A Lie for a Lie

Prologue

When I was a little girl growing up in rural Oregon, I thought the entire world was made up of acres and acres of green grass. I thought everyone’s life revolved in some way around farmlands.

I would sometimes hear the distant sirens on the interstate, and it felt like a piece of a parallel universe was breaking into my sanctuary. I couldn’t imagine that anything bad would ever happen to us.

Then the fire happened.

The lighter fluid spilled out of the bottle so easily.

All down the white couch that my mother fastidiously vacuumed.

It splashed against the coffee table and the wall.

And I stopped, stunned, as the flame appeared almost like magic.

It caught everything, swallowing it whole like a monster from a dream.

I heard my mother screaming in the bedroom.

I ran to her, thinking numbly how backward it was that she was crying out to me for help.

It had only been a few years since I’d stopped having bad dreams that woke me from my sleep, prompting me to call out for her.

Now I was the one running to save her. Only this time, the nightmare was real.

The doorknob was white-hot, and I drew away, hissing in pain. Panic set in and I started to cry. No, I told myself. Think. In school, they made us do weekly fire drills. We assembled into a line and tried not to giggle and whisper too loudly, excited as we were to escape class for a few minutes.

But it wasn’t something that could really happen, I’d thought.

I balled my nightshirt up and used it like an oven mitt to turn the knob. The door opened, but the air was pulled from my lungs and I reared back. The smoke was thick and black, and I couldn’t see anything. It roared louder than the screams, everything blurring into one big sound.

I was twelve, and I remember stumbling out of the first-floor window.

I found myself beneath the same clear, starry sky that had been looking over me all my life.

Only now, the silence was punctuated by sirens.

They weren’t trilling on some faraway interstate, but racing toward my little ranch house.

My older brother found me, both of us standing in the darkness beyond the glow of the flickering lights. His eyes were wide, like he couldn’t believe what was happening. But his hands were firm when he gripped my shoulders and turned me toward him.

“The police are going to come,” he said. “They’re going to ask questions. Don’t tell them anything. That’s the only way I can protect us.”

I was too stunned to ask him what he meant. I was too frightened to ask what had happened to our parents. On some level, I already knew.

Then he ran back into the flames.