What can blow out a candle? Knock it over, spatter its burning wax - is that what’s running down her jaw? Fireworks? But what is there to celebrate on the fourteenth of September? Outside, the dogs of San Miguel Station bark in furious chorus. A sulfurous tang on the air - she’s never known a thunderstorm to smell like that. “Wait,” Blanche tells Jenny, lurching to her feet with her right boot still on. The candle’s out, and it’s so dark here in the hinterlands. “Qu’est-ce - ” Is that the start of a question from Jenny, or just a gasp? Oh, she shouldn’t have been singing, she thinks with a superstitious shiver she’s brought on a storm. The hot sky must have finally exploded, forking its blades into the eaves of the Eight Mile House. The cracks come so hard Blanche takes them for thunder.
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