Summer of Salt

by Katrina Leno

She was tied to the water, my sister. Moods like tides, temper like a hungry shark.

Of course the planchette spelled out the word evil, because life could never be calm and easy, life always had to be scary and dangerous and mean.

I knew that he would use that gun, because that is what small, scared men did: they used things more powerful than themselves to make up the difference. They hid behind weapons of mass destruction: big guns and bigger bombs. They were small, small, small—