Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down (36 page)

Our teachers couldn't ignore us or the news. They couldn't start our first-period classes without mention of Alexis Thurber or Darren Beechwold or so many fires, so close to our own basements and bedrooms within the gridded streets of Midvale County. Mrs. Menda held a moment of silence in Matt's English class. In algebra, Mrs. Gornick asked Christina and her classmates if there was anything they'd like to talk about beyond equations and formulas. And in chemistry Mr. Albertson did the best he could, a man with so little sense for the connective element of empathy but enough to set down his beakers, to look beyond colored fluids and test tubes and ask the entire class without eyeing anyone in particular,
Is everyone okay?

We attended our counseling sessions. Academic lab. We watched the small clocks in the therapy rooms tick toward their mandated end. Christina found herself seated on a hard couch midmorning beneath the pressure of finding words that meant something, of saying anything of substance to the counselor sitting before her with a notepad.
I'm feeling okay,
she said.
I just don't know what's happening.
The woman nodded, her gaze sympathetic, her head tilted to the side, a woman who seemed too young to be a therapist. She asked Christina about the Ndolo fire and about the Jensen fire and a surge of guilt pushed through Christina that she'd have rather talked about Ryan than the homes she'd seen burning. That she'd broken a picture frame and a window and brought on her first orgasm in a single week that everyone else would remember for fire and nothing else.

Zola sat on a similar couch across from her counselor through the second period of the morning, a reprieve from chemistry and the hard data of science.
How are you feeling?
Natalie asked, a question as wide as the fields of the back roads. Zola wanted to say she was on fire, that at night she felt as combustible as the homes that surrounded her. That she'd lain awake well past three knowing a house was burning again in a two-mile radius, that the house was
only blocks from Nick's house and that they shared this now, the scorched scent blanketing everything from their porches to the blades of browning grass in their backyards. That she and her mother had watched the news until her mother said that nothing about it was news but only the catharsis of watching. That her mother had gone up to bed, had asked if Zola wanted to sleep in her bedroom for the night. That Zola had shaken her head but regretted it as soon as her mother closed the door. That she'd gone into her own room and lain on her bed and felt the photographs of Alisha Trenway's house alive and pulsing on the carpet, still trapped in her camera, undeveloped and unprinted and unable to tell her anything at all but that something awful had happened here. That she'd pulled Penelope from her cage and held her close against her chest, velvet ears soft as a hymn against her cheeks.

I'm fine, Zola said to Natalie. She said it loud enough that she believed it.

And your friend Nick? What about him? Did you get the chance to talk, to resolve your fight?

I said what I could. I apologized.

Did you say everything you wanted to say?

Does anyone ever say everything they want to say?

What else would you say, if you could?

Zola looked at Natalie. Wondered what was acceptable. Wondered what was appropriate in the space of a mandatory counseling session, what she could ask of this woman licensed only to speak of grief and reveal nothing of herself.

What do you think is happening? Zola asked.

What do you mean?

I mean, tell me what you think is happening. You live here, too. You go home to your house, every day. You have your own fears, your own thoughts. Your own sense of why this is happening.

Why do you think it's happening?

I don't know. That's why I'm asking you.

Natalie set down her notepad. I really don't know.

Please. For a minute. Just pretend I'm not your patient.

It's my job. I'm here to support you.

But if you weren't. If we were just having coffee. What do you think is happening?

Natalie glanced toward the door. It's not for me to say. But since you asked, I'll admit it. I'm scared, too. I don't know what's going on.

Do you think anyone knows what's going on?

I really don't know. I'm sure the police are working on it. Does that answer your question? What else do you want to talk about? How about your family? How is everything at home?

Zola sat back on the couch. An opening sealed. The closest Natalie could come before locking herself back into the role of adult, of therapist. Zola settled back into hers. She let herself speak. She let herself talk knowing authority was nothing but illusion. That everyone she once believed knew everything was scared, even the police, that those in charge knew nothing of what was happening or what to do.

WE MET IN
the courtyard at lunch. The day unexpectedly bright past the previous night's storm, light beating down on the benches and brick. A late fall warm-up as Matt's father had predicted before winter settled in, the sky cloudless and blue and the sun heating our sweaters against our skin. We met with our sandwiches, our vended sodas, our lunches barely packed.

Russ Hendricks was released, Matt said. Last night. My dad said there's no way he could have done it.

So he was still at the station? Nick asked.

That's what my dad said.

I saw Russ this morning, Christina said. Coming out of the first-floor bathroom. It's like nothing even happened.

No one knows he was questioned, Matt said. Unless someone
else saw him being taken away yesterday, though I'm guessing no one did. Everyone was at lunch or in class. The police never released the information. He was just a person of interest.

But not anymore, Zola said. What happened last night, that was way too early. My mother and I watched on TV and couldn't believe it. She glanced at Nick. Did you see anything?

The streets were blocked off, Nick said. My parents wouldn't let us leave the house. And even if we had, we wouldn't have gotten any farther than our front yard. The police had the whole neighborhood on lockdown.

You wouldn't have seen anything even if you'd made it down the street, Christina said. There were people everywhere outside Jacob's house. Too much going on. It was hard to concentrate on anything with flames like that.

Was Benji's house the same? Zola asked. Did the fires look the same?

I don't know. Christina sipped a can of Sprite. I saw that right as it happened. I didn't stand there long enough to watch the fire grow. But with Jacob's house, the flames were already sky-high. I've never seen anything like it. The sound was deafening.

I could hear the flames, Nick said. Even from a few streets over, if I opened my window.

I still can't believe this, Christina said. This is all so unbelievable.

I know, Nick said. Which makes anything possible.

Matt looked up from his sandwich, the tone of Nick's voice strange. Matt wanted to ask again if he was okay but Christina spoke before he could.

Did your dad say anything else? she asked him.

Only that nothing was left at the house, Matt said. Same as the others. That police are increasing surveillance. That they're still retracing Caleb's path through the school.

What difference does it make? Christina said. People are still dying and police are putting their efforts into the route a psychopath took two weeks ago?

I don't know why it's important, Matt said. But my dad seems to think it is.

It's because they don't know what the hell else to do, Christina said, her tone rising. They have to make it look like they're doing something. It's easier to go back over what they already know. She quieted her voice. I can't believe they didn't cancel class. I can't believe they didn't postpone Homecoming.

Is anyone going? Zola asked.

Sarah wants to go, Nick said. I promised I'd take her.

I can't imagine going at this point, Matt said.

I'll go if you go, Zola said. And you, Chris. You need to get out of the house. Forget what happened. We should all just be together to forget everything.

I wrote another profile last night, Matt said. Alexis Thurber. I didn't even know her but there was nothing else to do.

I didn't write anything, Christina said. I'm done. What else can we possibly say? What else is there to write or research or photograph? We're putting together a yearbook. One that no one will ever want to read.

Matt looked across the courtyard, at the faces of peers he'd shared a building with for years but barely knew. The same as Alexis Thurber. And Darren Beechwold, a sophomore he'd only seen on the sidewalks of Nick's neighborhood. The same as Jacob Jensen, a boy he'd tracked so intimately for so many years that he felt like they knew one another, though Matt realized they'd barely ever spoken. He didn't know anyone, didn't know this school, this foreign facility, this place he was supposed to create a written testimony of memories for, an entire book his peers would read far into a future that felt as impossible as finishing an academic year, a strange school surrounded by strangers.

HALFWAY THROUGH ACADEMIC
lab, as Nick anticipated, he was called into his counseling session with the school therapist selected
for him, a middle-aged man named Marcus. Nick hadn't decided at the end of the previous day's session if he would see Marcus again. But when an aide opened the classroom door and called Nick's name, he let himself be guided from academic lab and down the hall toward Marcus's small office.

I'm glad you decided to come back, Marcus greeted him.

I had a long night, Nick said.

He sat on the couch and told Marcus that the previous night's fire had occurred two blocks away and that he'd stayed up until the sirens receded, until the fire trucks extinguished the blaze and police relinquished their blockade of the streets. He mentioned watching out the front window with his parents and his younger brother. He mentioned the scorched smell pervading the neighborhood, the thick scent of smoke from so many types of fire: wood, chemical, electrical. Something toxic and nauseating and invisible but the only indication that anything had happened, that the fire trucks and sirens two blocks away were battling anything at all. He mentioned the reporters, how news vans had tried to navigate around the blockade. How one news team had set up camp at the end of his street, a microphone and a light Nick could see from his window.

How did that make you feel? Marcus said. What was your reaction to a news team being on your street?

They've been in our neighborhoods for two weeks. This is nothing new.

But they haven't been on your street. Does it feel different, that close to home?

I guess it doesn't feel any different. I feel like nothing can shock me anymore. What's one more news van? What's one more broadcast, even if it's from my street?

Do you feel safe? Especially given the news? I saw this morning that they're still looking for suspects. Does this particular fire make you feel anything different, or raise any new concerns?

Nick looked up. Does it raise concerns for you?

Tell me what you mean.

I mean that I know you're trained in counseling, but has your training prepared you for something like this?

Not necessarily. Grief, certainly. Anxiety and fear.

But not a shooting. Not the ramifications of a series of fatal fires.

Well, not exactly. But I'm here for you to talk about those things.

I know. But I guess I mean that we're in this together. All of us. That none of us knows how to handle this. You must be scared, too.

I am, yes. I think we all are. But I believe these crimes will be solved.

Nick watched Marcus, calculating his response. He thought of everything he'd been researching, what he hadn't even been able to tell Matt. Something spontaneous. Something organic and chemical all at once, a body's composition. Something heavy with a night's darkness. Something laden with grief. He didn't know if he could say out loud what he'd been trying to push from his brain for two days.

How do you know they're crimes?

Tell me what you mean.

I mean what if it wasn't an arsonist? What if there wasn't a suspect at all?

Well, someone is setting these fires. Just like someone held a gun to your peers.

Something's causing the fires. But how do you know it's someone
?

I don't think I follow. What else could it possibly be?

Nick didn't meet Marcus's eyes. What if it was something less premeditated? Not the shooting, but its repercussions. How the body processes grief. It must be something you know about.

How the body responds to grieving? Of course. I'm well trained in physiological responses to extreme stress.

Like what? Nick asked. You'd know better than anyone I've talked to.

Beyond depression, of course, there's an increase in harmful chemical levels and hormones. The body is in a constant state of stress. Heightened cortisol. There are disruptions to biological rhythms of sleeping, eating, digestion. Even circulation and breathing. Concentration and coordination can be compromised. The immune system can be damaged. The effects are huge.

And what if the body went further?

Nick hesitated. A chemical process, he told himself, the same as gas excitation. He had every right to say it out loud.

What if grief changed the body entirely? he said.

It can. There's no doubt about that. But how does that relate to a rash of fires?

Nick looked at Marcus directly. What if grief displaced atoms to the point of starting fires?

Marcus's pen halted on his notepad. Tell me what you mean.

Think of atomic bombs. The slight shifting of a single particle. What if the body's chemistry was completely realigned? What if sorrow pushed the body to breaking?

The body isn't radioactive, Marcus said. It's not a test site for nuclear fission.