Ignited (3 page)

“No,” came the girl, suddenly by his side. She slapped his hand away and picked up a light, pretty blue, thrusting it into his arms instead. “Oh, and this one,” she added, tossing in a deep red for good measure. “Do you know how much you need to buy in order for her to be able to make an outfit?”

Henry stared in confusion at the growing pile of cloth in front of him. “Um,” he said. “No?”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Typical.” She disappeared around a corner, returning a moment later with a pattern in her hand. She skimmed the instructions on the back, frowning. “I can’t find anything quite like what she wears, since she’s so ….” She made an arm gesture, as if that conveyed her meaning.

Henry frowned. “She’s just a bit modest.”

“Sure,” she said. She winced, rubbing at her head as she flipped the pattern so Henry could read it. She pointed out the yardage instructions. “This is the closest one I could find. You should buy at least that much, maybe a little extra, since she wears everything long.”

With a nod, Henry hefted the load in his arms. “Thanks for this.”

“I’m happy to help Ruth,” she said, shrugging. “She’s one of the few people in this town who is actually kind.”

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, juggling the fabric so he could offer a hand to shake. “I’m Henry Porter.”

She smiled. “I know who you are. My aunt works for you. I’m Briar Steele.”

A pang of surprise hit Henry. The sole nurse at his grandfather’s clinic, Patrice, was the girl’s aunt. Everyone in town called her Briar the Liar.

“You don’t have to worry,” Briar said. “These are good fabrics. She’ll be able to make something nice.” 

Henry nodded jerkily. It was just gossip, he reminded himself. And Ruth—it was obvious that her father had been upset about her talking to him. The way she’d been treated was
his
fault. He wanted to do something nice for her, apologize.

He wanted to talk to her again, to see if that
moment
he’d experienced had been real or all in his head.

“Well, then. It’s about time someone did something kind for her, isn’t it?” He smiled and heaved his purchases toward the counter, even asking Mr. Powell to wrap them up in white paper. Briar was gone by the time he turned around, and it suddenly occurred to Henry that he had no idea how to get this gift to Ruth without it being obvious.

Also, he wasn’t entirely sure where she lived.

It was possible that he had not thought this plan through very well.

The white packaging crinkled in Henry’s arms as he tried and failed to walk quietly across the bridge. He knew vaguely where Ruth lived, in the way that he had an idea where most of the people of Independence Falls called home. It wasn’t too hard to figure out, for the most part, who lived on which side of the river, or which neighborhood you could find them in at the end of the day.

He was almost certain Ruth lived in Shit Park.

Schmidt Park, he corrected himself, feeling guilty for even thinking the other name. It was cruel, the ways that people found to make others feel inferior. There was nothing wrong with living west of the river, or in one of the trailers leftover from when the military had been setting up the now-abandoned base at the foot of Desolation. He’d been raised in one of the overlarge Victorians nestled in Highledge, the wealthiest neighborhood in town. His mother had inherited the house after his father died. She still lived there, although when he’d moved back to town, he’d purchased his own modest, two-story home in the Aspenwood neighborhood.

Living in Denver, working hard to make rent money and pay for his books and education—it had done him a world of good. He’d grown out of a lot of his snobbery, but old habits were difficult to forget entirely, even when he really wanted to. Schmidt Park wasn’t so bad—he’d seen far more dangerous neighborhoods in Denver. It was just another place to live, really.

Despite that, Henry didn’t exactly want people seeing him with a gift under his arm. It would make people talk, make them wonder, and he didn’t want to cause Ruth any more trouble than he already had. Some stealth was required.

Henry pressed up against the side of one of the trailers and looked around the corner. The coast was clear. He dashed around the side, partway to the next building, when he heard a sound. He pulled up short. The crunch of nearby feet on gravel sent his heart racing, and he dove into a bush. The white papered package was nearly crushed underneath him, but he wrenched it away as he fell. Too late, the paper had a big smudge on it. Just as bad, his hand was bleeding where he’d been cut by one of the thorny branches, and he cursed himself for not having an adhesive. He held his hand out so the wound could clot without getting blood on Ruth’s gift. 

Henry sighed in exasperation. He was cut, the present was a mess, and he had leaves in his hair—this wasn’t the sort of gesture he’d been hoping for when he’d bought the fabric and set out.

The footsteps grew closer, and Henry crouched as best he could behind the bush. He was rarely on the west side of the river unless he was making house calls, and since he was not carrying any supplies, it was obvious he wasn’t in Schmidt Park on business. If he drew attention to himself, people would talk, and if they saw him carrying a gift, they would talk
even more
. That was one thing he had not forgotten about living in a small town. Plus, he was not keen to run into Preacher Baker. He couldn’t count on himself to hold his tongue or his temper, and he didn’t want to do anything that would further endanger Ruth.

He remembered her face as she smiled up at him over the fabric. She seemed fragile, doll-like. She had dark eyes set in a pale face—a kind of old soul look to her. He’d been worried his gaze had lingered too long on her small, pouty mouth. Her hair was long and wild, ranging down her whole back, and she had been drowning in the dress she was wearing—and yet. And yet.

It was not a good time to be thinking about “and yet.”

Suddenly, Preacher Baker passed by, and Henry glared at the man’s back. No man of God was supposed to treat his own daughter like that. He glanced down at the package in his hands, smeared dirt and all, and stood, walking quickly in the direction from which the preacher had come.

It was immediately obvious, once Henry turned the corner, which trailer belonged to the Bakers. The old shack of a church, which was the source of much ridicule on the east side of the river, was set up on a spare plot of land. Its white paint was dirty and flaking away, and there was a large gold cross affixed to the front door. The trailer stood at the front of the property, ramshackle and sagging under the weight of years without upkeep. 

Henry glanced around but did not see anyone in the vicinity, so he darted through the unkempt grass toward the front door. He placed the fabric down gently and brought his hand up to knock.

He hesitated. Should he stay and say hello? Apologize for not chasing her down when her father had treated her so roughly? Introduce himself properly?

The thought turned his stomach into a bundle of nerves. What if she thought his gift was strange, or unwarranted? What if she did not accept it? What if she thought he was creepy? He most certainly did not want to be creepy.

It was safer, he thought, to keep things anonymous.

Mustering his courage, he knocked on the door. Then he turned and ran as far as his legs would carry him, across the dirt road and back behind a neighboring building. He watched from around the corner as the door opened, first an inch, and then the whole way. He smiled as Ruth’s delicate features screwed up in confusion as she stooped down to collect the package in front of her door. When she opened the package and burst into a grin of delight, he could hardly contain himself from whooping.

She looked up and he ducked away from sight, his back pressed against the wall behind him. After waiting a minute, just in case she stayed outside to look for her mysterious benefactor, Henry pushed away from his hiding spot. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and whistled softly to himself as he made his way home.

Henry very determinedly did not think about his gift to Ruth Baker the rest of the evening. He was still trying not to think of it the next day as he made his way to work. He walked from his home on the edge of Aspenwood into the heart of town, where his grandfather’s practice had sat for more than forty years. The little house stood just outside the square, the bottom floor converted into a doctor’s office that served all of Independence Falls’ citizens.

It had been his grandfather’s idea for Henry to pursue his medical career, with hopes that one day Henry would return and take over the clinic. Dr. Reginald Pinkerton had hoped that by the time Henry completed his medical doctorate, he would be ready to retire.

At least, that’s how he had sold the plan to Henry. Medicine had always interested Henry, even as a young child. The majority of his childhood had been spent roaming the clinic, snatching moments of his grandfather’s time between patients and tormenting the women who worked there. Home had never been a welcoming place after the tragedy of his father’s death had worked a terrible change in his mother. The clinic was Henry’s great escape.

Indeed, Mrs. McClure, who had managed the front desk for most of Henry’s life, was more like a mother than Henry’s
actual
mother. She had always been the person who had made sure he wasn’t getting into too much trouble, trying to figure out how to use the expensive equipment and worm his way into consultations to give his “professional” opinion. Patrice, the clinic’s sole nurse, had never seemed to find his childhood antics nearly as charming, but she was still a constant friendly presence in Henry’s life. They were both as important to the practice as Dr. Pinkerton himself.

As Henry entered through the front door that morning, Mrs. McClure called out a cheery, “Hello, dear!”

“Hi, Mrs. M,” he replied, leaning over the front desk so he could kiss her powdered cheek. Mrs. McClure was in her late sixties, and yet she still got up every morning to “put on her face.”

She shooed him away with the wave of her hand. “Your charm is wasted here, buster. I still remember the time you caught the flu when you were six and—”

“Let’s not tell that story again, shall we?” He grimaced. Mrs. McClure was just teasing, but sometimes he worried no one would ever see him as a physician—that he would always be the doctor’s grandson, rather than a doctor himself. “Did you get your insulin shot this morning?”

Mrs. McClure sighed. “Henry, I’m a grown woman. I can manage my own insulin shot.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

She gave him a pointed look and motioned toward the back. “Your grandfather’s waiting for you.”

Henry made his way to the back, where a small kitchenette was hidden at the end of the hallway, past the various patient meeting rooms. Dr. Pinkerton was bent over a cup of coffee and the morning paper, hip butted up against the counter as he skimmed the news. He looked up as Henry entered the room, wrinkled face splitting into a grin.

“Henry!” he said, discarding the paper. “How are you this morning? I checked the appointment book, and it looks like you are going to have a busy day.”

“Really?” Henry looked back over his shoulder, as if staring at the back of Mrs. McClure’s head would reveal her secrets. “That’s great! Any of the—” He tripped over the words, unsure what to name the people who had revealed themselves to have tapped into some sort of superhuman abilities. “You know. The people who got really, really ill at the beginning of the summer?”

The smile dropped away. Dr. Pinkerton looked more weathered this way, the evidence of long hours and his recent string of illnesses weighing heavily in the lines of his face. Even though there had only been two serious injuries during the fight—Veronica Clark’s fall into the rapids and the abrasions to June Powell’s neck—the townspeople had been frightened, and there had been a noticeable influx of patients.

Veronica had survived, and June’s neck had healed, but the damage to the town’s morale would take longer to repair.

“Come now, Henry. You know I prefer to handle those myself.” His grandfather’s tone was kind, but his face resolute. “In times like these, people want the doctor they’ve always known.”

Henry sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But I still want to help.”

Dr. Pinkerton clasped Henry’s shoulder. “You
do
help. Why don’t you grab a cup of Mrs. McClure’s coffee and let her know when you’re ready for your first patient.”

With that, his grandfather abandoned his own half-full cup of coffee on the counter and rounded a corner, effectively disappearing. Henry watched him go, trying not to let the resentment growing in his stomach overtake him. He breathed out heavily through his nose and ran a hand through his hair. It was getting long. He needed to cut it. When his mother saw him, she was sure to comment on it.

He had family dinner with her and his grandfather that evening. He grimaced thinking of it. Sitting under his mother’s glare while Dr. Pinkerton tried to make small talk? It was not his ideal meal.

But who had the time to worry about petty family issues when there were superhumans in their midst? It had been weeks since the mysterious fog had rolled into town and sickened many people, some of whom had then developed
powers.
Yet Henry had not so much as spoke to one of those such afflicted in the waiting room. 

Henry knew that by taking on most of the other cases, he was doing his part for the clinic. He was happy to do it, as well. He had become a doctor for this practice, this town. But the illnesses and subsequent powers were interesting medical anomalies, and he was curious about them. He wanted to study, to learn how this had happened. It was a mystery, and he wanted to help solve it.

The opportunities were not forthcoming, however. His grandfather still seemed to think of him as the energetic child running wild through the clinic, rather than the newly-minted doctor that he was. They had talked about Henry taking over the practice for what felt like years. Now that the time for him to do so was here, he was starting to doubt that his grandfather would ever give up the reins to the practice he had built.