Macey felt unsettled and quaky, like a bog after a rain, as if slimy things were going to come up through the bottoms of her bare feet. Could Mr. Sibley have been listed at the junior high because it was safer if nobody knew where he lived?

She photocopied the Shell Road page for 1959 for no reason except she could not leave the library with nothing. Next to nothing on Venita. Completely nothing on Mr. Sibley.

Her head ached. She could no longer remember what brilliant plan had made her stride from school. I skipped meeting Aus for this? I thought my two fires were connected. I thought I’d find a clue; I thought I’d learn something important.

The fire smoldered in her thoughts, but this time, it was 1959’s fire, old and stale and hopelessly out of reach.

Voting! thought Macey, remembering Nixon and Lodge.

She went back to the librarian. “How do I find out if somebody registered to vote in 1959?”

“Town hall. It’s public record. You can see anything you want.”

Austin waited near the trophy case, knowing she would appear. He had the cap on, because that was okay in the lobby, and he searched for Macey among the hundreds of departing students.

He’d rehearsed in his mind the greeting he would give, the posture he would have, the extent to which he would let the kids hanging around see what was happening between them. He was considering taking Macey’s hand when they left the building, but had not made the final decision. He wondered what it would feel like, holding hands. He wondered what temperature her hand would be, and if his own would get cold worrying about it.

But Macey didn’t show up. His hands did get cold.

It was her friend Lindsay who appeared at his side and stood too close to him. “Hi, Austin!” she said gaily.

Lindsay and Grace exhausted him, but especially Lindsay, who was too bright-eyed for his taste, as if she were always hunting, searching, poking. For what? He didn’t want to know.

“Meeting Mace?” said Lindsay, as if she knew better; as if Macey had told Lindsay where she was going, but couldn’t be bothered to tell Aus.

Girls wanted girls to have boyfriends, but they also wanted to tease, find any raw nerves that might be exposed, and expose them more. Austin said, “Have a nice afternoon, Lindsay. Gotta run.” He stepped into the last of the leaving students and jogged off the school campus. When he turned the corner, his feet wouldn’t move that fast anymore. He slowed to a foggy walk, his thoughts harder to organize than a term paper.

He took Macey’s shortcuts after all, through the golf course, through the woods, behind the old supermarket, across yards, through the swamp, over every backyard of Shell Beach. It was a lot of trespass. Nobody paid the slightest attention.