When she finally spotted the tiny woman amid the blue-black shadows of night, Ruby was barreling towards the house as fast as an eighty-year-old can barrel. Nora grabbed the discarded driftwood for defense and took off after her, realizing only as she neared the house what had sent Ruby running. Smoke billowed out a side window, where the fireplace decidedly wasn’t. A thick, black cloud pierced the navy sky, swallowing a cluster of stars.
15
Nora whipped the wood behind her with the same force Ruby had used and quickened her steps. The smoke was billowing out of the kitchen, the same kitchen where Charlie had just been doing the dishes, vulnerable to anyone who might want to harm him. Which, as of now, could be anyone in this nightmare town. Ruby was through the door only a few strides ahead of Nora, who stumbled into the house in a flurry of panic and breathless wheezing. Richard and Vince were rushing around with buckets of water and the kind of inexplicable sense of purpose that comes with having the better part of a century under your belt. Patty, meanwhile, pushed past Nora and into the open air to catch her breath. But Charlie…where was Charlie?
Nora dodged her grandfather as they passed in the living room, and rushed into the kitchen. The smoke in there was so thick it split the room almost in half horizontally, leaving only the lower portion with any degree of visibility.
“Charlie?” Nora screamed into the near-invisible kitchen before the heavy air sent her sputtering. “Charlie!”
A warm palm landed on her shoulder. She whipped around, half expecting to see her brother there, but instead she found his namesake. The expression on Charles’s face sent a wave of dread up her spine. It seemed to be a look of pity. What did he know? Where the fuck was Charlie?
Charles guided Nora out the side door in the dining room. Her lungs stung as the sea air hit them, pulling an ashy cough out of her, but she barely noticed. The majority of fire-related deaths were due to smoke inhalation. If Charlie was still in there…
She moved to run back inside, but Charles grabbed her shoulder again. Patty had rounded the house and come to join them now, her arms crossed over her chest. The rest of the household was slowly filing out, but there was no sign of her brother.
“Where the hell is Charlie?”
“Hey, it’s okay,” said Patty, her voice hushed. “When the fire started, Charlie went downstairs for that parrot of his. I told him to take it to my place for safekeeping until we get things under control. Mom and Dad…they wouldn’t want her here. Plus I didn’t think they’d want to see him doing mouth-to-mouth on a bird.”
“Charlie’s okay?”
Patty nodded. “You can go see him if you’d like.”
Nora started a deep inhale but stopped halfway. “Why would he have to do mouth-to-mouth on Jessica if he got her out of there just after the fire started?”
“Jessica,” Charles said with a wry smile. “That’s cute.”
Patty threw him a look. “She was unconscious when he found her. Um. You know. Birds have such little lungs. It must have made her extra sensitive to the smoke.”
Nora furrowed her brow at this but quickly dismissed the whole scenario. Instead she fumbled her way onto the grass and took off towards Patty’s house.
Sure enough, Charlie was safe and sound inside, curled on the couch with Jessica in his arms. Nora leaned against the doorframe for support. At this rate she was regularly producing enough adrenaline to fight off three full-grown grizzly bears a day.
“She okay?” was all Nora could muster. She indicated Jessica with a lazy head loll.
Charlie looked up from the bird in question. “Oh hey. Yeah, I think she will be. It was touch and go there for a sec, though.”
“I’m sorry,” said Nora.
“Thanks. Nice walk with Grandma?”
“Kind of. She’s a fugitive from Death.”
“Huh.”
“So that’s something to bond over.” Nora pulled herself upright and dragged her heavy limbs to the couch, dropping herself beside Charlie. She gave the bird’s head a little pat with one finger and quickly thought better of it as she remembered she hadn’t brought any hand sanitizer to Virgo Bay. “Do you think it’s a bit weird that Jessica was unconscious when the smoke was mostly contained in the kitchen? Or that there was even a fire at all?”
“You think this was another way to get me dead?” asked Charlie.
“I mean, I don’t know what Jessica would have to do with that, but it seems likely.”
“Two in one day feels excessive.”
“Three,” Nora corrected. “The knife thing was after midnight. Someone’s clearly determined. But who? And why?”
“Think it’s your grim reaper pals?”
“No,” said Nora. “If S.C.Y.T.H.E. had found us out here, we’d know. Besides, they don’t kill people—that’s strictly against company policy. It has to be somebody from here.”
