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

calling you Christopher, or Kit, as I still do. But I could tell that she was having trouble, as if it was unnatural to call you anything but Joe. Of course it would be. At least for a while. I told her that I thought she should just keep on thinking of you as Joe and, for that matter, calling you Joe.

“I don’t plan on writing to him or calling him,” she said, “so I guess it’s a moot point.” She hates writing letters, as you do, and I think she’d rather not call you because telephones can be such hideous, dangerous devices.

I wasn’t going to tell you all this. I was afraid you’d just be miserable, knowing she was here but not knowing where she’s gone. But I wanted you to know she is all right. Homesick, perhaps, but on the mend.

Let me know if you hear from her, will you?

Love,

Holly

In early March, Joe opened his door, expecting Rusty, and found a stranger on his doorstep.

“My name is Andrew Harriman,” the man said, smiling, handing Joe a business card. “I’m here on behalf of my client, Miss Rachel Hearn. She seems to think that you have a lot for sale, and she would like to buy it.”

“A lot? A lot of what?”

Mr. Harriman chuckled. “A lot. A piece of land. A meadow near a stream. She said you would know what I’m talking about.” He made it sound like a question.

“Well, I suppose I do,” Joe answered slowly. “How much is she offering?”

“That’s what I asked her,” the man said, passing his hat from one hand to the other. “But she said to name your price.”

Joe smiled. Mr. Harriman smiled back. Like all real estate brokers, he worked on commission.

“Please come in, Mr. Harriman. Would you like some coffee? I just made some.”

“Well, that would be nice.”

Joe brought him a cup of coffee, a pot of sugar, one of cream.

“I’ll take a dollar,” Joe said, leaning against the wall.

“For the coffee?” Mr. Harriman said. He looked as if he thought he ought to be laughing but wasn’t quite sure.

“For the land,” Joe said, the hair on his arms standing on end, his chest swollen. “The coffee’s on me.”

Mr. Harriman wanted to believe that Joe was kidding, but in the end he saw how things were and agreed to handle the sale. “But I’ll have to charge you for my time,” he said. “You do understand that, don’t you? I don’t know if you’ve ever sold any land before, Mr. Barrows—”

“No, I haven’t.”

“… but it is incumbent upon the vendor to pay the broker, to pay me.”

“Miss Hearn will take care of your fee,” Joe said.

“But I just explained—”

“Don’t worry about it. She’ll be glad to.”

Mr. Harriman frowned at Joe. “If you don’t have a lawyer, I can recommend one, but you’ll have to discuss fees with him directly.”

“I have one.”

“Then perhaps I should contact Miss Hearn before we discuss this further. In the future, can I reach you by telephone?”

“Of course,” Joe said, writing his number on the back of Mr. Harriman’s business card. Mr. Harriman gave him a clean one and left.

Well, how do you like them apples? Joe said to himself as he shut the door. He felt as he had that summer night when he’d called Mrs. Corrigan, searching for his sister, thinking that perhaps she was alive after all. He stood in his cabin, on the verge of rejoicing, trying desperately to find a way back toward the calm and reasonable state in which he had been living. But when he suddenly found a way back it displeased him and made him wish that he were a simpler, rasher sort of man.

There was nothing left of Rachel’s house when Joe got there. Nothing more than black timbers and the stones of the cellar walls.

“Didn’t expect to see you back here again.” Mendelson was walking up the drive. “Ever seen a house burned right down to the ground like that?”

“I never have,” Joe replied, turning back toward the remains of Rachel’s beautiful house. Even the porch steps had burned. There was nothing at all left.

“There have been other fires since you left,” Mendelson said. “Down in the town. Nobody hurt, but a few shook up enough to leave, even though they swore they never would. Things would have been a sight worse if we hadn’t razed the houses soon as they were abandoned.”

“They weren’t abandoned.”

“Right,” Mendelson said, shaking his head.

“So what are you doing up here?”

“I came up to see you, Joe. Actually, I wasn’t sure who I’d find here. Didn’t recognize the car. Figured I should have a look.”

“And why is that?”

“Well, because this fire was set and I’ve got enough trouble without having a firebug around. Reminds me of the trees got burned out by my place that time.”

“This was set?”

“Looks like it.”

Joe stayed where he was for a long minute, staring at the last of Rachel’s home, then started off toward the woods beyond it.

“So long,” he said.

“Uh-huh.” Mendelson watched him go, turned, and headed back down the hill.

The tree house was as Joe had left it, boarded up, sturdy and sound. He looked up into the branches of the tree, felt far removed from the charred wreckage of Rachel’s house, and breathed the air in deeply. The town below the hill had looked terrible, all torn up, no one on the streets. But the trees here were greening with the spring. There were birds in the branches. He was very sorry that he had come back.

As he was leaving the woods, as he walked past a large pine that grew alongside the trail, Joe saw, in the deep moss beneath the tree, something shining. He knelt down and picked up a key. He held it in his hand for a while, his eyes vacant, and then put it back where he’d found it, but deep in the spongy moss where only someone who was looking for it would find it.

Chapter 54

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