Chapter 25 #2
“Oliver said he regretted ever coming here,” Nora said slowly.
Her mind’s eye walked back through that old stone house on the first day she’d gone inside.
The doused fireplace, the rickety staircase, the creaking from upstairs, the nursery.
The nursery. Between the bed and the crib there had been an old birdcage collecting dust. Or had it been?
Could it have been recently in use? Housing a selectively talkative African gray parrot?
“Forest house,” Jessica squawked.
“She keeps saying that,” said Nora. “That has to mean Oliver, right?”
“I guess. But wouldn’t he have wanted Dad to tell S.C.Y.T.H.E. about this place?”
“Exactly,” said Nora. “But Dad failed. Maybe Oliver brought you Jessica hoping you’d be the one to succeed.”
“Why me? I mean, you’re the grim reaper’s secretary, why wouldn’t he give her to you? And how would he have gotten Jessica all the way to my house, anyway? He’s like a living cobweb at this point.”
“All excellent questions,” said Nora. She sighed, knowing exactly how they’d have to get them answered. “We’re going to have to ask him.”
“Oh yeah, he loves that,” said Charlie. “And so does Grandma. You really think we’ll make it out there under her nose? You heard what she said, Patty and Phil are keeping tabs on us. She warned us away from the woods, remember? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”
“So did I,” said Nora. “But I think we’re going to have to do something a bit stupid here.”
“Into it. What’s the plan?”
* * *
Whoever was in charge of filling the hourglass of time seemed to have accidentally filled it with thick mud instead of sand.
The hours crept by at an aching pace, filled with the emptiness of waiting.
The twins joined the family upstairs for dinner at a rather forceful request from Ruby.
Neither ate for fear of what the food might contain, though their growling stomachs seemed open to the idea of poison as long as it came in the shape of a potato.
After the kitchen was clean, Charlie and Nora excused themselves and returned to their room, where they waited in varying degrees of impatience as the night crawled on.
Charlie lay face up on his bed, babbling nonsense at Jessica, which Nora tried to tune out from across the room.
Jessica, for her part, had been restless since the conversation about Oliver that afternoon.
She couldn’t seem to settle, bobbing up and down and shuffling back and forth in a constant dance of, what?
Excitement? Fear? Nora had a queasy feeling they’d be finding out soon enough.
She dug her father’s last letter out of her pocket and buried herself in the ink, tuning out the avian love fest across from her.
It was only a page long, but an entire reality existed on that page, one that forever altered her own.
“Right, Nor?”
Nora dropped the letter to her chest and lolled her head in Charlie’s direction.
“Huh?”
“It’s weird, right? That we grew up next to someone working for the same supersecret death factory you do.”
“Excuse me, not a death factory,” said Nora. “We don’t kill people. We just help those who’ve died get to whatever comes next. Or, they do, I guess. I’m, like, mega-fired at this point. If we weren’t in a Blind Spot, they’d have torn me a new one by now.”
“That’s not so bad,” said Charlie.
Nora gave him a look that said, “I’d rather stick with the one I’ve got, thanks.”
“I just mean, it’s not like that was your dream job anyway, right?”
“Oh right, you know me that well, do you?”
Charlie shrugged.
“It actually was my dream job, thanks very much,” Nora said. “Being that close to death meant I could learn how to avoid it. How do you think I’ve managed to save your ass so many times?”
“I mean, sure,” said Charlie, “it made your neuroses into a superpower, which is pretty cool and all, but it wasn’t your dream job. It was your safe job, right? It was comfy cozy by the sound of it. But you always wanted to be an architect.”
“Charlie, I’m not going to be an architect.”
“Why not?”
“Because—”
“Because it’s too risky,” Charlie finished before she could.
“Fuck you,” said Nora. “And no, it’s not weird that we had a neighbor who worked for S.C.Y.T.H.E.
It’s a big company. What’s weird is that he was willing to risk his job by telling Dad what he did.
He must’ve really wanted to help, which meant they must’ve been close, but we can’t even be sure who it was.
That’s how little we had the chance to get to know our own parents.
I wish I knew so much more about them. They both had a whole life we barely got to see, and the more I learn about them, the more it feels like they were strangers. ”
“That’s crazy,” said Charlie, as if that could possibly help the tears pricking at the backs of Nora’s eyes.
“What’s crazy?” Nora practically spat.
“The strangers thing. We knew them. I mean, not all of them, duh. You can never know all of a person. We didn’t know Martin Bird and Hannah Stein.
And we definitely didn’t know Mars Bar, thank god.
But we knew Mom and Dad, right? Like, we knew Dad couldn’t draw for shit, and made really corny jokes, and would always give us shoulder rides even when we were definitely too heavy for them.
And Mom knew every word to The Phantom of the Opera even though she said she hated it, and she made up the best bedtime stories that almost always involved a character farting right when she had to. That was Mom and Dad.”
Nora felt a hot tear land on her cheek in spite of herself. “Maybe you are the smart one after all,” she said in a small voice.
“That’s what I’ve been saying all this time,” said Charlie. “Glad you’re finally catching on.”
* * *
Midnight rolled in on wobbly wheels, unsteady and squeaking. This directly corresponded with Nora’s state of mind. The footsteps emanating from the floor above had ceased hours ago, but Nora wanted to play it safe. She always wanted to play it safe.
The twins crept upstairs, leaving as little noise in their wake as they could manage. Charlie hefted his duffel bag on his shoulder, which made silently scooting out the back door a feat accomplished only by bodily contortions and a concerted effort to suck in his midsection.
Outside, the darkness was near absolute.
Even the stars piercing the ceiling of black seemed to be shining less.
This was good, Nora reminded herself as she locked eyes with the dark web of trees across the path.
This was what she wanted. They crept through the darkest pools they could find, avoiding any hint of light that could touch them.
Even if Patty or Phil were playing lookout, it would take some proper infrared spy tools to see the twins that night.
They made it into the woods in time for the eruption of a piercing shriek. Nora leapt back, nearly tripping over a twisted root. Charlie unzipped his duffel and Jessica’s little gray head poked out to greet them.
“Fuck,” said Nora.
“Fuck,” Jessica squawked.
“Sorry,” said Charlie.
“It’s fine,” said Nora.
“Not you.” Charlie scooped the bird out of the bag and placed her on his shoulder. “You don’t like the dark, do you, baby?”
Nora sucked her teeth. “Can we carry on, please? I don’t like the dark much either.”
They continued their trek, navigating half from memory and half by clawing their way from tree to tree.
“You think Jessica remembers this place?” asked Charlie.
“I don’t know,” Nora whispered back. Making any sound in that still wilderness felt wrong somehow. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“Forest house,” the bird answered without being asked.
“Forest house,” Nora repeated. And Jessica was right.
Just ahead of them, through the trees and the darkness, was the stone house in the woods.
The twins exchanged a glance and headed for the door.
It was locked again. Ruby said Oliver didn’t want the twins to visit, but Nora couldn’t help but wonder if it was the others who didn’t want these visits taking place.
If Oliver was caught in the middle and too afraid to say so.
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.”