Everything suddenly clicked together. If Martin reported the town, Ruby would be at R.C.M.P.’s mercy again. And after decades in hiding, the thought of facing their wrath and her own imminent death—after years of postponing it—could have made her desperate. Nora relayed this to the others as quickly as she could.
“Hmm.” Oliver shifted in his chair. “She always was something of an enigma, our Ruby. When Richard first brought her home I tried my best, gave her nothing but kindness, but she never warmed up, never dropped her guard. I suppose this could be the reason why.”
The thought sent a tendril of chills crawling down Nora’sneck. She and Charlie had been sleeping only a few floors below Ruby all these nights. They’d shared meals, conversation, time. She was theirgrandmother. Their father’smom.And yet, it all added up too well to be a coincidence. She had the most to lose if Martin followed through with his plans. And of course Patty would help her mother. What lengths would Nora have gone to to save her own parents’ lives?
What she didn’t understand was Oliver. He knew. All this time he knew what had happened, and instead of doing anything about it he barricaded himself away from the world and allowed the family’s secrets to fester. So why had he picked this little sliver of time to set the wheels back in motion?
“Why now?” she asked at last. “Why dredge it all back up now?”
“I don’t understand the question,” said Oliver.
“This all happened almost twenty years ago. You had twenty years to do something about it, to go to S.C.Y.T.H.E. or at least figure out who was to blame. Why bring Jessica to Charlie now, after all this time?”
The look on Oliver’s face was one of genuine bafflement, tinged with a hint of offense. “What are you talking about? Who’s Jessica?”
Nora indicated the bird on Oliver’s shoulder. “You thought that Jessica would tell us what really happened to Mom and Dad, that’s why you left her and the note at Charlie’s.”
Oliver studied the bird in question, his expression still bewildered. “I didn’t leave her anywhere. And by the way, her name is Silver.Jessica. Like she’s some kind of Hollywood starlet. Honestly.”
“You didn’t leave her at Charlie’s?” Nora repeated.
“Of course not. I’ve not been out of Virgo Bay since we settled here. I don’t even drive. How on earth do you expect me to track down two youths in another country?”
“Google Maps?” Charlie offered.
This drew an expression on Oliver’s withered face that somehow managed to surpass bewilderment and end up somewhere around dismay.
“Or not,” Charlie muttered.
“But if it wasn’t you,” Nora began. She was getting a little sick of being the one to have all the earth-shattering realizations, but she could feel another one coming on. Who in Virgo Bay had a car? Who often used it to go out of town? Who was brave enough to travel away from the safety of the Blind Spot? Who also had a birdcage, much cleaner and more recently used, in his home? Who would want the truth known about what happened to Martin Bird?
“Charles,” she said at last.
“What about him?” asked Oliver.
“He must have been the one who left Jessic—Silver with Charlie. He wanted us to know the truth, for our dad’s sake. They were close, even after Dad left. Charles never destroyed Dad’s letter about going to S.C.Y.T.H.E. Ruby must have found it and did the only thing she could to stop Dad. And Charles had to live with that all these years. So he brought us Jessica, and she brought us home.”
“Charles,” squawked Jessica. Or Silver, Nora supposed, though she had no intention of calling her that again.
“And what do you intend to do about it?” asked Oliver.
“I don’t know,” said Nora. “But we have to dosomethingor Ruby’s going to kill Charlie.”
“You’ve lost me again.”
Nora took a deep breath. “I need you to keep a very open mind,” she said. Then, as best she could without sounding like she was in need of a padded room, Nora explained the situation: her role at S.C.Y.T.H.E., finding Charlie’s file, the world’s worst road trip to keep him safe, the attempts on his life since they’d arrived in Virgo Bay. Oliver listened intently, saying nothing, his head bobbing almost as frequently as Jessica’s. He seemed to take it all in stride, the revelations obviously less jarring to a century-old man who’d discovered immortality. When Nora finally finished speaking, Oliver’s hands held firm to the armrests of his rocking chair.
“I came here because losing my Alice broke me. I thought the only way to be whole again was to keep myself and my loved ones safe, forever. But that’s not the way it works; it only led to more pain in the end.” He sighed, deep and mournful. “You realize, of course, there’s only one thing to be done here.”
This, in Nora’s mind, was a factually incorrect statement. There were several things to do here. Just off the top of her head, there was having Charles drive the twins far, far away from this town, or there was staying way out here in the woods and hoping it worked just as well for them as it did for Oliver, or there was always crying in the fetal position, which Nora was particularly adept at. But Oliver’s soft jaw was set, and Nora found herself deferring to him on the subject.
“What do we do?”
“You do what your father tried to do long ago,” said Oliver. “Turn the town in to the authorities. Stop another attempt at killing for the sake of eternal life. It’s the only way to end this. It’s the only way to keep your brother alive.”
26
The twins and Jessica left Oliver’s house in the early hours of the morning, the blue light weak as the rising sun battled a thick cloud cover for ownership of the sky. Out of the forest, they made their way back to the little red house mostly out of reflex, only realizing the mistake they’d made as the bay came into view. They couldn’t go back inside. If Nora’s theory was correct, that would be like walking into a bear’s cave dressed as a salmon. But they had nowhere else to go.
