Nora looked out the window to the serene breeze playing with the branches of an evergreen. It was unimaginable that the quaintness surrounding them could ever be interrupted by the harsh practicality of S.C.Y.T.H.E. with its corporate gray and emotionless methods. It jarred her to find that the thing that once brought her comfort was now something to fear. Her reality had changed as rapidly as it had after her parents died.
“I think we might be here awhile.”
* * *
The steam from the shower filled the bathroom, the air wet and heavy as it enveloped Nora in its warmth. She let the previous night’s chill slough off her, the perpetual goose bumps flattening across her body. She wanted to get into the shower, to scrub the past twenty-four hours off until they swirled down the drain, but there was something she had to do first. Charlie’s case file sat on the counter beside the sink, the folder taunting her with its blandness. She hadn’t looked at it since they’d left the carin a ruined heap on the roadside; there hadn’t been a need. No car meant no car accident. But that could have changed, and the thought paralyzed Nora.
All she had to do was flip open the cover and skim the page. That was it. She’d done the same thing a million times at work. She’d done it several times with this very file. And yet, she couldn’t convince herself to budge. She stared at the file. The file stared back at her. They were at a stalemate.
A knock thundered at the door. Nora jumped.
“Can you hurry it up in there? I’ve got dried blood in weird places and I’d like to wash it off. It’s freaking me out a bit. That shit’s not supposed to be on my outsides, you know?”
Nora glared at the door, then back at the file. Her face softened. Fucking Charlie. Can’t be patient, can’t stop almost dying. And Patty thoughtherfamily was complicated.
“Five minutes,” Nora called back. She braced herself, set her shoulders back and her spine straight, and flipped the file open. Surely he was safe now. Really safe.
She ran a finger down the page until it landed on “cause of death.” She leapt back.
This was much worse than a new cause of death. And much more confusing.
Nora threw her clothes back on and fled the bathroom, the shower still spurting hot water, steam escaping with her.
“Finally! Jessica wants a bath too. Her little feathers got all ruffled in my bag, poor princess.”
The bird seemed to be shrinking back into herself from her perch on his shoulder, her face somehow conveying utter embarrassment at her current bedraggled state.
“Charlie, look.” Nora shoved the file into his face, indicating exactly what was causing her current brand of panic. Charlie looked down, then back up, his face scrunched in confusion.
“I don’t get it.”
Beside “cause of death,” everything was a blurry smudge of ink, only an occasional clear letter sneaking through before being swallowed back into the undulating black cloud.
“It’s like….” Nora bit her lip but forced herself through the rest of the thought. “It’s like we have bad reception out here. Like we can’t get a clear signal.”
“Nor. You realize this is paper, right?”
“Yes. No. I mean it’s paper, but it’s special paper. It’s S.C.Y.T.H.E. paper. Or maybe it’s special ink or something, I don’t know, I never asked questions. I have no idea how we find out when and where people die, or who that information comes from. It was never for me to know. But somehow this file, your file, keeps updating, and now it looks like it’s trying to but can’t.”
“Huh.” Charlie cocked his head, his position a perfect replica of the parrot on his shoulder. “So does this mean I’m safe, then? Like, if we can’t read the cause of death, then I can’t die?”
“I don’t think so,” said Nora, who had already run through that and every other possibility. “I think it means you’re still supposed to die, but now we have no way of knowing how, or stopping it.”
“That sucks,” said Charlie.
“It really sucks.”
* * *
Charlie lay wrapped around one of the pale blue pillows on the living room sofa, Jessica curled into the crook of his neck,both sound asleep as Nora watched from the armchair across from them. She had allowed her brother a sponge bath in place of a shower—too many deaths happened in showers—and when he and Jessica had emerged, clean of dried blood and feathers unruffled, she had vowed not to let Charlie out of her sight.
The file lay open on her lap, the glitching ink still struggling against the page, the odd letter still sneaking through. Nora clicked the pen in her hand, sending the nib up and down, jotting each letter onto the file folder as they appeared. So far she’d managed anSand what was almost definitely aT.
Patty sat down on the love seat beside her, a steaming cup of tea in hand, and Nora promptly shut the file.
“What’re you working on?” Patty asked, taking a sip.
“Just something for work,” said Nora, forcing a smile.
