Murder had always felt far removed from Nora’s world. Sure, death happened—and in Nora’s case it seemed to happen more often than most—but it wasn’t until she began working at S.C.Y.T.H.E. that she fully realized how Death itself wasn’t always the one to take a life. That thought still struck her as so very strange. Life was already such a vulnerable thing, a piece of cracked china in clumsy hands. The fact that anyone had it in them to deliberately smash it baffled her no matter how many times she came across it. The shooting she’d sorted last week felt just as incomprehensible as her first murder case, a stabbing after a drug deal gone wrong. And yet, like every other hand of Death, murder had finally reached out to her, its fingers stretching hungrily towards her brother.
* * *
Nora couldn’t get back to sleep that night. She sat like a sentry, stiff-backed in her bed, guarding Charlie with Jessica by her side. The lights stayed on. Her pulse stayed raised. Her mind hummed with everything the night had presented her. Charlie wasn’t just destined to die; he was destined to be murdered. But why? And by whom? It didn’t make any sense, which fit nicely with the theme of the past forty-eight hours of her life.
If someone here wanted Charlie dead, then the twins needed to leave Virgo Bay. But they couldn’t. Nora’s car was still a smoking heap somewhere miles away. They were stuck here for the foreseeable future, which meant she needed to figure out who was after Charlie, and quickly. But that wasn’t exactly Nora’s area of expertise. If listing all the ways a person could die were an Olympic sport, Nora would easily bring home gold for the US, and then be accused of doping given such a faultless performance. It was one of the skills that made her such an efficient administrative coordinator at S.C.Y.T.H.E. and, she was certain, was the main reason she’d made it to twenty-six without so much as an urgent care visit to her name. But when it came to people and why they made the choices they made, she was out of her depth. She’d never solved a murder before, much less one that had yet to take place. But she didn’t have any choice. She couldn’t go to anyone in town for help, not when they’d all just become her suspects.
* * *
By the time the rest of the house was awake, Nora had cycled through every possible way her brother could be murderedtwo and a half times. Each incarnation became gorier and more upsetting than the last. The box of cereal waiting for the twins on the dining room table was embedded with razors. The milk was poisoned. The note from Richard and Ruby saying they’d gone on their daily morning beach walk and would be home by nine thirty would somehow leap up and sever Charlie’s carotid artery with a jarringly potent paper cut. Nothing was safe. As usual, but even more so.
They needed to discuss this. They needed a plan—again. But they didn’t get far before the twins’ newfound and potentially murderous grandparents came through the back door, their cheeks flushed from the brisk morning breeze that tapped lightly against the dining room windows.
“You kids aren’t just getting up, are you?” Ruby said, hanging her hand-knit scarf on a hook by the door. She slipped off her shoes and flitted to the kitchen, clearly in the midst of a mindless daily ritual. “You’re missing a beautiful morning out there. Not many more days of sunshine left this season.”
Nora looked from one grandparent to the other. Richard was still hanging his coat, his morning rhythm more leisurely than his wife’s. In the kitchen a kettle began to hum. Richard wiped his boots on the little rug by the door, stomping to get the sand off. Charlie spooned another heaping mound of cereal into his mouth and crunched. The kettle’s whistling began to emerge. All the sounds stacked on top of one another like a seven-layer dip of auditory overstimulation. Nora could barely think, much less plan.
She leapt up, grabbing Charlie by the wrist and yanking him away from his breakfast.
“You know, you’re right,” said Nora, her voice tight. “It doeslook beautiful out. We were actually just talking about going on a walk, right, Charlie?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “It’ll be a great opportunity for us to explore Virgo Bay a little. See the sights.”
“There are sights?” Charlie asked through a mouthful, still trying to shake Nora off him as she dragged him towards the door.
“You’re not going out like that, surely.” Ruby appeared in the dining room, cradling a steaming mug in her hands.
Charlie was still in the pajamas he’d been wearing since Nora had picked him up two days ago.
“I’ve got some old clothes you can borrow, Charlie,” said Richard. “As for Nora, well, my Ruby’s always been barely a hair higher than a field mouse, but I’m sure Patty will have things that will fit you just fine. You look about her size. Nice to see the Bird genes still kicking around in both of you.”
“That’s very kind,” said Nora, his seemingly earnest generosity propelling her out the door even faster. The confusion over whether or not she could trust either of them made her head spin. “We’ll get changed when we get back, but we’ll be fine like this until then, right, Charlie?”
“I mean, are you even fine right now?”
Nora gave a nervous laugh. She grabbed both of their coats, shoving Charlie’s into his chest harder than was absolutely necessary. “We’ll be back in a bit.”
Charlie offered a bewildered shrug to Richard and Ruby as Nora ushered him out the door. As soon as the sun hit her and the oppressive air of that little red house melted away, Nora could breathe again. She let the breeze press against her cheeks for a moment, revitalized by the refreshing bite it carried, then pulled her coat in tighter to stave off any threatening chill.
“So that was weird,” said Charlie.
“Shh.” Nora guided him away from the house and onto a nearby path. She needed them to be as far away from earshot as possible, not only from their grandparents but from anyone else in town.
“I was still eati—”
“Shh.”
The path ended at a line of evergreens on the cusp of a dense wood. Nora hesitated. She didn’t trust nature; too many unknowable things lived in it: poisonous things and biting things and stinging things and bacteria that could eat your brain. People died getting lost in nature, or trying to pet nature when it didn’t want to be petted. But it also offered the currently elusive promise of privacy, because who else would possibly choose to venture in there? She could feel the warmth of eyes on her back. This town was too small, too insular. They needed to be alone. Nora nodded to a gap in the trees and they slipped through.
“Can I talk now, or are you going to shush me again?” said Charlie.
The trees that enclosed them were tall and thin, their spindly trunks stretching to somewhere just out of sight. The sun’s rays couldn’t quite navigate their way through the dense foliage of the many conifers still plump with their spiky attempt at leaves, casting the forest in a green-tinted haze. Nora felt like she was wearing sunglasses all of a sudden, the world just slightly dimmed. Branches squeaked and cracked in the wind, dead leaves rustling on the ground under the feet of invisible creatures gathering winter supplies. The twins weaved around trunks and over roots until a dirt path opened before them, guiding them deeper into the wilderness.
“You can talk now,” Nora decided at last.
“Cool. Okay, so first of all, what the fuck?”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Yeah okay, let’s start with why you didn’t let me finish breakfast.”
