"I don't like the idea of us being split up if it gets bad. Lightning usually means it is getting bad. And you're insisting on going back to school in the morning."

"I d-don't want you to be alone, neither, so take Josh with you. There's lots of people I can go to in t-town, if I want to, and lots to c-come to me if I n-need them. A lot more help than you'll have, even with the c-crew."

"He's talking sense," Josh observed.

"Sense doesn't apply to everything in every situation." Jason paced to the cookstove, and turned to both his brothers gaping at him. "It just makes me – uneasy," he explained.

"That's jus' the wind," Jeremy said. "You oughta know that b-by now. You lived here l-longer than I have."

"I do know that. But, like my brothers, I don't always agree with me." He laughed at himself, and they laughed, too. "Sounds like we've agreed, brothers."

"Uh-huh" and "Yep." Just like that, the serious issue of the evening, day, maybe week had been settled.

"But if it looks like settling in, we'll be back," Jason told Jeremy.

"I know that. You always are."

Josh knocked on the wooden table, and Jason knocked on Josh's head.