Rebel

by Rachel Manija Brown

  Her stomach lurched. It was too easy to imagine Henry setting a fire, then saying, “Just kidding!”

  “Becky?” the sheriff asked. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure . . .” But it was more that she didn’t want to be sure. Maybe if she said it out loud, the sheriff would see where she’d gone wrong. And Sheriff Crow would know who the real fire starter was. Becky was being stupid, worrying about accusing her own brother just because she so badly didn’t want it to be true. The lightest punishment for arson was exile. If anybody died in the fire, the arsonist would be executed.

  “Have you ever had to arrest someone you like?” Becky’s voice came out the way it used to, shaky and small. She hoped Sheriff Crow wouldn’t ask the obvious question, which was “Why?”

  She didn’t, but Becky was sure she was thinking it. “I have. And not very long ago, either. It was Jennie, Yuki, and Mia. Of course, they turned themselves in. But I would have had to be the one to escort them out the gates if they’d been exiled.”

  “Could you do it if . . .” If it was someone in your own family? Becky couldn’t say the words. She had no proof—only her own fears.

  “Let’s turn down Jackalope Row.” As soon as no one else was in sight, Sheriff Crow said quietly, “What were you going to ask?”

  Becky shook her head, unable to speak.

  The sheriff looked down at her thoughtfully. “This is the tough part of the job. In a way, arresting Jennie and Yuki and Mia was less complicated than it could have been. They broke a law, but they did it to prevent the town from murdering an innocent girl, and they owned up to it right away. All I had to do was lock the cell doors on them. But around that same time, I found out that someone else I cared about had done something that I did think was wrong.”

  Becky blinked up at her. “What? Who was that?”

  “Furio Vilas. You probably thought of him as the bounty hunter.” Sheriff Crow was silent for a few steps, then said, “We were . . . close. Until I found out that he’d taken Tom Preston’s order to murder Ross. He would have done it, too, if Jennie hadn’t stopped him. And I would have arrested him.”

  Becky nearly said, Even if Henry set the fires, at least he didn’t murder anyone. But she didn’t know that yet. People could still die in the fire burning now.

  “Let’s consider the facts,” the sheriff said again. “Together, this time. We’ll begin with the physical evidence.”

  “There isn’t much. Just the match on the hillside.”

  “Which might have been planted. So let’s look at our suspects. Peter and Hans were at the first fire, but they were at archery practice during the second fire.”

  Becky nodded. Swallowed. Said firmly, “Alfonso, Henry, and Mia were at both fires, but the only one who could have escaped from the second was Alfonso.”

  “Go on,” Sheriff Crow said.

  “But today I saw Alfonso helping Mr. Medina carry baskets of food while I was having a conversation with Felicité, and after that he and I talked about the surgery until the play started. And then he sat with his family. I’m pretty sure Mia was there the entire time, too.” Becky hated to go on. But a sheriff’s deputy had to think of the entire town. “But Henry disappeared for a while. I didn’t see him again until right before the play started.”

  “So he had an opportunity,” the sheriff said. “What about motive? Alfonso and Mia don’t seem to have any reason to start fires. Do you think Henry has?”

  “I know he has,” Becky admitted. “He wants Mr. Preston to think he’s a hero, so he’ll get into the Rangers. That praise he got after the second fire—it was important to him. And to our mother. Mom’s been telling him he’s a failure every day since he didn’t make the Rangers. I know what that’s like.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t set fires.”

  “We don’t know that he did,” Becky said quickly.

  “Why don’t we find out? Once we establish where the fire started, you can use your power to look for who set it. But Becky,” Sheriff Crow added. “If it does turn out to be Henry, don’t confront him. We need to do this right—by the rules.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Mia

  Mia tugged at Aunt Olivia’s dress, which tried to crawl up her harness at every step, as she panted in Mr. Preston’s wake.

  Every time there was an emergency, she always seemed to get stuck running after someone with much longer legs. In a dress. In the worst possible dress! Why had she had given in to Grandma Lee, who had insisted she wear Aunt Olivia’s lucky dress? There was no such thing as a lucky dress. These stupid ribbons were tangling with every single tool, and how did this always happen to her? She wore a dress maybe once a year!

  Twice a year. Two disasters.

  At least this time, she wasn’t lugging her flamethrower.

  Ross ran easily beside her, not out of breath at all. “Can I carry something?”

  Mia nearly tripped over her feet as she tried to look down at her tools. The problem wasn’t that any particular one was heavy. It was that there were so many of them. She handed him the two that were closest to her hands, which turned out to be a podger spanner and a drift pin—two of her lightest ones.

  Ross flashed a quick grin as he stuck them in his belt. “I could take more.”

  “Later . . . maybe,” Mia gasped. If she tried to extract one more thing while she ran, she’d fall flat on her face.

  Kerry had no trouble running. As for Summer, she floated along. Literally. Her feet only touched the ground every ten to fifteen feet. She had the best power. Ever.

  Kerry tapped Mia’s shoulder. “What are we doing?”

  Mia gulped in air. “Command post’s at the gate. Mr. Preston can see better there. Send the fire teams. He’ll put you and Ross on one.”

  “And you?”

  “I know the pumps. We send the fire teams to them. The big hoses have to go . . .” Mia determinedly sucked in a breath. “. . . where the water pressure’s best.”

  Kerry looked impressed. “In Gold Point we had a whole team in charge of that. But here it’s just you?”

  For about two seconds, Mia was thrilled to imagine the job to come. Then misgivings fell on her head like a twenty pound sledge hammer. “I guess. I’ve never done it before. I haven’t even run a fire drill. Mr. Rodriguez always ran them, but he hasn’t been fixing those pumps all this year like I have.”

  By the time she staggered up the steps to the command post, she wanted to collapse to the floor. But with Mr. Preston there, she didn’t even dare to lean against the wall.

  “The fire is thickest that way,” Ms. Lowenstein reported, pointing toward the abandoned corn fields. “But the wind is carrying it northwest.”

  “Toward the Vardams’ orchard. Sparks can jump the wall.” Mr. Preston turned to loom over Mia, his blue eyes cold behind wire rimmed glasses. Mia vividly remembered him on the other side of the jail bars, telling her she’d never grown up and never would, and he’d been a fool to ever trust her. She barely stopped herself from cringing back.

  “Mia,” Mr. Preston said. “We need to fight this fire in two ways. One is to prevent it from spreading. We need teams all along the wall inside the Vardams’ orchard to watch for sparks and put out any flames. We should also attack the fire from the south, where it’s burning strongest. But we don’t know how far it’s spread, and there’s no way to investigate without being slaughtered by the crystal trees. Any ideas on water allocation?”

  Mia’s hand popped up as if she were still in school. Mr. Preston stared at her incredulously, and she yanked her hand down, her face burning.

  “Yes. But first. There is a way to investigate.” She stopped herself before she could blurt out how, and tried to shoot Ross a meaningful look without Mr. Preston noticing.

  Mr. Preston clearly noticed. Ross gave Mia a resigned nod. To Mr. Preston, he quietly said, “I can look right now.”

  “Too risky. I know you’re . . .” Mr. Preston visibly forced out the words. “. . . safe from t
he crystal trees. But you could easily get surrounded by the fire.”

  Ross shook his head. “I can look from here.”

  Mia saw the exact moment that Mr. Preston figured out what Ross meant. He looked as if he’d bitten into an apple and found half a worm.

  Ross glanced around, and Mia knew he wanted privacy. But there were so many people on the platform, there was barely room to move. He lowered his head and shielded his eyes with his gauntlet, leaving nothing visible but the fall of his black hair.

  Mia edged up close to him, trying to find a way to touch him without attracting even more attention. All those stares were making her nervous. Imagine how poor Ross must feel. This was the first time he ever contacted the trees in front of anyone but her or Jennie. Since there was no hope of stealth, Mia grabbed his free hand and glared defiantly at Mr. Preston.

  Mia was glad she had when Ross swayed, then steadied himself against her. He dropped his other hand and looked up. “There’s scattered fires all around the trees, but they’re small. But there’s sparks floating on the wind, and I saw new fires starting.”

  Repulsion briefly tightened Mr. Preston’s face. Then he turned to address the others without even thanking Ross. Mia wished she had the nerve to do something to him. Stomp on his toes, maybe. With all it cost Ross to use his power, and in front of everyone, too, he deserved more than that ‘ugh, a Change’ face!

  “We need to put out those scattered fires,” Mr. Preston announced. “If we don’t, they’ll blaze through the abandoned corn field. It’ll create a monster fire to threaten the entire east wall.” He pointed at the brown smoke billowing up beyond the dairy barns. “The fastest way to attack the fire from the south is impossible—through the singing trees. We’ll have to—”

  Ross interrupted him. “I can do that.”

  Mr. Preston stared at him. Then he said, “I know you can get through the trees. But it takes an entire team to hold a hose. Can you take a team through?”

  “I can only take two people.” Ross was staring at the floor again, his words barely audible. “How heavy are the hoses?”

  Too heavy, Mia thought. They were made of the thickest canvas possible, in three layers, with wire mesh to protect the seams against the water pressure. Even then it was impossible to keep water from leaking through completely, which made them wet and hard to hold onto. Fire teams always included several very strong people to carry them. The rest of the team used shovels to stamp out the fire beyond the reach of the hoses.

  “Too heavy,” Mr. Preston said, startling Mia with his exact echo of her thought. “But you and two strong people might be able to handle one of the smaller hoses.” Then he addressed Mia. “So we use the Vardams’ well for the north end of the fire? And Horseshoe Pump for the south?”

  Mia knew those pumps. “Not Horseshoe,” she said confidently. “It’s on the same pipe as Vardams’. There won’t be more than a trickle. We’ll have to use Santa Lucia Well instead. With the biggest hoses, because it will take two of them to reach the wall.”

  “So Ross and his team will use the dairy pump?” Mr. Preston was asking, not telling.

  “Yes. And if we have to, extra hoses from the south forge pump.”

  Mr. Preston addressed the waiting fire team runners, “You’ve got your orders. Go!” As they took off, he said, “Now we need volunteers to go with Ross.”

  Immediately, Mia said, “I’ll go.”

  Mr. Preston gave her an irritated look that was getting all too familiar. “Two strong people who aren’t needed right here.”

  His cool blue gaze slowly traveled across the strongest people in the crowd. Every single one of them looked downward, or away, or at each other. Nobody wanted to go near those singing trees.

  Summer stepped forward with her head held high and her black hair whipping in the wind. “I’ll go. And I’m plenty strong.”

  “I will, too,” Kerry volunteered. She too stood straight and proud, but Mia knew her well enough to recognize her ‘arrogant princess’ expression as a mask over fear.

  Mr. Preston looked doubtfully from Summer’s skinny arms to Kerry’s slim figure, then eyed the crowd with disapproval. His gaze lingered especially on Mr. McVey, muscular from a lifetime of kneading dough, and on Miss Chen, who was equally strong from butchering. “Really? Nobody else?”

  Nobody else met his eyes.

  Shaking his head, Mr. Preston turned to Ross. “Over to you.”

  Mia sidled up to Kerry. “You’ll be fine. Just take the smallest hose. Do you know how to use the nozzle control to start and stop the spray?” When Kerry shook her head, her lips a white line, Mia said, “It’s just like shooting a gun: put your fingers through the grip. Squeeze, you get water. Let go, it shuts off. But hold on tight, because even the smallest hoses stiffen when the water comes through—it’ll feel like you’re wrestling a giant snake.”

  “I strangled a sand tiger,” Summer declared. “Can’t be worse.”

  Mia wiped her forehead on her puffy sleeves, leaving a grimy sweat smear. “Ross won’t let you get killed by those singing trees. He’d only do that if he wanted to—I mean if he was trying—like if you were an enemy—well, anyway, don’t be scared.” It was only when she’d finished speaking that she realized that she’d forgotten to whisper. Everyone was staring at her.

  “Huh.” Summer curled her lip at the crowd. “Hope you all aren’t as scared of the fire as you are of my brother.”

  Ross caught Summer’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Felicité

  Felicité pulled a fold of her scarf over her nose. It didn’t help much. Smoke billowed up in choking gray clouds. Here and there smoldering sparks whirled wildly, like angry eyes. She could barely see the orchard beyond the trees they stood beneath.

  “I can’t see anything,” Henry said. “Let’s climb up.”

  She didn’t want to climb—it had to be even hotter up high. Heat rose, and she was already sweating. At least the smoke gave her an excuse to hold her scarf over her face. But no matter how fast she wiped away the sweat, more formed as soon as the cloth left her face. She hadn’t yet felt the prickle of scales, but it was only a matter of time.

  She tried to think of an excuse, but Henry was already halfway up a tree. He bent down and held his hand. “I’ll pull you up. It’s perfectly safe. This is a sturdy branch.”

  She was going to exclaim that she wasn’t scared, but . . . that was just it. But.

  Felicité raised her hand to his. He clasped her wrist and pulled. Distracted, she admired his easy strength. Then her feet scrabbled and found purchase on the branch beside him, while her thoughts kept speeding like a runaway horse.

  She couldn’t let Henry see what she was. She had to find some way to hide herself, or get away, or get him away. But he seemed determined to do a good job. He leaned out dangerously, holding on with one hand and wiping his eyes with the other.

  Her own eyes stung with smoke and sweat, making it even harder to see. But that was good. She’d just remind Henry that his vision was bad, so anything he saw, he’d dismiss as distorted. “I can barely see. Everything’s a blur from the smoke.”

  “I know,” Henry replied. “That tree over there will get us to the wall. We can see from there.”

  Felicité ground her teeth. That hadn’t been what she’d intended at all!

  Somewhere behind her she heard a fire team shouting orders, and the thud and scrape of trowels digging in the dirt.

  When she turned back, Henry was swinging down onto the wall. “Come on, Princess. I’ll catch you.”

  She hesitated, searching for an excuse.

  “Don’t worry,” Henry said. “You know I’m strong enough. I won’t let you fall.”

  Felicité wiped her face again, trying desperately to find something, anything, to make him leave her behind. But what could she say when Henry was strong enough to catch her and determined to protect her? And also to do a good job. And help her do her job.

  Hen
ry was the perfect boyfriend. Except for his dreadful family, he was exactly what she wanted. But if he ever saw her hideous scaled face, his admiration would turn to disgust and horror. She wouldn’t be the princess he adored, she’d be the monster he loathed.

  She forced herself to swing from a low branch to the wall, and stood beside him as he peered out into the beating red glow.

  “There’s the fire,” Henry said. “It’s going north.”

  Felicité wondered how he could tell the direction of the fire. Everything was gray around them. Except for the silhouettes of the trees behind them and the vague shape of the mill a few hundred yards away, it was as if the entire town had vanished.

  Henry turned to Felicité. “I don’t hear any fire teams out there. I think ours is the farthest north.”

  “I’ll send Wu Zetian.” Her rat had curled tightly around her neck, making her even hotter. She was relieved to send Wu Zetian to safety—and get the fur muff away from her face. Felicité scribbled a message, tucked it into the collar case, and said, “Go to Daddy.”

  Her clever rat scampered away along the wall. Felicité turned her back on Henry and loosened her scarf in the hope of getting a little air to dry her neck. A hot gust of smoky air blew over her, singing her nose. She broke into a coughing fit.

  Henry knelt beside her, patting her back. “You stay and keep watch. I’ll go fight the fire.”

  “With what?” Much as she wanted Henry gone, it would be suicide for him to try to fight a wildfire alone. “It’s too big for you to smother with dirt. You’d need a whole team. Anyway, Daddy said to stay here and keep watch. Maybe we should get down and try where the smoke isn’t so thick.” She pointed back toward the orchard.

  “We won’t see anything from there. The wall will be in the way. Felicité, you can stay here, but I’m going to jump down. If I can get ahead of the smoke, I might be able to see more. Only for a bit. I’ll be right back.”