by Abigail Boyd
I went back to school the next day. Because of keeping up on my work, I wasn't behind in any way but socially. I barely remembered my teacher's names and I was worried I'd go to the wrong classrooms. Theo picked me up, seamlessly falling into our old routine.
"Welcome back," Alex said calmly as I walked in. "Long time no see." He'd cut his hair and grown out a bit of blonde stubble.
"I never thought I'd say I was glad to be at Hawthorne. Not like I'm going to say it today. But I think this is the closest I'll ever get," I said.
Alex patted me on the back. He leaned close to my ear. "I know you might not want to hear it, considering your complicated history, but your boy wanted me to give you the message that he's happy you're back, too."
Within a short period of time, it was like I'd never left. I'd thought it might be awkward, but it was easy to slip back into a routine. A lot of people I'd barely talked to before said hi to me in classes, as though they'd personally missed me.
I could hear my name as a topic in other people's conversations, and for the first time I knew I really heard it and wasn't just paranoid. Hundreds of pairs of eyes were watching me in the Commons at lunch, and I bowed my head and ate my lunch.
"Maybe you should consider a disguise for school," Alex said humorously. "Some dark glasses, blonde wig."
My teachers seemed bemused that I was back, but I was just glad that it didn't seem to be a big deal. And I had kept all of my grades up, even math, so there wasn't anything they could say against me there.
In chemistry, I was still seated back next to Madison. I was surprised they hadn't found anyone else to fill the space, that Madison hadn't personally requested a change of lab partner. She seemed shocked to see me, her buggy eyes popping out, and her pencil falling out of her hand. Her reaction was almost comical.
"I thought you had pulled out," she said. She acted very inconvenienced to take her purse and her books and all of her other crap off of my seat.
"No such luck," I muttered. "I was just on vacation."
Henry came up to me after school. I'd seen him throughout the few classes that we had together, even though we sat in opposite parts of the classroom. From what I gathered, he had stared at me all the way through each of them, but that was what everyone appeared to be doing. Like Warwick was going to randomly run in with a butcher knife and attack me.
"So are you back to school from now on?" Henry asked, walking beside me down the hall. I noticed that he was back into wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and he looked more like his old self.
"Yep. Unless my parents have other plans that they haven't let me in on," I said.
"I know I'm disobeying your rules and talking to you," Henry said. "But I was wondering if I could push my luck and ask you to go for a drive with me?"
"Why?" I asked, eying him cautiously.
"I just wanted to talk about a few things."
"More talking?"
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Henry said, smirking. "Aren't girls supposed to want to talk it out? Anyway, I just figured, since this is the first chance we've had to chat since Warwick did whatever he did to get out, we should compare notes."
"Okay. I guess," I said gingerly. I let Theo know that I was going to go with Henry. She didn't seem to like the idea, looking at him cautiously and asking me several times if I really was sure I wanted to do that.
I'd never been in Henry's car before. The cherry red BMW coupe still looked brand new. I could have pulled out all kinds of metaphors for that but I kept my mouth shut. The interior was not so spotless. Scribbled song lyrics were tacked to the roof, and he had jammed books and paperwork on the floor of the driver's side.
"Sorry," he mumbled, tossing the stuff into the back.
"How crazy are your parents to let you drive this thing?" I asked.
"Well, you already know how crazy my dad is," Henry mumbled. "Apart from that, it's all a status symbol. It's a freaking car. And I'll get a new one next birthday."
"That it is," I said softly. I hated the idea of Henry's dad hurting him. I found myself checking him out for new bruises, hoping he wouldn't notice or get embarrassed as we sped down the road.
"When is your birthday, anyway?" I asked, realizing I'd never found it out before. Or his middle name, or his favorite color, or other mundane details like that. In all the time I'd thought I was madly in love with him, I'd bypassed the little things.
"April 17th," he said. "I can't wait until I turn seventeen, then one more year to official adulthood."
"Two for me. I'm a baby, I only turned sixteen in September."
"Happy late birthday," he said, smiling gently. But his eyes were still sad.
"At least it won't be too long until you get away from your dad," I mumbled after a minute.
As the coupe stopped at a red light, Henry turned towards me. "Don't worry. He's kept his hands off me. I think Warwick getting out worried him. He knew that Warwick held the gun to both of us."
"You've been okay though, right? Careful?" I asked. I didn't want to show that I cared about him, to live by the words I'd told him. But the truth was, I did care, and no matter what I did it wasn't going to stop.
"Aren't I always?" Henry asked, starting to drive again.
"I wouldn't know," I shrugged. "You seem to like to court danger."
"You and me both, dear," Henry said. Heat slithered through my belly again, reminding me again how we'd kissed at Lainey's party. I'd never had a boy touch me like that before, seem to want me as much as he wanted me.
"So let's get to talking," I said, trying to distract myself.
"Did Warwick try to contact you in any way?" Henry asked. "Send you an email, text, carrier pigeon, anything?"
"No. You?"
"Nothing. But it seems like everyone thought he was coming back to Hell. I wonder why?"
"He lived here his whole life," I said. "Where else would he go? To my knowledge he doesn't have any living family. He always came to our house for holiday dinners. One year he and Hugh barbequed a turkey and almost caught the grill on fire."
"So let's think like a criminal. If I had just gotten out of jail, I would be heading as far away as possible," Henry said.
We were driving down a tree-lined street with rows of tidy lawns. People were out raking leaves and piling them into their ditches to burn. Little plumes trailed up from the ditches, scenting the air.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Just for a drive. I'll take you anywhere you want to go."
The persistent smell of smoke nagged at me. I looked up at the sky, and saw an ash gray cloud of smoke, big and growing bigger.
"Something's going on over there," I said. At the same moment I said that, we heard distant fire truck sirens.
Henry followed my instructions. The tilted pillar of thick, chalky smoke arched across the sky, almost like an arrow pointing the way.
When we turned on to Sanitarium road, I knew what was burning.
"Dexter," I murmured to myself.
CHAPTER 26
FARTHER DOWN THE road, three fire engines were parked in a triangle. A crowd of people clustered around them. Henry pulled his car into the hidden road marked by the X of dead birches trees, and cautiously we walked up the street.
"Come here," Henry said, and pulled me behind one of the fire engines. "Nobody needs to see us."
The entire top half of the orphanage was on fire. Flames shot out towards the sky. The thick smoke smelled awful, like burnt popcorn and car exhaust, stinging my eyes. Henry and I were hidden from the rest of the onlookers, who were all crowding around the orphanage gate.
"A lot of them are in Thornhill," Henry said from beside me. We were both crouching down, peering around the side of the fire engine beneath flaps on the back reading Keep Back.
I recognized Henry's mother, watching with horror. Her hands cupped her mouth, her normally expressionless face full of emotion. A tall, young man in a pinstripe suit comforted her, rubbing her slim shoulders.
<
br /> "That's mom's assistant, Roger," Henry said. "Also her lover, but I'm not supposed to know that."
Yellow fire hoses snaked across the lawn, and the firemen were busily spraying jets of water on the blaze. They didn't seem to be making much of a dent, but it seemed like the fire was moving slowly. Every few minutes they'd let off another boost of pressure, another jet of water to try to dampen the blaze, but it came roaring back in the same spots.
The building had always looked so solid, so indestructible. It seemed like another dream to watch the fire ripping and tearing through it. Half of the roof was already gone, revealing yawning metal bars that had supported the brick and shingles.
Phillip's Lexus pulled up on the other side of the road. Henry ducked back farther. "It would be really bad for him to see us here together. We need to get out of here."
He held out his hand, and I accepted it without question. The choking smoke was threatening to make me cough and thereby bring attention to our hiding spot. My throat and lungs were itchy and irritated. Henry and I took off running down the road, keeping parallel to the trees, and didn't stop until we had reached his car.
He pulled back out on to Sanitarium road, and began driving towards my place.
"You really are scared of him, aren't you?" I asked, taking in the fear on his face as he drove.
He nodded. "He's a powerful man. I don't think I realized how much until he became a part of this Thornhill thing. Those people revere him like he's some kind of king."
I could still see the smoke in the sky, and two more police cars rocketed past us down the road.
"This is serious. I wonder if they're going to get it under control," I said.
"Unless it spreads to all those old trees around the place," Henry said. "But it looks they're giving it their all to stop it. I've got to admit, though, it's good seeing that awful place burn. I've never liked it there."
"Me neither," I said emphatically.
I thought about my dream again, the glowing entrails of the building. Now whatever waited there would hopefully be torched to a crisp. It also made me think back to the first dream I'd ever had of Jenna, way back on my fifteenth birthday. She had run inside the orphanage. And then hadn't it caught on fire? I couldn't be sure; the details were fussy with time.
"Even though I don't believe in ghosts, that place just gives me an awful feelings. Like bad things happened there."
"Do you think Thornhill is more than they appear to be?" I asked, watching the moving carpet of birds, trotting over the ground and destroying the grass. Some had been hit by cars and were rotting as roadkill. "Hugh has all these theories...well you heard them at Hell Day."
We had reached my driveway. He idled the car in front of my house, looking up at the front door like he longed to walk up there. Or I could have been projecting my own thoughts again. I fought with my desire to stay with him, to not get out.
"Do you want to come inside?" I asked hesitantly.
He gazed at me, and emotions flickered across his face, his eyes intense. "No. I mean, it's not that I don't want to, but...I need to be getting back. They'll want me around, if nothing else than to complain to me."
Click click. Click click.
Before I opened my eyes, I heard the lighter flicking. I had been fast asleep, just swimming into consciousness. When I opened them, Jenna was sitting on my desk chair again, the lighter two inches from her face.
Click click.
"It smells like something's burning out there," she informed me.
"Yeah, there was a fire last night," I said, stretching my arms up.
"I keep thinking it's my lighter. I have to keep checking to make sure I have it," Jenna said.
I sat up, supporting myself with my hands. The atmosphere in my room felt heavy, a feeling that was hard to put my finger on. "It was just an accident, I think. One of the old buildings caught on fire uptown, that's all."
"Which one?" Jenna asked curiously, putting the lighter back in her pocket.
"The old Dexter Orphanage," I said as casually as possible. I thought it would confuse her if I acted any more familiar with it. I watched for any flash of recognition, but there was none. She just shrugged.
"They should have torn that place down a long time ago," Jenna said.
Upstairs, Hugh and Claire were glued to the news. Hugh was mindlessly nibbling on a toaster waffle. In a moment of panic, I assumed it was about Warwick. I rushed to watch, prepared for the worst.
"We've never seen anything like it," a man in a DNR uniform was saying. "They've been a nuisance all summer, but to up and die in such mass numbers. We don't have an answer. It could be the cold snap, messing with their circulatory systems. Birds are very sensitive to temperature change..."
The scrolling ticker beneath him read, "Mass bird death in Hell, MI...CDC has been called in for evaluation...no word yet as to cause."
I went to the front door, which was cracked open. What I saw was like something out of a disaster movie. Dead black birds littered our lawn and that of our neighbors, lying on the trees, on top of cars. CDC trucks, emblazoned with their navy blue and white logos, were parked all down the block. Men in hazmat suits were picking up the birds by their stiff legs and wings and putting them carefully into huge black garbage bags.
"This is wild," I said, unable to believe the scene before me.
And then I felt the chill of the breeze. I had worn a wifebeater to bed the night before, since even with the air conditioning it was quite humid. But it had dropped at least twenty degrees over night, possibly more than that.
"They said they're sending the birds to labs for testing," Claire said, getting up and heading for the kitchen. "But they won't have any kind of answers until at least six weeks."
"Do you think there's any danger to humans?" I asked. "Like if it can make the birds sick, isn't there a possibility it can make us sick?"
"They have no idea," Hugh said, sounding irritated. "And I don't think they would tell us if they did."
"Well, it seems you were right," Claire said, returning with a glass of juice and taking her spot up in the recliner. Hugh nodded.
"It seems I was," he said gravely.
What surprised me was the lack of attention paid to the orphanage. The report on website, complete with picture, showed that they were able to put out the fire with most of the structure intact. I didn't know why, but that caused a chill to run down my spine. Surely it would be condemned now, though. There was no way it was safe. It would probably be cheaper for Thornhill to tear the entire place down and start rebuilding from the roots.
I almost didn't catch the line at the bottom of the article. "Damage to the property includes a small shed that used to be used as a groundskeeper's quarters. The small structure was completely gutted."
I sat back in mute shock. So all the evidence of Jenna's sacrifice was inaccessible now. How was I ever going to convince anyone that the creepy secret tunnels existed if I wasn't able to take them down there.
I stared at the photo of the ruined orphanage. It seemed to be staring back, the blackened windows like a hundred demonic eyes. It reminded me of a skull with all the hair burnt off, the way the top half was so much darker. It seemed to be triumphant, somehow. You can't destroy me, not matter how hard you try. I clicked the X in the browser.
Nobody could stop talking about the birds at Hawthorne. The commons were abuzz with the subject when Theo and I arrived.
"Uh, just another thing for the sheep to gossip about to death," Theo said as we slumped down at a table. "I'm already sick of hearing about it. Especially since we're not going to hear an explanation for a while."
"You heard about the orphanage, right?" I quizzed her. I was rummaging through my binders, making sure all of my homework was complete and in place.
"Oh, sure. I thought of calling you right away. We could go do a victory dance on its grave," Theo muttered. "Too bad they had to put the fire out."
"I wondered what happened there," I said. "T
he police are saying it could have been vandals. It used to be a party spot a few years ago."
Theo shrugged. "Could have been. Or maybe the place is so evil it just burst into flames."
Lainey and Madison were strutting around the commons, Madison clutching a clipboard. They were addressing all the billboards, decorating them for this year's Halloween dance, which was coming up in a week and a half. I wasn't worried about going; I wasn't in a dancing mood, and the Henry thing was far too complicated for me to even consider going with him. I'd done the school dance thing last year, and that was enough.
Lainey was apparently barking orders, her hands on her hips. Madison looked miserable, like she was just hoping someone would save her. She was wearing a polka dot blue dress with a white cardigan and a neck full of pearls. Lainey was similarly dressed up in pink. I'd heard they were both on student council now, although I didn't pay much attention to school politics when I could avoid them.
Madison stretched a tape measure across one of the billboards. Lainey wrinkled her nose, then slapped Lainey's hand away. "Not like that, you idiot. You have to get a straight line."
"Trouble in paradise," Theo mused as we watched them bicker.
Forget about a normal school day. The teachers had to keep fielding questions about the bird deaths. Most of them seemed as interested as the students, though, and half of my classes devolved into the sharing of conspiracy theories.
And it seemed that everybody had one. The aforementioned air or water contamination, avian flu outbreak, solar flares. And everybody was equally convinced that their theories were right. If this was how things worked in the science community, how did anything ever get done?
I found myself walking behind the popular crowd in between class. Henry was still hanging around them, but he and Lainey were on opposite sides now. I noticed, with a rush of affection, that he was wearing his old hoodie with the blackbirds printed inside the hood.
Ambrose Slaughter had taken his spot back as the king of the group. His stride was much more confident, and the jealousy on his face had been replaced by his former smugness.
"What are you wearing?" he asked Henry, his nose wrinkling. I watched Lainey giggle behind her hand, and her look at Ambrose admiringly. Sour grapes.
