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

you started the goddamned fire in the first place, not me. But let’s not blame some old fool who’s got cataracts and can’t drive out to the landfill no more so he dumps his shit in a mine pit and throws a match in after it. Or maybe it was some stupid little boys smoking butts. Whatever. All I know is, it wasn’t me. But ever since I had the great misfortune to step foot in this miserable town, I’ve been blamed for every single thing that’s gone wrong. I’ve done everything that anyone could have done, but nothing was ever good enough for you high and mighty, second-guessing, finger-pointing, armchair assholes. ‘Dig here, dig there, do this, don’t do that, hurry up, get out of our town.’ ” He was shouting now. Rachel could see his spit in the sunlight. “And none of it means anything at all because only two things are really true: you started the fire, and I’m the one who’s spent nearly a third of my life trying to put it out.” He jammed his hat back on his head. “Keep your goddamned house. It’ll make fine kindling.”

As she watched him drive away, Rachel realized that there was some truth in what Mendelson had said. But it was so very easy to dislike him, and from there it was only a small step to blaming him for the fire that had kept him in Belle Haven long after his welcome had worn out.

Rachel didn’t really care. She was tired. It no longer mattered to her how the fire had made its way into town, only that it had. She had little energy to spare for Mendelson—not enough to condemn him or to absolve him, just barely enough to wish him away.

Chapter 48

        After four days at Rachel’s house, Angela was ready to head north. She was worn out with talking and with worrying, and she figured that Rusty would never feel he’d said good-bye properly, so why not go now. Lots of other people were on the verge of leaving. There were only about eighty people left in town, and the place was looking awful. It still amazed her that there were some people who had no intention of leaving town, now or ever. They were convinced that the fire would race on under the town and southward, away. They argued that the bulldozers had done all the damage, not the fire. Not counting Ross Caspar’s place—which wasn’t right in the town—only one motor home had gone down. No great loss. Not a single fire. Just some fumes, big deal.

Angela no longer cared whether the fire or Mendelson was to blame. The town was dying, by whichever hand.

“It’s time we left,” she said.

“If you say so, Angie. But you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want.” They were out in Rachel’s front yard, giving the perennials their fall pruning. It was a lovely October day. “You sure you don’t want to hang around until Halloween? For Rusty’s sake?”

“You really think anyone’s going to be trick-or-treating, Rachel?”

“If there are kids in Belle Haven, there will be trick-or-treating. You know there will. And jack-o’-lanterns, and all that stuff. Hell, I’ve already got my costume made and my candies bought.”

“Well, I think maybe we’ll have to miss Halloween this year, all the same. I don’t want to push my luck.”

“I understand,” Rachel said, plunging her pruning shears into the ground, straightening up. “I’ll even go up there with you when you’re ready.”

“You will?” Angela gasped, hoping.

“I didn’t get a chance to give everyone a garden pot,” she said, looking over the ones left in her yard. “They’ll all fit in the back of the pickup, and there’s plenty of room for the three of us up front. Save you a bus ticket.”

“Oh.” Angela turned away, looked down the hill toward the town. “For a minute I thought—” And then she stopped and abruptly turned her head, held up a hand to silence Rachel, opened her mouth so she could hear better, and suddenly began to run down the hill, her hair flying out behind her like a veil, just as Rachel, too, heard the sound of screaming from somewhere among the houses below.

Judy Sanderson had fallen into the habit of walking around barefoot as she packed up and prepared to move house. Her husband laughed about it—“Barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen,” he said every night when he came home from work and found her cooking without her shoes on, her belly nice and big. She did not tell him why she no longer wore shoes in the house. He thought that her feet had begun to swell.

She was standing at the kitchen sink, washing potatoes, her feet on the cool linoleum, humming something unawares when she looked out into the backyard and wondered if maybe there was something going on between Mary Beth and Rusty. They were only thirteen, but that was plenty old. Then again, maybe they were just friends, as they had been for as long as she could remember. She watched them standing out there in the sunlight, throwing a baseball back and forth, back and forth, her daughter with a good arm, lean, tall for her age, going to be beautiful someday soon. Perhaps Rusty had seen that, too.

And she was watching carefully, through the window she’d washed that morning with vinegar and water (her husband had asked her, “Why you washing the windows when we’re moving next Tuesday?”), when she saw Rusty throw Mary Beth a high one, saw her daughter backing up to catch it, laughing. Judy put down the potato in her hand, saying out loud in the kitchen, “Watch out for the tree, Mary Beth,” and then saw her tall, sweet, lovely girl start to sink right down into the ground, her face changing, dust coming up in a cloud around her, dust and smoke, heard her screaming now, all of it happening so quickly, then racing