Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (easy readers .TXT) 📕

“It’s a statue, Rachel. It’s dead wood. The worms are out there right now, and so are the woodpeckers. In a year or two those trees will be down and rotted.”

“How can you think about it like that?” she cried. “You were so excited, that day you took me out there to show me that first carving of Holly. Don’t you remember talking about how good it felt to make something so beautiful?” She was close to tears, suddenly, and for that he was sorry. “What’s happened to you?” she said.

“I’m the same as I always was,” he said gently, “only better.”

Rachel looked into his face, unsmiling, and slowly turned away. “I don’t understand you anymore.”

“And I feel the same way about you,” he said. “I hope it’s like a temporary sickness and that we’ll both get better. But right now, you seem to be paralyzed by the prospect of leaving here.” He reached for her hand. “Don’t you think I ought to shake you out of it? Isn’t that what you would do for me? Isn’t that what you did do for me?”

She took her hand away. “I’m not paralyzed, Joe. But I’m not leaving either. I’m going to do what needs to be done.”

“About what?”

“About the fire, for Christ’s sakes. Isn’t that what we’re talking about?”

“But what can you do?” He was bewildered.

“I don’t know,” she said, although the look in her eye made him think she had something in mind. “But if I do eventually leave, it won’t be like some goddamned lemming.”

“What the hell have lemmings got to do with this?” He made no attempt to hide his exasperation. “Can’t you admit that there are plenty of good, rational reasons for leaving Belle Haven? Even if there were no fire, there would be plenty of reasons to go somewhere else. Good grief, Rachel, this isn’t the only decent spot on earth. If anything, I’d say you’re acting like a lemming by staying here.”

“You don’t understand.” She stood up, looked down at him. “This town isn’t just the place where I live. It’s part of me.” She shook her head impatiently. “The willow in the park where I go on Halloween … that was where my father taught me how to climb trees. I had my first haircut at Paula’s. I remember thinking my hair was going to bleed. I grew up on cider from those apples”—she pointed toward the trees—“and huckleberries from every backyard in town.” Her voice thickened. “I grew up knowing that there was a fire out under the fields, and waiting for it to get here has been terrible. But if it finally does, I think I’ll be relieved. I feel like a sailor who can’t swim, who’s terrified of the goddamned ocean and gets sick of shore after two days home.”

To Joe, the simple porch suddenly felt like a stage. He knew that she had allowed herself to be swept up in her dilemma, as if in a net made of her own hair. Listening to her now, he could only imagine what she sounded like to herself. And yet, at the same time, he believed a part of everything she was saying.

“So don’t you treat me like I’ve lost my senses,” she said angrily. “You think I should leave Belle Haven? This place has made me what I am. Where am I going to find another Angela? Or another Rusty? What other place has roads my father walked on, trees my mother planted? Where on this entire earth will I ever find a place to compare with this one?” She looked at him sadly. “I would have bet anything you’d understand what I’m talking about. I thought you loved this place, too, for the same kinds of reasons.”

He could see in her eyes that she had begun to agonize, but he did not see any way around that. “Jesus, Rachel. I do. But you were one of the people who taught me that if you can live with yourself, you can live anywhere.” He reached up and pulled her down beside him on the step, pushed her hair away from her face. “This is only a place, Rachel. A few acres of ground.” He took her by the shoulders so that she had to look at him. “You can’t let your roots tie you down.”

She shook her shoulders free. “What do you know about roots?”

He looked at her steadily. He knew a lot about roots. “I know that the best ones grow inward,” he said, “and stay with you wherever you happen to be. It’s not the place that’s important. It’s what it means to you.” He put his hands on his chest. “And even when you leave, you won’t leave that behind.” He had not come to plead a case, but he feared that this might be the last time she would hear him out.

She stood up, stepped toward the door, looked down at him. “All you’ve talked about since you came back is how we ought to leave this place, which you claim to love. I don’t know what to think, Joe.” Again she said, “I don’t understand you.”

But he only shrugged. “I can’t help that.”

When she went inside the dark house, he stayed for only a moment more and then stood abruptly, set down his beer bottle, and, whistling for Pal, walked away, leaving her father’s bicycle behind.

Two hours later, when Rachel returned to the porch, exhausted, sick of her bed, she looked out toward the land that had belonged to Ian and saw a new landmark. Hot and orange, this one reached upward, violent, as if it came not from under the ground but from the world above it, fed with boundless air, strengthened by wind, and fortified by the rigid flesh of trees.

Chapter 36

        When Mendelson walked into Angela’s Kitchen the next morning, stinking with sulfur and cologne, Joe put down his fork, wiped his mouth carefully on a clean napkin, and took