“What is the story, Grandfather?” he said carefully. He tried to think about this without thinking too much. “What’s sad about it? Is she right? Did the guy die in the fire?”

“Austin, if I were comfortable with the story, I wouldn’t mind Macey stirring the ashes,” said Grandfather. “I do not want to discuss it myself, and I do not want other people discussing it.”

Austin imagined a drink mixer, a slender crystal rod, thrust into yesterday’s cold and sodden fire. You didn’t stir the ashes because a spark might have stayed hot, and when oxygen reached the spark, a second fire would kindle. “Macey is just kind of cruising past it, I think, Grandfather. I mean, she did lose her hair in a fire, so fire kind of billowed up in importance, and once she gets the answers she wants, she’ll leave it behind.”

The sloping wrinkles of Grandfather’s face hardened. His eyelids lowered until the glint of his pupils was barely visible. The combination of old puckered skin and slit eyes was reptilian. Austin had to look away. “Why don’t you just talk with Mace, Grandfather?” he said uneasily. “Let her know what the story is, and answer her questions, and—”

“I made it clear,” said Grandfather, “that I would like you to redirect Macey. Unless things have changed greatly since I was sixteen, you are in a position to do that.”

Things had changed greatly since Grandfather was sixteen. Ordering Macey around would be a really poor choice.

On the other hand, this was his grandfather, who was giving him a home and asking nothing in return. Except this.

“Okay,” said Austin, and he wondered if the word okay was a promise, or if it was just the word okay.

Macey’s parents usually got home on the 7:08 train and then drove to the house, so their ETA was around 7:20 every night. After he got home, her father in particular seemed to need a half hour in which to do nothing. He’d unlace his shoes and pad aimlessly around. Mom liked to poke—open the mail, make lists, inventory the refrigerator. There was nothing in the refrigerator tonight, so somebody was going to have to think of a food solution. Mom took boxes out of the cupboard—pasta, rice, instant mashed potatoes—and examined them for clues.

Macey was reeling with her own new clues.

Somebody had meant Venita to die. Somebody had chosen her, aimed at her, and ended her.

And Mr. Sibley? Had Mr. Sibley been meant to die?

You don’t burn a building down around somebody because you’re uncomfortable. It’s hate, that’s what it is. They hated him.

The mobs she had read about in Alabama and Arkansas and Mississippi had been horrible but honest. They went right out there in the street and called names. They faced the network cameras while they shouted their threats.