So many things in life, Lorelei has learned, are unreliable. The suddenness of change scares her because she can't predict it. It makes her feel like a dandelion caught up by wind. Who can say where her seeds will fall? Where will she land? Will she land? 

These fears began a year ago. It was late October, and the leaves were beginning to change color. 

Her mother decided to run out for some yeast and flour. She was a night owl, and she loved to bake. 

That chilly, October evening, she decided to make bread. She wanted to fill the house with the smells of cinnamon and flour and butter, she said. 

"I'll be back in twenty minutes," she told Lorelei, just before driving off. "And I'm counting on you to help." 

Lorelei loved baking with her mother. When her mother baked, she slowed down. They talked and shared secrets. Her mother would knead the dough and tell Lorelei about her childhood in Germany. Lorelei's grandfather used to carve things from wood: a house, a child, a miniature tree. He'd even carved the legendary mermaid for whom Lorelei had been named. 

These were the stories Lorelei looked forward to that evening, last October, as her mother drove off into the fading light. Meanwhile, Lorelei sat at the kitchen table and sketched the sky. She watched it turn from deep pink to violet. Drawing was something else that she and her mother loved. 

Who could have predicted that a car would run the red light on the street just beyond the supermarket? 

The car hit the driver's side of her mother's car. By the time the ambulance arrived, Lorelei's mother was in a coma. She died in the admitting area at Covenant Hospital. Lorelei and her father arrived a few minutes later. 

"We're too late," her father said. 

The two of them stood side by side before the stretcher. Lorelei's mother's face was a pasty white. Like flour. 

Lorelei said nothing. 

The weather in West Texas where Lorelei lives is always changing. It is the one thing she can count on. Lorelei knows this sounds strange. But the changing weather patterns are facts. They're predictable. 

In West Texas, the weather can be sunny and seventy degrees in the morning. By nightfall, the temperature can drop to thirty or below. Sometimes the wind blows so fiercely it feels like needles against the skin. 

Because Lorelei knows these things are possible, she accepts them. She prepares for them, and they don't scare her. 

Being prepared means taking an extra sweater or a jacket along when she leaves for school, or the stable ten miles across town. 

Lorelei started working at the stable last month. Since then, she has accumulated a locker full of t-shirts, sweaters, socks, and long-sleeved flannel shirts. She can add more layers as she needs them. Or she can take them off. 

She even has two different kinds of boots. She has a pair of rubber boots for mucking out stalls or hosing off the ground. Then there's the sturdy leather boots she wears out in the paddocks. 

Though she stopped riding when Lorelei was seven, Lorelei's mother loved horses. This is one reason why Lorelei works Saturdays and Sundays at the stable. 

The need to steady herself is the other reason Lorelei took the job. Because everything is changing. 

Her mother is gone. 

Her father remarried Kimberly Field in June. They are expecting a baby in February. Is it only coincidence — chance? — that Kimberly owns the bakery closest to their house? Lorelei's mother sometimes bought cakes and bread there. 

Of course, her mother only went to Kimberly's bakery when she didn't have time to make her own baked goods. 

Lorelei keeps her mother's recipes in an old wooden box. When she is sad, she takes the hand-printed cards out. She studies them carefully. She traces her mother's handwriting with her fingertips. 

The last Saturday in November is cold and damp. The windowpanes are fogged when Lorelei wakes up. She turns up the heater before she gets dressed. Outside, the rain freezes in the air. It clings to the branches of the tree outside her window. The ice-covered branches shimmer in the early light. Lorelei would like to sketch the branches. But she must leave for the stable. 

At seven o'clock, her father and Kimberly are still sleeping. But Lorelei is on her way to the stable. The temperature hovers around thirty. But at least the freezing rain has stopped.  

By the time Lorelei pulls into the stable's gravel driveway, it's almost seven-thirty. A few horses nicker in the distance. The light is an opaque white. 

The sun won't come out today. 

Lorelei doesn't mind gray days. What she dislikes, intensely, is high wind. High wind bites her skin. High wind seeps deep into her bones. 

It's quiet now. But by noon, the radio forecaster said, the winds will gust up to thirty miles an hour. By two o'clock, the winds will gust up to forty miles an hour. 

As soon as Lorelei steps out of the car, the old border collie, Woody, comes to greet her. He is black and white and smells like the winter that lies ahead. She pats his cold head and fishes a dog treat from her jeans pocket. 

Woody wags his tail and follows her towards the stable. 

At least a dozen of the horses at Miriam Parson's stable live outside year round. Miriam says the horses don't mind the rain and snow. Lorelei isn't so sure. 

Sure, horses in the wild can seek the shelter of trees. But in West Texas, there are few trees. The paddocks at the stable are made up of weedy grass. Some of the paddocks contain only dirt. Miriam compensates for this by filling the dirt-caked paddocks with a big bale of hay. She makes up for the lack of trees with a tin-roofed shelter. 

But on the second Sunday that Lorelei worked there, heavy rains drenched the paddocks. The dirt turned instantly to mud. One of the old lesson horses, a kind Arabian named Moses, slipped in the mud and broke his left foreleg. He lay there, quiet, still, until someone found him. 

That same night, the veterinarian drove out to the stable to put him down. 

Cleaning the horses’ stalls is repetitive. Lorelei likes that. It is another thing that she can count on. Besides, the back and forth of raking soothes Lorelei. So does the smell of the cedar chips that she uses to line the horses' stalls. Every morning she fills the wheelbarrow with them. She replenishes the horses' stalls and cleans out the manure. This makes her feel happy. She is doing something productive. She is making the lives of the horses better. 

Even on a cold morning like this one, the stable smells of cedar, hay, alfalfa, manure, and horse. These smells comfort Lorelei. They resemble a flannel blanket or a very soft, very warm hat on a cold day. Sometimes the smells at the barn even remind Lorelei of her mother's baking — at least in the comfort sense.  

But only sometimes. The horses look at Lorelei as she enters the smaller of the two barns. This barn has been painted a dusky pink. Lorelei drew a picture of it and hung it on her bedroom wall. As she enters, Woody follows her. 

The old gelding, Noah, occupies the stall closest to the door. He whinnies impatiently. 

"Just a minute. I'm coming," Lorelei says. 

More horses begin to whinny. Their voices pierce the cold air. 

Lorelei begins to laugh. She likes the voices of the horses. The sounds are welcoming, familiar. 

She will feed and water the horses inside the two stables first. By the time she's done, it will be nearly nine o'clock. The air will still be cold, but it'll be better by the time she goes out to feed the horses in the paddock. Hopefully, the wind will not be blowing yet. 

Most likely, the water in the paddocks will have frozen during the night. Lorelei will need to crack the surface with a steel pick. 

Most of the stalls have small windows that Lorelei opens in order to fill the feed bins with grain. And over each bin there is a slot for hay. Only Smoke's stall doesn't have a window. Instead, Lorelei must pull open the heavy door, step inside, and fill Smoke's bin. 

"Don't get too close," she tells Woody. 

Smoke, a fiery old Arabian, once kicked Woody. Lorelei doesn't know if Woody remembers this. But she doesn't want to take a chance. 

After feeding and watering all sixteen horses in the small pink barn, Lorelei pulls the heavy door closed. This will seal in the warmth. 

Outside, the wind is stirring. She zips her parka up all the way. She tugs her hat over her ears. Then she walks across the treeless property to the big yellow barn. Here she will repeat the process all over again.  

Unless a squirrel or a mouse seizes his attention, Woody will accompany her. Some days, he stays by Lorelei's side from early morning until dusk when she leaves.