Thunderstruck

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Light was fading from the sky when the first raindrops of a typical Philadelphia Tuesday evening began to dampen the tight salt-and-pepper curls covering John’s head. Looking up, he squinted against the summoned rain clouds and wiped his palm across his forehead. He had fallen behind with his outside work—there could be no arguing that.

Philadelphia, like many cities in the young United States, had a regulated schedule of rainy and dry weather and of light and dark, all thanks to the Weather Witch at the city’s Hub.

A few minutes remained before the drizzle became heavier and stuck his clothing to his skin, so he brushed his hands off and gathered the shovel and trowel from the narrow garden bed outside the Astraea estate’s imposing wall. Throughout the city people would be hurrying indoors, servants closing windows, the wealthy members of the Hill settling down for an evening meal.

The clatter and hiss of a carriage’s wheels skipping across damp cobblestones drew his gaze, and John watched a pair of pale horses pulling a fancy wagon down the street. The driver sat hunched, hat’s brim pulled low over his eyes. The stormlit streetlights reflected off the barrel of a gun in his lap, and John squinted against the growing dark and damp to better see. Two men rode clinging to the back corners of the carriage, heads above its roof, hats forced low to battle the rising breeze.

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