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

More than at any time since she’d emptied their ashes into the creek, Rachel was making peace with her parents and with herself, yet trying to understand why this was necessary when there had never been a single open battle between them.

Perhaps if there had been, things would have turned out better.

Since that horrible day in the hospital, she had been wondering if maybe Angela was right. She had always felt guilty about her parents’ death, but she had never looked beyond the simple explanation that they had died while doing something for her sake.

Now she looked further.

She realized that whenever she thought about her parents’ death, she also remembered sitting on a beach, immersed in disappointment, letting the wind and the spray scour her clean. She realized that if her parents had not been killed, she would have gotten over her small disappointments. Learned from her mistakes. Chosen a different course from the one she was on. She would have come to the conclusion that making decisions that were best for her did not mean defying her parents. She would have stopped putting herself in their shoes and found ones that fit her best.

But they had been killed.

She had been given complete control over her life, the freedom and the money to explore as she had made up her mind to do. Instead, she had quit school and returned to Belle Haven. It had never occurred to her to take advantage of her independence, as if it were a windfall.

Maybe Angela was right. Maybe all her choices were rooted in the guilt she felt: for wanting something different from what her parents could give her, and for surviving them.

Maybe not.

She was still too confused to be sure why she felt as she did. But looking honestly at herself had turned her attention from Belle Haven. It had loosened her hold on the town, and its on her. She was sorry to be going, and she knew she would miss it terribly, but she was finally ready to go. It felt right, in her belly, for the first time. For once, the arguments she fought inside her head ended with an admission that it was time to move on.

She would grit her teeth and say her prayers and go exploring. Maybe she would find a place where she could be happy.

The sight of Joe, lying in her hammock, made her wonder if such a place could exist without him in it.

Watching her, knowing that she was far away in a place of her own, Joe stayed nearby in case she needed him, but he did not approach her. He read a book from her library, napped in the cool sunshine, and stayed gratefully up on her hill.

When she was nearly through packing, had rolled her carpets, folded her drapes and quilts into bags, he drove with her to the lumberyard and brought back a stack of plywood for her windows.

“I guess there isn’t much left to be done,” she said as they carried the wood up onto her porch.

“Not much,” he said.

“I’ve arranged for a moving van to come collect everything and put it into storage. I won’t be taking all that much with me. I won’t really need much, I guess.”

She sat down on the porch steps and held out her hand to him, but when he sat down beside her she did not look at him. She said, “I have a favor to ask you.” He waited, giving her time. Finally, he said, “You can ask me anything, Rachel. I won’t be angry.”

She looked at him. “It’s a stupid thing, but it’s what I want.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“I want to stay until Halloween,” she said. “That’s just two days away. And then we’ll need a third to board up the house. I can’t live in it boarded up, so we’ll have to wait until the day we’re leaving. Three more days is what I’m asking.”

There had been a time, before the fire had arrived, before people had begun to leave, when Rachel had held a strange sort of influence over her neighbors. Perhaps they looked at her, a young woman living alone, and thought that if she could stay and face the music, so could they. Or perhaps she reminded them of better days. Or perhaps they were so torn that they found it easier to follow her lead than to go their own ways. But these were the same people who had finally left or were now all set to go. The ones who were still determined to stay took no notice of Rachel. They, far more than she, had fought the fire—the idea of it, the threat of it—right from the start. Even when their monitors began to shriek and their basements to smoke, these people would fight. Some were fighting already, tooth and nail. But Rachel was no longer a part of that.

There was no one left in town who would be swayed, one way or the other, by the actions of a single young woman who kept, as much as she could, to herself.

“Fine,” Joe said, longing to leave. “Three days is fine. As long as you promise me you’ll be careful Halloween night. Stay up here and … hand out treats.”

“Well, then I might as well go right now,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I’m going down to the park and I’m going to sit in my tree, one more time. There aren’t too many kids left in this town, but they’ll be looking for me. I won’t disappoint them.”

“You mean you won’t disappoint yourself.” He snorted, partly amused, mostly weary. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Rachel Hearn. You are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. But I’ll stay here with you for three more days. I’ll even be the goddamned troll, if you’ll scare up a costume for me. And, come to think of it,” he said, musing, “I’ll like