“Yep,” Nora agreed. “Sounds like a good motive to me.”
“I bet it was Rachelle’s dad.”
“What?”
“The neighbor. That guy was definitely hiding something.”
“Yeah, a second family. Don’t you remember? His wife ended up divorcing him and running off with the other woman.”
“Oh yeah. That was cool. But what does any of that have to do with Jessica?”
Nora looked at the parrot in question. “I have no idea, but she knew Dad’s nickname. That means she must have known someone from Virgo Bay before she came here with us. You said the note you found with her said something else, right? That Jessica could tell us what we needed to know, and something else. What was that something else?”
“Oh yeah,” said Charlie. “Just that whoever wrote the note regretted everything. Kinda vague, honestly.”
Charlie’s words ping-ponged back and forth between the walls of Nora’s skull. They fit together somehow, likely with something Nora already knew, but how? Then the pieces fell into place.
“Oliver said he regretted ever coming here,” Nora said slowly. Her mind’s eye walked back through that old stone house on the first day she’d gone inside. The doused fireplace, the rickety staircase, the creaking from upstairs, the nursery.The nursery.Between the bed and the crib there had been an old birdcage collecting dust. Or had it been? Could it have been recently in use? Housing a selectively talkative African gray parrot?
“Forest house,” Jessica squawked.
“She keeps saying that,” said Nora. “That has to mean Oliver, right?”
“I guess. But wouldn’t he havewantedDad to tell S.C.Y.T.H.E. about this place?”
“Exactly,” said Nora. “But Dad failed. Maybe Oliver brought you Jessica hoping you’d be the one to succeed.”
“Why me? I mean, you’re the grim reaper’s secretary, why wouldn’t he give her toyou? And how would he have gotten Jessica all the way to my house, anyway? He’s like a living cobweb at this point.”
“All excellent questions,” said Nora. She sighed, knowing exactly how they’d have to get them answered. “We’re going to have to ask him.”
“Oh yeah, he loves that,” said Charlie. “And so does Grandma. You really think we’ll make it out there under her nose? You heard what she said, Patty and Phil are keeping tabs on us. She warned us away from the woods, remember? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”
“So did I,” said Nora. “But I think we’re going to have to do something a bit stupid here.”
“Into it. What’s the plan?”
* * *
Whoever was in charge of filling the hourglass of time seemed to have accidentally filled it with thick mud instead of sand. The hours crept by at an aching pace, filled with theemptiness of waiting. The twins joined the family upstairs for dinner at a rather forceful request from Ruby. Neither ate for fear of what the food might contain, though their growling stomachs seemed open to the idea of poison as long as it came in the shape of a potato. After the kitchen was clean, Charlie and Nora excused themselves and returned to their room, where they waited in varying degrees of impatience as the night crawled on.
Charlie lay face up on his bed, babbling nonsense at Jessica, which Nora tried to tune out from across the room. Jessica, for her part, had been restless since the conversation about Oliver that afternoon. She couldn’t seem to settle, bobbing up and down and shuffling back and forth in a constant dance of, what? Excitement? Fear? Nora had a queasy feeling they’d be finding out soon enough. She dug her father’s last letter out of her pocket and buried herself in the ink, tuning out the avian love fest across from her. It was only a page long, but an entire reality existed on that page, one that forever altered her own.
“Right, Nor?”
Nora dropped the letter to her chest and lolled her head in Charlie’s direction.
“Huh?”
“It’s weird, right? That we grew up next to someone working for the same supersecret death factory you do.”
“Excuse me, not a death factory,” said Nora. “We don’t kill people. We just help those who’ve died get to whatever comes next. Or,theydo, I guess. I’m, like, mega-fired at this point. If we weren’t in a Blind Spot, they’d have torn me a new one by now.”
“That’s not so bad,” said Charlie.
Nora gave him a look that said, “I’d rather stick with the one I’ve got, thanks.”
“I just mean, it’s not like that was your dream job anyway, right?”
