“You’re trying to tell me that your dad is over a hundred and twenty and lives in the woods alone?”
“Things work differently here in Virgo Bay, dear,” Ruby said. “I told you this is a special town.”
Nora crossed her arms over her chest, as much in impatience as it was a means to steady herself. Her grandfather took a heavy inhale.
“We lost my mother when I was very young,” said Richard. “Too young. You, of course, understand that pain. My papa, he never really healed from that loss. He was all alone in the worldwith three broken children to raise in a heartless city. But there are dangers in the city, and Papa couldn’t bear the thought of losing us too, so he decided to move us somewhere safe. Though when he went out in search of some land to settle on, he didn’t expect to find this place.”
“You know a thing or two about Death given your line of work,” said Ruby. “Which means you know how little any of us really knows about it.”
“Your grandma tells me you followed in her footsteps,” Richard added.
“What Oliver, Richard’s father, found when he came here,” Ruby continued, “was one of Death’s Blind Spots.”
At this Nora finally sat down, her legs unable to hold her up with the added weight of all she was hearing. She’d heard of Blind Spots before, as rumors and conspiracy theories passed around the office, but neither she nor anyone else really gave them any credence. The idea that there were places on earth that Death couldn’t reach seemed like wishful nonsense. But if that man in the woods really was the father of an octogenarian, it definitely forced Nora to reconsider everything she thought she knew about life, and death, and anything in between.
“You mean,” she tried, then choked on a wave of emotion, then tried again. “You mean no one can die here?”
For someone who had spent all her life running, fearing, learning about, and running farther from Death, the very premise flooded her with more emotion than she knew what to do with. She felt like she needed a whole second body just to process the influx of tears and tension and relief and anger.
“It’s not quite that simple,” said Ruby. “Death can’t see us to claim us, so we’ll never get sick or die of old age as long as weremain within the borders of Virgo Bay. Only our own doing, or the actions of another human, can take a life here. But once we leave town, we’re on the same clock as anyone else. It may even be accelerated due to our time on the outskirts of the normal life cycle, though there’s no real way to be sure. Your father was the only person to leave this place for an extended period of time.”
Nora sat in the silence that followed her grandparents’ words, trying to absorb it all. As long as she was here, she wouldn’t die. All the ailments and illnesses she’d spent her whole life fearing suddenly couldn’t touch her. The sensation that washed over her as that reality sank in was unlike anything she had ever felt. She felt light. All the weight of the anxiety she had carried for so many years lifted. Her head and limbs filled with helium. She felt like she could float up and up and up forever and would never fear the fall. She was free.
But Charlie wasn’t. Charlie was still in as much danger as ever. If murder took a life in Virgo Bay the way it would anywhere else, nothing had changed for him, and that thought brought Nora back to earth.
Charlie. Wait. Where the hell was Charlie?
“Where the hell is Charlie?” Nora said as she thought it.
Ruby cocked a brow. “I assumed you’d have more questions.”
“I do,” said Nora. “Lots. But my main one right now is, Where is Charlie?”
“Phil and a few of the boys stopped by on their way to work on your car and asked Charlie along,” said Richard.
“Charlie’s out there with Phil?” Nora leapt up from her seat. “I need to borrow your car.”
“We don’t have one,” said Richard. “But I’m sure Charles wouldn’t mind if you borrowed his. He’s out there with the boys,but his keys should be on the table by his front door if you want to grab them.”
Normally, breaking into somebody’s house and stealing their car wouldn’t be Nora’s ideal rainy-day activity, but Charlie was off in the middle of nowhere with someone who might be trying to kill him, so there wasn’t much time for good manners.
“Which house is his?”
18
Charles’s house, it turned out, was a clean white clapboard just down from the little general store and directly across from the church with no graveyard at the entrance of town. The front door, like every other front door in Virgo Bay, was unlocked. Nora climbed the steps and crept inside. The quiet bounced off a neutral interior that was somehow pristine and cozy at the same time. The floors and countertops were a creamy marble, their sheen clear and bright, putting the sky just beyond the windows to shame. A gilded birdcage sat beside an austere cream sofa, which Nora regarded as very brave. Pale-colored furniture always seemed too big a risk to her. Charles also seemed to have the only TV in town, which she supposed was a perk of being the one to do supply runs. She found the little table by the front door, simple and white, a glass bowl perched on top with only a single set of keys inside. Nora slipped the keys from the bowl, whispered an apology to Charles, and went around the house to where a gray-blue van was parked in the driveway.
Nora had never driven recklessly in all the years she’d been driving. Cars were enough of a hazard without adding your own.But that afternoon, head flooded with too many thoughts and gut twisting with too many fears, Nora found herself speeding around the bends of the road that she’d already crashed on once. When she finally came upon the wreckage of her car, Charlie wasn’t there. And neither was anyone else, for that matter. Phil’s pickup truck sat just behind her car, a toolbox on the grass between the two, but there were no people in sight.
She quickly parked Charles’s van behind the other two cars and hopped out, scanning the surroundings, the woods to one side and the boulders to the other. They could have taken Charlie into the forest. If they’d ventured deep enough, she’d never find them. Fucking Charlie. Nora had told him in no uncertain terms to avoid Phil. To avoid everyone. But instead he’d decided to throw himself at the others. Did he have a death wish? Anger and concern fought for emotional supremacy within her, each evenly armed.
Nora started to cross the street towards the woods, when the wind picked up the echo of voices. They were coming from the opposite direction, from somewhere behind the rocks. Nora followed the sound until she found a break in the boulders and slipped through. Beyond the rock wall sat layers of cliff side looking out over the turbulent sea. Both sky and ocean were so gray she could barely see the horizon between them. On a lower cliff up ahead, she spotted the backs of four men, roughly mouse-sized from her vantage point. She scrambled after them, uncertain of what the hell they were up to but convinced it was no good. She caught sight of the brassy mass of Charlie’s hair bopping along with the others. He was still alive. For now.
The unmarked path down the cliff was a bumpy mess of wet grass tufts and half-hidden stones. Nora did her best to avoidboth as she hurried down, her eyes locked on the men. By the time she’d nearly closed the gap between them, they’d reached the cliff’s edge. What the hell were they doing? They seemed to be talking, joking maybe, playfully slapping one another’s backs in that way men seemed to do when they couldn’t figure out how to show actual affection. They all stood in what could have passed for a friendly half circle under different circumstances. Someone pointed over the edge, and they all stepped closer to look down into the sea. Nora immediately pictured Phil giving Charlie a shove just forceful enough to send him tumbling to the jagged rocks below. Her feet had already picked things up to top speed before she could tell them to, which brought her inches from the small crowd when it happened. She barely recognized the sound of her brother’s yelp, Charlie’s silhouette suddenly jerking forward, arms flailing in a desperate attempt to regain balance before his head slipped out of view to the sound of loose rocks breaking free on the cliff side and a chorus of gasps. It was impossible to tell from Nora’s vantage point whether her brother had tripped or if he’d been pushed by one of the men around him; all she knew was that he was toppling forward and she needed to keep him from completing the fall. No one else seemed quick to do the job, though whether that was from shock or something more malicious she couldn’t be sure. Before she could catch up with herself, she was holding on to Charlie’s legs as the rest of him dangled helplessly over the cliff’s edge.
Charlie had never been a delicate boy. Even when they were kids, despite being twins, he had always dwarfed Nora. She was narrow while he was broad, short while he was tall, thin while he was stocky. None of this worked in her favor as she tried to holdon to his lower half, the rest of him swinging like a rag doll over the sheer drop.
A second pair of hands gripped Charlie’s ankles, just above Nora’s. Nora looked over to find Charles holding firm. He wasn’t a huge upgrade as far as strength or size, but at least she was no longer attempting this alone. Vince, the fourth member of this death excursion, grabbed on next. Eventually, and with what Nora was certain was reluctance, Phil hooked a fist around Charlie’s waistband and they all pulled in tandem until he was upright again. Nora continued pulling until they were a solid fifteen feet away from the cliff’s edge, and then tentatively let go. She looked at each of the men individually, her eyes aflame. They each made a sheepish expression in turn, like kids being scolded by a strict teacher.
