ILLUSION, ELI HALE

twenty-two | sleuthing

"I'm sure I can spin this into a tale in which two well-dressed grown adults kidnapped me and held me hostage in a forest." Nadia sighed as she sat on the burned forest floor, head against a tree as she watched Lydia investigate the area for the hundredth time. "I've already been MIA for a day and a half."

"Good thing I dated the Sheriff's son." Lydia's response was quick. She gave Nadia one of those motherly stern looks; Margie had expressed them quite often these past few months with her daughter. "You know, I could always drive you home."

Nadia sighed and slid farther down the thick trunk of the tree. "Sleuthing in the forest it is." She grabbed a handful of burned sticks and observed them.

To her, that's all it was. Burned sticks. Charcoal-colored twigs that reeked of smoke and flames. They were in the dead zone, a controlled fire in which a perfect circle was burned inside this part of the forest, dozens of feet wide in all directions. Everything in their vicinity from tree trunks to former flowers had been burnt to a crisp.

It was odd, there was no doubt about it. If Nadia hadn't been in the current situation she'd stumbled upon, the girl would have assumed it to be a normal Californian wildfire. She wouldn't have thought twice about this area only being the burnt part, while a step outside of the dead zone was full and lush grass—a perfect environment for wildlife to thrive. Now, having sat here for over an hour listening to Lydia go back and forth over some possible explanation, Nadia could see the difference.

"Okay, so let me get this straight." Nadia stood up, the pile of sticks still resting in her clutched hand. "So, there's a Serial arsonist setting forest in the forest. You said four fires in the past two weeks? All controlled?"

"Yeah." Lydia turned her attention away from the soil and looked at Nadia. "We talked about this. What are you trying to get at?"

"I'm trying to figure out the why. Maybe once we get the why, we get the who. And maybe then how to stop them." Nadia shrugged. She rolled the sticks in her fingers, biting her bottom lip. Her eyes traced the outside of the singed circle, walking the perimeter with her eyes. "This is a huge area in a really popular part of the woods. I have classmates who like to camp a half-mile East from here. Whoever started the fire must have gotten it done quickly, even if it started at night."

Jackson and Lydia made eye contact, then the guy turned to Nadia. "What are you proposing?"

All those years of watching crime shows instead of doing her homework were finally catching up to her. She scanned the perimeter once again before speaking her opinion. "Now, don't quote me on this, but it would take too long to set this entire circle on fire with a lighter. As quickly as dry wood burns, to get it in a perfect circle like it, and the other sites are, the perpetrator would have to have walked this entire thing with their lighter. In pitch dark. Multiple times."

"You saying they didn't use fire?" Lydia hummed.

Nadia took a burnt, crunchy leaf off the ground and placed it next to her nose. There was a familiar scent of the liquids used in chemistry class lingering on it. It made sense. Using a chemical accelerant would make a perfect way to create a border so that the fire didn't get out of control. There'd be no way the fire could maintain its shape without it.

"I'm saying they used a chemical accelerant." The girl shrugged. She was used to looking at the smaller details in a bigger picture. Literally. It was kind of her job as yearbook staff. She'd been conditioned to do it so much, it seemed to bleed into real life. "The same chemicals we've used in Chem lab."

Lydia couldn't stop the impressed look that appeared on her face. She turned to Jackson, questioning if his supernatural talent could confirm Nadia's theory. "Jackson, what do you smell?"