Oliver’s dark eyes flicked to her, a sudden renewed sharpness behind them.
“He shouldn’t have. It never should have happened.”
“You mean if he’d stayed here he’d still be alive,” said Nora.
Oliver evaded her gaze again. “There was no reason it had to end the way it did.”
“Do you know how it happened?” Nora asked, suddenly realizing he probably knew a lot more than she and Charlie did about the accident that took their parents from them.
The old man seemed to wither in his chair. His face was a wrinkly knot of unspoken words.
“You do,” said Nora. She was back on her feet, the revelation propelling her out of her chair.
Oliver said nothing.
“You do,” Nora said again. “And whatever you know is the reason you let the forest grow in around you, the reason you left the town behind, isn’t it?”
“Is that what you’ve come here to ask me?” Oliver said after a long, infuriating pause.
“Yes. Maybe. I have a million things I want to ask you,” said Nora. “So Dad left and then he died and, what? You resented him so much for walking away from you and leaving the safety of this place that you locked yourself away in the woods?”
“You think that’s it, do you? That I hated my grandson for leaving? And because I hated him I decided to live the rest of eternity alone out of spite? Is that what you think?”
“Well…”
“We all should’ve left this place,” said Oliver, catching Nora firmly off guard. “It shouldn’t exist to begin with. I regret coming here every day of my endless life. This town should be burned to the ground.”
24
“You’re sure you heard him right?”
Nora had left the woods after only a few more words with Oliver, her mind somewhere far away from her body. She’d made it back to the little red house on muscle memory alone, every other sense numbed by a deluge of emotion. She still didn’t fully understand how she’d gotten herself to where she now sat, sagging over the edge of her father’s old bed, Charlie standing above her. He looked more concerned now, staring at the pale, clammy lump of a sister in front of him, than he had at any of his near-deaths.
Nora looked up at him, her head heavy on her neck. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“ ‘Burned to the ground’ is pretty dramatic. And he wouldn’t say why?”
Nora shook her heavy head. “Not really. Just that this place shouldn’t exist. And that Dad understood. And…Charlie, there’s something else.”
Charlie gave her a look that said, “Okay, hit me.”
So Nora did. “He said Dad understood…and that’s why he died.”
They both sat in that revelation for a moment, breathing the words like salt water into their lungs.
“I don’t get it,” said Charlie at last.
“Ditto,” said Nora. She flopped down onto the covers, unable to hold herself upright any longer. What Oliver had implied, that her father’s death was somehow connected to this place, was too much for her mind to hold. It didn’t make sense. How could the town he’d left possibly contribute to the accident that took his life? “I wish he was here,” she said, her voice small. “And Mom. They both had lives before us, Charlie, whole lives we never got to hear about. It’s like we never really knew them.”
Charlie plopped himself down beside her, Jessica hopping off his shoulder to find a perch between their heads. “I know,” he said. “But maybe that was on purpose. I mean, this place is fucking weird, Nora. Maybe Dad wanted to keep us away from that.”
“I guess.”
“There’s gotta be a reason he never brought us here, or even really mentioned Virgo Bay to us much growing up.”
Nora couldn’t argue with that, which was a rarity in their relationship. “Oliver said Dad understood why this place shouldn’t exist, but as soon as I tried to get an explanation out of him, he shut down. It’s bullshit. And it’s not like we can ask Dad about it, so we’re right back at square one.”
“Maybe not…” said Charlie, sitting up. “Charles told you Dad wrote him letters, right? We may not be able to talk to Dad, but that’s kind of the next best thing.”
