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

not until they were nearly upon it that they saw, at the end of a narrow dirt laneway that led off into the trees, the first of the houses.

It was unmistakably new; there were still stickers on its windowpanes, there was a swath of unplanted ground around it, and the rooms inside looked bare. But, solitary, tucked in among the trees, it did not have the raw look of houses assembled on the muddy, forsaken fields of retreating farmers. It had a wraparound porch with a beautifully carved railing, lots of windows, a big brick chimney, a roof shingled with precious cedar. There were shutters and window boxes at the windows, gables, a big oak door.

When everyone had stopped to have a look, Joe turned to Earl and Mag. He reached into his pocket and took out a ring of keys, sorted through them, and slipped one free. “Here,” he said, holding it out to them. They stared at the key, Joe, the house.

“What’s this?” Earl said.

“It’s the key to that house,” Joe said, trying to smile. “Why don’t you go have a look.”

“But whose house is it?” Mag asked, although the look on her face betrayed her. Feeling none of Joe’s uncertainty, she did nothing to hide her own smile.

“Yours, if you want it,” Joe said.

“What do you mean, theirs?” Angela, looking on, still doubted what was happening. She had been so badly disappointed in her life that she no longer assumed anything much would come her way.

Joe turned to her and shrugged. “Theirs,” he repeated.

“Here we go again.” Earl sighed. “If this isn’t charity, then I don’t know what the hell is.”

But this time Joe was ready. The short walk into the woods had given him all the time he needed to find another name for what he’d done. “Let me ask you something, Earl,” he said, fingering the raw notches on the key in his hand. “What did you charge me for parking the Schooner in your lot?”

“Nothing. It didn’t cost me anything to let you park there. You comparing that to this? Apples and oranges if I ever saw ’em.”

“And what did you charge me for the supplies and the work you put into Rusty’s tree house?”

“This,” Earl said with a snort, pointing at the house in the woods, “ain’t no tree house.”

“How much?” Joe repeated.

“Nothing.” Earl threw up his hands. “But that was different. It was a good idea, building a tree house for Rusty.” Neither of them said anything about the conversations they’d had, high up in the walnut tree, as they’d wrestled the beams of the tree house into place. Conversations about Rusty’s father, who had not been seen in Belle Haven for over a decade. “It was my pleasure.”

“And this,” Joe said, nodding toward the house among the trees, “is mine.”

Still, Earl did not take the key. He mashed his lips together and blew air out of his nose, like a horse.

“Thank you, Joe,” Mag said, taking the key herself. “Shut up, Earl,” she said, before he’d said another word. “I don’t know what we’ll do about this,” she said to Joe, “but I must say there’s not a thing wrong with your heart. It’s in the right place.” She turned to Earl. “And if you think I’m going to get back in that van without taking a look at that house, you’re outta your mind. I’ve been living above a hardware store for twenty years, Earl, and they were twenty good years,” which took the twist out of his mouth, “but I’m having a look at this house, and that’s all there is to it.”

And with that, she took Earl’s hand and led him into the trees, although he went willingly enough. He’d made it clear he wasn’t looking for a handout. No one could fault him for yielding to a wife who’d asked for very little in her life and would have been happy with less.

“Come on,” Joe said to the rest of them, continuing down the lane, and they followed him in a ragtag sort of way, trying not to look too far ahead, but each for reasons that were entirely their own. Threading like a knotty ribbon through the woods was a string of ancient, overgrown apple trees. “Those trees still blossom in the spring,” Joe said to no one in particular, but Rusty raised his head, listening.

The next house, on the other side of the lane from the first, was quite small. The garden, which appeared to surround the house, was if anything the bigger of the two. Around both was a low fence, sufficiently high to make rabbits think twice, with a gate and a trellis arching above it, asking for vines. A single step led to a front porch big enough for a rocker. Joe turned to look at Mrs. Sapinsley.

She looked at the house. She knew it was hers, but she did not believe it. “This is not for me,” she said. It did not sound like a question, but it was.

“There aren’t any stairs except that one at the porch,” Joe said, searching for the right key. “And the grocery store will make deliveries. I checked. The garden’s already been turned over, so it’s ready for spring. I had a truck bring in a load of topsoil, but you’ll have to decide what you want in it. Maybe you’d like to bring some of your perennials along with you?”

Mrs. Sapinsley looked at the big, empty garden. She thought of her generous son and wondered how much of him would be hurt, how much relieved, to hear that she would not be joining him in Cleveland.

“But you hardly know me,” she said, feeling that she could not possibly accept such a gift.

Joe remembered the night he had called his father and been told that his sister was dead. He remembered stumbling back to the Schooner where Ian and Rachel and Angela waited inside. He remembered that the three of them, who had barely known