Chapter Twenty-Five
Evan
Firebrook Valley
I shoved my hands in my pockets and started down the familiar dirt path that cut through the woods toward the river bend.
My sneakers kicked up pine needles, and the faint, metallic tang of the water already drifted on the breeze.
Eleven years old, and I knew every root and rock like they belonged to me.
A year had passed since I’d found Nora here.
I slowed without meaning to when the old, charred stump came into view, the same one six-year-old Nora Burke had been looking for.
Back then she’d been tiny and lost, sniffling about fancy Boston schools and wanting to stay in Firebrook Valley with her mom.
I’d told her to make her own sunshine. I hadn’t expected her to listen.
Now the stump looked smaller somehow. Or maybe I was just taller.
Nora wasn’t crying anymore. Not hiding behind trees or wiping her face on her sleeves. She raced barefoot around Mabel’s yard with a pack of half the town kids trailing her like a feral herd. Hair flying, knees scabbed, cheeks flushed pink from sun and wind. She looked free.
Good. She’d found her sunshine.
Loud voices broke the silence of the forest.
I crept closer, staying low the way Laurent had taught me. He didn’t believe in hunting anymore—said he’d done enough of that in the service. He looked different when he said it. Older. So I listened.
The river bend opened up ahead in the exact spot where the water curved lazily between our property and the Burkes. And there they were.
Dad and Cody Burke.
Facing off like two bulls in a ring.
Dad stood on our bank in pressed khakis and boots that had never before touched mud, arms folded the way he did before he crushed someone in a deal.
Cody mirrored him on the opposite side, jaw set, expensive watch catching the light like a warning.
Between them, the river flowed innocent and unaware.
“You want a private trophy pond, Burke?” Dad’s voice carried clean across the water, calm and cutting.
“Go ahead and dam it. But you slow the flow here and my waterfront turns into a stagnant mud hole. Aesthetics matter. Property values matter. You don’t get to cheapen my land just so you can stare at fancy fish. ”
Cody’s laugh was short, ugly. “Your land? The river belongs to the town last I checked, Holliston. I’m offering them cleaner water and better fishing downstream. You’re the one standing in the way of progress.”
Progress. I almost snorted. Even at eleven, I knew better. This wasn’t about the town. It was about whose view looked richer from the porch.
Council guys hovered nearby, sweating in sport coats, clipboards clutched like shields. Mabel’s oldest, Ethan, filmed from the far bank because someone always had to have proof when these two went at it.
Cody waved a thick folder. “Permits are ready. Engineers say a small weir right here won’t hurt a thing.”
Dad’s smile went razor sharp. “And I’ve got soil tests that say your ‘small weir’ sits on top of an old tannery dump from the fifties.
Heavy metals, Burke. You start digging and you stir up poison that flows straight into the town wells.
You really want to explain to Firebrook Valley why their kids are drinking lead so you can have a prettier fishbowl? ”
The council men shifted like the ground had turned hot.
Cody’s face stayed stone, but his shoulders locked tight. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?” Dad stepped closer to the edge. “I already filed the motion. Deep soil remediation or no permit. Your choice. Millions either way. But you’ll pay for it. Not me.”
For a second, the air crackled so hard I thought they’d actually swing. Then Cody smiled back, a slow, mean twist of lips that promised payback.
“Fine,” he said. “Remediation. But if we’re cleaning my side, you’re installing the high-tech filtration system on yours. The whole river-run. Prove your water’s cleaner than mine, Holliston. Or are you scared the town will finally see whose side is actually pristine?”
Dad didn’t blink. “Done.”
They shook hands like gentlemen.
It wasn’t peace.
It was two lions agreeing to burn the savanna just to prove whose roar echoed louder.
I didn’t understand everything they were saying, but I understood that.
My Dad wanted to win more than he cared about the cost.
Later, after the council packed up and Dad’s helicopter thumped away toward New York, I stood by the stump again. Laurent walked over and ruffled my hair like he always did when words weren’t enough.
“Kid,” he muttered, “your father and Mr. Burke are doing something that will help the town. This is a good thing.”
I looked at the river. It was already clear.
I didn’t understand why my father had to make everything harder than it needed to be.
And why the conversations I had with my friends made more sense than anything the adults said.
My interest in all of this slipped away, the way it always did when things got too complicated to fix. I turned toward the path, heading for Mabel’s, already thinking about who might be there.
As I crossed the makeshift bridge, a rustle in the trees made me stop.
She stepped out slowly, fingers twisting the hem of a shirt that was definitely stained with river mud. Her hair was a mess of tangles, and her eyes were huge, reflecting the gray-blue of the water.
“Evan?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are they fighting about water?” she asked softly.
“It’s not about the water, Nora,” I said, the realization tasting like copper in my mouth. “It’s about who gets to say where it goes and who wins.”
“Why do they hate each other?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“I have no idea,” I said. Then I squared my shoulders. “But it’s not our problem. Are you going to Mabel’s today?”
She nodded.
“Want to walk there with me?”
With an almost comical speed, she rushed to my side. “Sure.”