Chapter 13 #2
Nora just glared at that. This was the way things had always been.
Well, almost always. Back when they were kids, Nora and Charlie had been inseparable.
On the first day of kindergarten, when she found out she’d been placed in a different class than her brother, Nora cried for so long that the school relented and allowed them to be together, even though it made the class numbers uneven.
Charlie was her best friend. He looked after her.
If anyone so much as looked at her funny, they would have to answer to Charlie Bird.
Which usually involved language officially deemed “not schoolyard appropriate” in parent-teacher meetings.
Then their parents died, and everything changed.
They changed. When Nora needed her brother most, he just kind of stopped.
Stopped sticking up for her, stopped trying hard in school, stopped taking anything seriously, stopped being Charlie.
Instead all he wanted to do was have fun.
High school was a nightmare. There wasn’t a single party that Charlie Bird didn’t attend, assuming he wasn’t throwing it himself.
While Nora, still swallowed by a boundless well of fear, retreated deeper into herself, only emerging to save Charlie from Charlie.
Now she had to save him from Death too, and she’d already done that like five times now.
“We need a car,” Nora said, falling back into her usual role without further resistance.
“If not mine, someone else’s. Maybe we can borrow one.
Or maybe we find out when Charles is heading out on his next supply run and go with him.
But we need to get out of here. Failing that, we need a phone charger.
My phone’s dead, but if I can get it charged, then we can call for help.
If we’re dealing with a murderer, then we need the police.
The FBI. Whatever they have up here. Mounties?
Or is that just in cartoons? Anyway, whatever, that’s the best I’ve got. ”
“Well, I guess we don’t need my plan, then,” said Charlie. “Too bad, it was a real good one too. Oh well. Hey, what’s that?”
He pointed off the path and into the thick web of trees beyond.
“Can you seriously not focus on one thing for more than two seconds?” Nora said, but followed his gesture into the thicket with her eyes, to what looked like some kind of man-made structure in a clearing forty or so feet away. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. What now?”
“Only one way to find out,” said Charlie. Before he even had time to take a step towards the structure, Nora had her fingers wrapped tight around his jacket collar.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not. Are you serious? You’re literally on the verge of being killed at any moment and you want to go explore the creepy abandoned building in the middle of the woods? Charlie, can you please use your brain for a sec?”
“It isn’t abandoned,” Charlie said, as if that were the main issue. “Look, there’s smoke coming out of the chimney.”
Nora found the stone chimney through the trees, slender coils of gray smoke escaping its mouth and disappearing into the treetops high, high above. Any saliva in Nora’s mouth vanished.
“Fuck,” she said. “We have to get out of here.”
She took Charlie by the wrist again and started dragging.
It felt like walking an unruly puppy. The wind had picked up now, tree branches creaking like breaking bones high above.
Then another sound snuck into Nora’s brain from just above them, buzzing there, familiar but impossible to pin down.
It was rhythmic, back and forth, back and forth.
Then the buzzing stopped, and the creaking, and the wind rushing, and any other sound, and suddenly she knew exactly what she was hearing.
She could see how this would end. It was all right there in her mind’s eye.
But it was too late. The saw had stopped cutting, the heavy branch plummeting towards Charlie’s oblivious head. There was no time to warn him.
Nora felt the warmth from where her hand wrapped around his wrist. Her own wrist still pulsed from its growing collection of injuries; her strength, already questionable under normal circumstances, was dulled by the pain.
And yet, without fully thinking about it, without time to inhale and collect herself, Nora yanked.
Hard. Hard enough to throw off their collective balance and send them both to the leafy ground just as the fat branch hit the earth, bouncing once and then coming to rest at their feet with a thunderous thud.
The sound of retreating footfalls followed, echoing through the forest, louder and more assured than the little critters who had been rummaging in the leaves. Someone, almost certainly the same someone who had just sent a tree branch down on them, was fleeing the scene.
Nora dragged herself to her feet, her tailbone throbbing. She looked down at Charlie, who sat propped on his elbows, staring at the branch with wide eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Did you just save my life again?” Charlie said, his voice flat, his mind clearly still catching up with what had just occurred.
“Yeah,” Nora said. She carefully dusted off the back of her cargo pants, trying to shed the damp leaves that clung there.
“You’re good at that,” said Charlie.
“I wish you were better at it,” she said. “We really need to go. Now. Whoever that was could still be around here somewhere, and who knows what they have planned next.”
Charlie stood up without protest. His face was as close to mirthless as Nora had seen it in years. This seemed to have finally driven the severity of the matter home to Charlie. He led the way out of the woods, saying nothing.
When they got back to the little red house, they were greeted by a cacophony of voices emanating from the living room. Nora threw a look over her shoulder at Charlie that said, “Oh fuck,” as they took their shoes off. Great. More people they couldn’t trust.
* * *
Once inside they found a healthy fire undulating in the hearth, surrounded by Richard and Ruby on the couch, Patty perched on a footstool, Charles on the matching chair, and a man Nora couldn’t remember the name of on a seat across from them.
The man was the relative closest in age to the twins, the only child of Pickles and his wife—Nora knew that much.
He wore khaki pants smeared with mud, his stubbly cheeks still rosy from the crisp November air.
Based on his position and elevated breathing, he must have arrived only minutes before the twins.
“Uh, hi,” Nora said to no one in particular.
“Oh good, you’re back,” said Richard. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen to warm you both up. A good walk always deserves a little brew, I say.”
Nora blanched at the suggestion, her anxiety already threatening diarrhea without the help.
“How’d you kids sleep?” Patty asked from her perch.
Nora gave her a sharp appraisal. Could she have been in their room with a knife last night?
“Great,” Nora said through a tight jaw.
“Glad to hear it,” said Patty. “Hopefully the boys’ room was up to snuff.
God only knows what those scoundrels got up to in there.
” She tossed a look at Charles, who volleyed it back the way only a brother could.
“Anyway, Mom said you were in need of some clean clothes. Guess Marty never taught you kids how to pack, eh? Typical Marty. Nora, I left some things on your bed for you. Not sure they’ll be your style, but hopefully they’ll keep you warm at least.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Nora.
“And, Charlie,” said Richard. “You’re welcome to take a look in my closet, but it occurred to me that your father left some of his old things downstairs. I thought they might be more to your taste.”
“Thanks,” was all Charlie said.
“If nothing works, I have a few old things,” said the man Nora couldn’t name. “You could come over if you want, Charlie.”
“As you can see, Phil’s fashion sense is impeccable,” said Patty, indicating the man’s muddy pants.
Phil. Nora made a mental note of that. Phil with the muddy pants and the rosy cheeks and the glint of something suspicious in his eye.
Could he have been the one out there in the woods today?
He looked agile enough to climb a tree, his sinewy muscles visible even under his thin moss-green Henley.
Under normal circumstances, ones where they weren’t related and he wasn’t possibly trying to kill her brother, Nora would say he was a good-looking guy.
A little old for her, maybe, gray flecks hidden among his brown stubble and creases beside his eyes, but his jaw was strong and his expression sharp and alert.
He seemed to be watching the twins more intensely than the rest, his gaze torn between them.
His sharp eyes tore through Nora like an X-ray.
She wondered if he could see through her ribs to where her heartbeat was quickening with her growing discomfort.
“We’ll go get changed,” said Nora, more as an excuse to get away from that stare than an actual desire to get out of her clothes.
“Is there anywhere to get a car fixed around here?” Charlie asked from beside her. “Or a phone charger we could borrow?” His voice was flat. He scratched at his mat of bleached hair. Nora blinked at him, glad that one of them remembered the plan but shocked it was Charlie.
“No phones to charge, I’m afraid,” said Richard. “Not much need for them when everyone you know is just around the corner.”
“I can fix a car,” said Phil, almost too quickly.
“Phil’s very handy,” Charles confirmed. “He also happens to have the only proper tool kit in Virgo Bay, which helps.”
Which meant he might have been the only person in town with a saw, Nora thought. And now he wanted access to the twins’ only possible means of escape.