We Start Fires

[5]

he wishes he had his jacket. there's a cold breeze that just won't let up and he's standing in the middle of an open field in his shirtsleeves. the sky is slate grey and also it's darker than that. there's a humming of July cicadas and he thinks that snow is coming soon. he can see the light on in the distance and when he sees it his hands touch the wooden frame of the screen door and his right foot creaks on the porch. there's a smell like violets and woodsmoke and the outhouses at K.O.A. campgrounds. he can't see the light because he's too close now but he knows it's on. it's waiting for him upstairs. when he thinks about it, his feet are dangling off the eaves-trough as he sits on the rough roof tile and he can only see them in silhouette because of the flames that burst the glass out of the windows upstairs. the heat makes the lines of his legs waver and he knows they are a mirage he has no legs he has only filaments and glass and eyes. there is a sound like a train whistle and a choir and a movie theatre crowd screaming in unison and he is moved to tears.

***

Dev wakes with wet cheeks and a smile.

***

There's a folded scrap of lined paper tucked by its point into the hinge of her locker when she gets there. Maggie pulls it free, but twists her combination lock and stows her backpack before she examines it, a mindful practice of delayed gratification. The note is decorated with a shiny beach umbrella sticker. Dev. She has no idea how it started, the stickers. There's never any specific theme, and they're on almost everything he writes.

Found our next spot. Jonny's truck after class. It's a bit of a drive. See you in assembly. x.

A sort of thrill passes through Maggie, like the heat-filled rattle that spreads through her when she gets a "can we talk later?" text. Jonny calls her high-strung, and he's right. But they're not so different, anxiety and anticipation, biologically speaking. Or emotionally speaking. Just different contexts. And she did catch Jonny practically huffing accelerant out of his hands the other day, so he's not one to talk.

The Culligan barn was his find. A little riskier than anything they'd done before, being so close to the Culligans' actual home on the property, but it was far enough away, and it was falling apart anyway. Carter found the two locations before that one, the ice fishing shack on the bank of Foundry Lake and the old walking bridge above the canal with all the slats missing in the middle. Carter knows how to use the microfiche in library, so she finds all the historical spots around the county that are most likely to sit abandoned and out of the way.

But Maggie found the first one: the wooden prison that used to be Rainbow Lane Equestrian Stables. The place had been shut down after a fraud scandal and a bunch of sick horses, and no one had done anything with the property for years. Maggie used to take riding lessons there. Her parents thought it was dainty and dignified. She hated the lessons. She hated horses. The earliest memory she has is holding her tiny hand out, half of an apple balancing in her palm, and the sight of blocky teeth and open maw approaching without pause. She can still feel the hot breath and flapping lips searching and grazing and pinching all up her arm, even after the apple had been macerated and devoured.

Maggie had struck the first match. Hay burns fast.

She's barely in homeroom for five minutes before the P.A. buzzes and Glasses the Office Lady calls everyone to the gym for Assembly. There are two Office Ladies: Glasses and Rings. One of them has seven pairs of coloured eyeglass frames that she wears on different days of the week, and one has rings on almost every one of her fingers that she never takes off. They have actual names, but no one knows what they are.

Dev must've spoken to one of the teachers before class; no one had made any sort of announcement about Assembly yesterday. She hopes he was in early this morning with Mr. Deringer. She's been on him about extra help forever.