The Children on the Hill(55)

I nodded.

“They also built this stone tower—it’s kind of an island landmark. There’s a replica of it on the town green. And my uncle’s even got it on the campground sign. You didn’t notice?”

“I thought it was a lighthouse,” I admitted.

“Kind of a lighthouse-looking tower, I guess? I think it was originally built as a fire tower—you know, to keep an eye out for smoke in the woods around the lake? It’s pretty tall—maybe fifty feet or so. But it’s in bad shape. They’ve been trying to get funding in place to rebuild it, fix it up because it’s a historic landmark and all that. Right now it’s all boarded up. But people still sneak in. My dad goes out there pretty regularly to kick people out. Just last week, someone lit a fire up at the top.”

“A fire in the fire tower?”

He nodded. “They must have been setting off fireworks up there or something, because people heard an explosion, then saw flames. They saw it all the way across the lake.”

“Where exactly is this tower?” I asked.

“Do you wanna go out there? You think maybe the tower and the fire have something to with Rattling Jane? With what happened to Lauren?”

I shrugged, trying to play it cool.

He thought for a minute, rubbing his chin. “You know, I think the fire was right around the time Lauren disappeared. Like the day before? Or the day after, maybe? I can’t be sure.”

I remembered working on a page on monster hunting for our book. The two of us writing: When you look for monsters, there are obvious places: dark woods, caves, old castles and towers. Monsters love towers.

Monsters love towers.

The words pinged in my brain.

“I’m gonna grab you some paper and a pencil—I need you to draw me a map.”

“I can do better than that. I can take you,” he said.

I shook my head. “No. If your dad, Officer Friendly, shows up, we’ll both be in trouble. And haven’t you’ve gotten in enough hot water with him for one day?”

Skink nodded.

I left off the rest of my thought: And if she’s there waiting, I need to face her on my own.





Vi

July 19, 1978




ERIC CAME RUNNING, banging open the back door. “Gran! Come quick! Gran!” His voice was frantic, almost hysterical.

“Whatever is the matter, Eric?” Gran asked, practically running from her office to the sunroom. They’d had dinner and Gran had gone over their schoolwork. She’d been alone in her office sipping a martini and finishing up some patient notes.

In her hurry, she’d left her purse on her desk, just as Vi had hoped she would. Vi swept into the office, opened the purse, and grabbed the keys, then crept back out of the office and down to the front door.

“Fire!” Eric was saying from the sunroom.

“What?” Gran asked, voice disbelieving.

“Look!” Eric said. “I was fooling around, trying to make a warming cage for injured animals with a candle in the old hutch, it was stupid, I know, but—”

“Good Lord!” Gran cried.

Both the hutch and the old woodshed next to it were burning up.

Vi went outside and crouched under the open kitchen window, listening. Gran’s heavy key ring was tucked inside her sweatshirt pocket. A couple moments later, she heard footsteps entering the kitchen.

“We should call the fire department,” Eric said urgently.

“We shall do no such thing,” Gran replied, voice strangely calm. She picked up the phone and called Miss Ev.

Once Vi knew that Miss Ev and Sal were on their way, she crossed the yard to her hiding spot behind a tree. Her hope was that in the chaos, Gran wouldn’t think to ask where she was, would just assume she was up in her room, head in a book, missing out on all the action.

Vi smiled, feeling very pleased with herself. It was all going exactly the way they’d planned. Miss Ev came running across the road into the yard, her wig askew, her robe tied loosely around her pale nightgown, Sal right behind her in blue hospital scrubs.

“Get buckets and the hose,” Miss Ev ordered as she moved into the backyard, pointing, directing people, her pink terry-cloth robe flapping.

Gran got a bucket from inside, and Eric turned on the hose and handed it to Sal.

And that’s when Iris came outside and saw the fire, moving closer and closer to it, drawn like a moth to flames.

She looked like a moth girl there, light-blue pajamas hanging off her skinny frame, fluttering in the breeze. If Vi squinted, she could almost make out wings pressed against Iris’s back, starting to unfurl, delicate and in danger of being burned by the sparks. She had on the orange hat, and Vi imagined soft, feathery antennae hidden underneath it.

“Go inside,” Gran ordered when she spotted Iris; but Iris stood, transfixed, and then, right on cue, she began to shriek, a high-pitched, earsplitting scream. Something that you wouldn’t think could come from a human.

Phase One of their plan: start the fire, get Gran outside.

“It’s okay, Violet,” Sal said, stepping toward Iris. Sal had been an orderly at the Inn for years—he was used to people screaming; he knew how to settle them down, and when that didn’t work, how to restrain them.

“But that isn’t Violet, it’s—” Eric started to say, and Gran interrupted, “Take your sister inside, Eric! Now!”