As Nora lifted her fist to start banging on the door, she felt a flurry of wings at her side. Jessica took off from Charlie’s shoulder and flew towards the back of the house, where she fluttered up to the nursery window. She hovered there, pecking at the glass with her beak as Nora and Charlie rounded the house behind her.
“What the hell is she doing?” Nora hissed.
“Beats me,” said Charlie. “But if she’s from here, maybe she’s trying to go home.”
The bird kept pecking at the window until it lifted open enough for her to get inside. In her place came a head topped by a shock of white hair. Oliver looked down at the twins with an unreadable expression. Nora could see anger in there, and annoyance, but there was something else. Something that scared her.
“You’d better get in here,” the old man wheezed down at them.
Charlie and Nora trudged back to the front door just in time to hear it unbolt. Nora pushed it open and stepped inside. A lit candle flickered from its pewter holder in Oliver’s hand, giving off an otherworldly glow. It was like a moment out of time. Which, Nora reasoned, so was Oliver in his way.
Jessica flew down from upstairs and perched herself on one of the old man’s hunched shoulders. He tried to swat her off but relented as the parrot started rubbing her head against his chin.
“She’s yours,” Charlie said, half in awe and half-disappointed.
“She’s no such thing,” said Oliver, offended. “She was my children’s, and then their children’s. The thing just likes me because I used to share my hazelnuts. How’d you end up with her?”
“We came to ask you the same thing,” said Nora.
“More questions,” said Oliver. “Questions at midnight. Delightful. I suppose you want to sit down.”
They each resumed what had become their usual seats by the fireplace: Oliver in his rocking chair, Nora in the chair across from him, Charlie on the floor. The fire was long dead, the room heavy with damp and must.
“You shouldn’t be here,” said Oliver by way of starting the conversation.
“We keep hearing that,” said Nora.
“You should listen.”
“We keep hearing that too,” said Charlie.
“But you won’t, of course.” Oliver shook his head. “Because you’re Martin’s children.”
“You said Dad was a bold one,” said Nora. “Now I understand why. You knew he was going to S.C.Y.T.H.E. about the Blind Spot, didn’t you.” It was more a statement than a question.
A flicker of surprise appeared in the old man’s dark eyes, his body jolting slightly. Nora watched him running though the options in his head. What to tell them, how much to tell them, if there was a point in holding anything back now.
“I knew,” he said at last.
“It’s what you wanted,” Nora said. “But no one else did, right? It would mean putting Virgo Bay on Death’s map. It would mean the town would have to face the same mortality as everyone else. And why the hell would anyone want that?”
“Because,” Oliver said, hauling himself to his feet, Jessica wobbling on his shoulder. “A place like this, it’s cursed. Oh, you’ll think it’s blessed at first, and by the time you realize the truth it’s too late. What’s the point of a life eternal if people have to die for it?”
“You’re talking about Mom and Dad, right?” said Charlie.
“You know who killed them,” said Nora.
“No,” said Oliver, lowering himself back into his chair. “And that is another curse. I know their lives were taken by someone in this town, someonein my family, but Patty refuses to tell me who. She says the truth would destroy me, as if the act itself hasn’t done that already. She says it’s better for me to never know. That if I thought it could be any of them, then I would have nochoice but to go on loving them all equally. In truth all it’s done is make me loathe the lot of them. Gluttons for existence, like pigs rooting around for any scrap of trash in their sties without knowing or caring what real food tastes like.”
Patty. So Patty was at the center of everything. She was withholding the full story from the twins and keeping Oliver in the dark as well. And by being the birdie in his ear, Patty was controlling the narrative. Especially when Oliver’s only other visitor, Phil, was so clearly in Patty’s pocket. But there was one more piece to the puzzle Nora kept forgetting, kept pushing to the back of her mind despite herself.
“Did you know that Ruby was on the run from a soul collection agency?” said Nora.
“A what?” said Oliver.
“Richard never told you what Ruby did before coming here?”
Oliver shook his head. “She was a kid when she came here; even younger than you. I just assumed she was a student like Richard. Never occurred to me to ask.”
