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Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
***
HOLLIN WATCHED THE tables being set up for...for High Noon. The two extra leaves were going into the maple dining room table. It would soon be as long as a football field but right now there was an emergency. Uncle Carl had dented one of the metal tracks when he tried to force a leaf to fit. Then he walked away as if half the family hadn't seen him do it.
Uncle Kirk was near-sighted and he pushed his glasses up irritably. "Somebody find that idiot and bring him back," he said as he tried to fix the damage. The news returned that Carl had disappeared. "Oookay, somebody bring me a hammer."
The farmer's table for the kids was being set up in a pleasant spot around the corner and under the windows in the living room. Another emergency popped up. Only one bench could be found.
Hollin's stomach clenched. Lunchtime was coming up fast. She noticed Justis was standing next to her grandmother's trophy case, tapping his phone. Hoping for cheer, she walked over.
"Wouldn't it be great if Uncle Carl and Aunt Marty decided to run away together?" she asked him.
"Mm hmm," he said as he deleted blurry pictures. "Look, here she is covered in meringue. Put that on your Christmas cards." He gloated over his treasure trove.
"We found the bench!" Ned shouted down from the top of the stairs.
Grandma Mae moved into sight as she shouted back, "Where was it?"
"In the attic."
"What in the world was it doing up there?" She spotted her granddaughter. "Hollin?"
Hollin held up innocent hands.
The old woman nodded but then she turned serious. "I want to talk to you," she said and Hollin's heart dropped. Mercifully Ellery came running in with news of a third emergency and the old woman rushed away.
"Got it," Kirk announced and he slid the leaf smoothly where it needed to go. It clicked into place with a sound like the closing of a casket and Hollin swallowed.
She was going to push in where she wasn't wanted or needed. The mannered Southern belle inside of her was suffering the vapors, her lacy fan flapping desperately. The strong woman she was becoming was determined not to be pushed around. Hovering over her head was the woman that nurtured both, Hollin's grandmother, and she was going to beg her to be a good girl, Hollin. Do this small thing just this once, it's no big deal.
Well, since it was such a minor issue, no one was going to be too traumatized if she refused, right? Right.
Justis took a picture of the trophy cabinet. Hollin flinched at the bright flash and was officially aggravated. "How many pictures are you going to take?" she asked him.
"All of them," he said without looking at her.
Hollin was beginning to feel hurt. It would have been nice to have a friend to talk to right about now. She thought she'd made one. Was she wrong?
Maybe he didn't think of her as a friend after the sweet, wild charge of what had happened between them outside at the woodpile.
"Is this you?" Justis asked, pointing at one of the many portraits of beautiful women and girls that surrounded the cabinet.
Hollin looked at herself, at the armful of brilliant red roses, the vintage Dior dress she and her mother had found at an estate sale (and there had been rejoicing so loud it had frightened her father) and the circlet of genuine pearls that the Swanhaven museum released only once a year resting lightly on her curly hair.
"Yes," Hollin said. "I was Miss Swanhaven last year. Grandma was our first Miss Swanhaven," she pinched the corner of a silver frame that held a fine black and white photo within. "And then Mama won the title and then I did."
Hollin drew in a deep breath as she remembered the relief and delight of her win. She began to relax. There were good stories here.
She pointed at another black and white of a regal woman, her crown fully five inches high. "There's Aunt Maud, Miss Raleigh. And here is our queen bee," Hollin's pride in her family warmed her. She gave the portrait of an exquisite redhead a respectful salaam. "Here is Aunt Vivian, Miss North Carolina."
"Ned's mother was Miss North Carolina?"
Hollin nodded. "She's so quiet, isn't she? You'd never guess." Hollin looked over to the corner where Viv was changing Dale, her thick glasses disguising the most beautiful eyes in the state.
"Who was Miss Dickens Dairy?" Justis asked, reading the title of a white satin sash, carefully folded inside the case.
"I was." Hollin smiled. Her first win. She was twelve and terrified but her cheering family had seen her through. "I won a lifetime supply of butter. Almost everything we made today, even Aunt Sarah's pies, has Dickens Butter in it." She looked up at her family's legacy of beauty and smiled. "I'm not ambitious enough to try for Miss North Carolina," she said as modestly as she could. "I like the local contests, they're more fun."
Justis's eyes were wide and he laughed. "Maybe you'll win a lifetime supply of bread to go with your butter!"
Hollin's fragile good mood shattered. "What's so funny?"
"I can't believe the person that makes Bette Bloom, Dark Detective Beauty Queen, is a beauty queen."
"Who else could write it?" She put a little drawl of warning into her voice but Justis either didn't hear it or he didn't care.
"It's so cute!" he said. " A family full of Beauty Queens! And the food and the house and the characters running around..."
"Characters?"
"It's unreal. I feel like I'm in a movie. A sweet Disney movie, too." Justis snatched up his phone and hit a couple of buttons. "Do a wave for me," he said. "Do the Queen's wave to the masses, I want to get a video."
Hollin didn't smile. She didn't wave. Justis's enthusiasm died and she was glad.
He put his phone down but not away. "Are you angry about something?"
Uncle Newt turned to openly watch the show and conversation around the TV hit a lull.
"We do more than just wave from a float, Justis," she said. "The contestants," she pointed at herself. "Learn life skills."
"Like rubbing vaseline on your teeth so you can smile more easily?"
Bang. Hollin felt a mushroom cloud of fury forming over her head.
"Kill him," Newt urged. "We won't tell nobody."
Justis looked confused. "What? What did I say?"
"I wouldn't be half the person I am..." Hollin began, and stuttered to a stop. She took a deep breath and started over, ""I'll have you know," she said to all the world, "That Aunt Viv went to medical school on her prize money. Did Ned ever tell you his mother was a doctor?"
"Uh? No."
"Grandma and Aunt Maud started their own businesses. Successful ones. You want to know how many businesswomen there were in this little town back in their day?" She pointed at their pictures. "Two. And it was miserably hard." She sucked in another breath and Justis stepped back. "My Swanhaven court built a house for Habitat for Humanity!"
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I didn't know." Justis put an arm around her and pulled her in. He kissed her on the head. On the head? How precious.
Hollin pushed him away. "Now you tell me about the MacNairs," she said.
He flinched as if she'd slapped him. "What? Why?"
Hollin stepped right under his nose. "I want to know what's so great about the MacNairs that you feel you can laugh at us?"
Justis's mouth dropped open but nothing came out for a while. "I'm not laughing at anyone," he managed.
"Like you didn't just laugh at me when I told you I was Miss Dickens Dairy?"
His mouth quirked up. "Well, that is kinda cute, you have to admit."
Cute. He said it again. He said cute. "The MacNair Legacy," Hollin insisted. "Let's hear it."
He shook his head again. "We're boring," he said and Hollin gave up on him.
Justis reached out and closed his hand over hers. What a shame he had such nice hands. Strong with long fingers. He leaned towards her. "Look. Uncle Kirk said he brought a spice cake. Sounds good," he murmured. "Let's go eat it." He smiled at her as if he actually expected her to... what?
Fall for the same trick twice?
Hollin took her hand away. "I have enough problems," she said. "This morning was a mistake."
She left him standing there.
*
AT EXACTLY 12:00 IN the afternoon Hollin sat down at the adults' table for the first time in her life. "Hollin," her grandmother was looking at her with wide, hurt eyes but they weren't going to work. Not this time. "There's six kids in there and a baby. Alex can't..."
"And he never will unless ya'll give him a chance," Hollin interrupted. "It's not like they're going to roast him over an open fire."
"Jack Frost nipping at your nose." Nat King Cole sang from Grandma's old 'tape' player. It was competing with the sound of a cartoon drifting in from the living room. Ellery was whining about the kiddie entertainment but no one was listening. "Yuletide carols sung by a choir..."
Hollin protested in a desperate bid to change the subject. "It's way too soon for Christmas music."
"Never too soon!" Mae denied but she wasn't distracted. She tried to bypass Hollin as a chicken and wild rice casserole went round but the girl was too fast. She practically snatched the dish out of her grandmother's hands. "Hollin," Mae said. "Please do me a huge favor and go in there. Just for this year."
Hollin shook her head no. "They're fine." There was a crash from the living room and Hollin heard Alex swear. Everyone at the adults' table watched as Hollin scooped some food for herself.
"No! No! No! I want a corn dog!" little Alma (or was it Annie Jr?) shrieked and Carl sniggered.
His wife became suspicious. "When has Alma ever screamed for a corn dog?" Anne asked him.
"Since I told her to," Carl said.
Anne turned. "Alma!" she shouted and Maud jumped, sloshing her iced tea. "Be quiet in there! You too, Annie! Daddy is not funny!"
"Hoo hoo hoooo!" Carl chuckled.
Marty had uncorked herself from the bathroom and was seated as far away from Sarah Clocke as she could get. "Look," she said to Hollin. "We work all day to pay the rent and the bills. We need a break. We don't need your childish shit," she said. She pointed her fork. "Get in there."
"No," Hollin answered. "And you don't work. Grandma pays your bills."
"Hollin!" her father gasped. She didn't look at him as she passed the casserole to Justis, awkwardly seated on her right.
Her mother said, "Marty, dear, you talk to my kid like that again and I'll give you more than a face full of pie."
Marty whined. "Dale could be choking to death in there!"
"Then go yourself," Hollin said. "If you're that worried."
Marty stayed firmly affixed to her chair. "This isn't about me."
"Nice knowin' ya, Dale," Sarah said.
Uncle Kirk dove in. "Everybody! We have guests here. We're not exactly showing our best face."
Roy appeared at the door, milk dripping from his hair. "Hollllinnn!"
"Better go, Hollin, before they burn the house down," Maud sighed. "We won't get any peace otherwise." She glared at Carl and Marty with pure, hot loathing. "Alex needs help."
"Stay there, I don't need help!" Alex called from the living room. There was a another crash. "Hill! You did that on purpose, you little creep!"
Hill started up a chant, "Hollin! Hollin! Hollin!" The other kids joined in, even Carl joined in, beating his fists on the table so hard the crystal chimed. "Hollin! Hollin! Hollin! Hollin!"
"Stop that," Anne snapped and Carl, at least, stopped. "You put them up to that, too," she accused.
Carl's eyes boggled with innocence as he shook his head and then he laughed again.
"Enough!" Mae slapped her hand down on the table. The sharp crack it made made her entire family jump. She turned to her granddaughter and her eyes weren't pleading. They were set and serious. "Hollin? This is the first holiday since...since..." She shook her head, unwilling to even mention her husband...her son...
Hollin's resolve began to crack under her sudden guilt.
Mae settled on a firm, "Hollin, it's just not your year. Go sit with the kids."
Hollin looked to her parents.
"Go on," her mother said. "We'll be a little more settled next year."
This warm support from her entire family defeated Hollin's last nerve. "Fine." Her blood pounded in her ears as she stood up and she knew her face was boiling red. "Fine." She picked up her plate and her iced tea. "I'll see ya'll next year, then."
No one answered as she left and she remembered that for the rest of her natural life.
*
"IT'S TWENTY MINUTES of cooking per pound of turkey," Anne said and she checked her watch. "It's 1:30 now so if I want my turkey done before six..."
"I never was any good at word problems," groaned Hal.
"Put the birds on the heat right now," Maud finished. The cooks scattered.
Justis didn't move from his spot on the couch even though Hal was going to deep fat fry his turkey and Anne's was going to be smoked. Maud was the traditionalist. Her's was slathered with butter, tented in tinfoil, and going into the kitchen oven to be cooked long, low, and slow.
Justis didn't care. He didn't care at all about food or any of it. He had his arms and his legs crossed as he watched the football game. The stupid, boring, football game.
He could hear Hollin outside on the porch, her voice floating in through the living room window that had been left open a crack. She was having an intense come-to-Jesus with her cousin. "Don't feel bad, Alex," she was saying. Justis tried to ignore her. He didn't want to listen to the princess. Yes, a princess. And she had the crowns to prove it. Hollin sounded calm and that made him even angrier.
A mistake, she said. She was right. He should have known it wasn't going to happen for him. He knew, just by knowing Ned, that he was headed into the jaws of squeaky-clean Americana. He wouldn't fit in. He came anyway. Hey, free entertainment. Free food. Take a picture. Take lots of pictures.
But that scene during lunch had been...intense. And sad.
"Justis, we broke into Aunt Maud's banana pudding. Would you like a bowl?" Cathy called out from the doorway.
Well, at least Cathy didn't hate him. Of course, Princess wouldn't tell her parents about her mistake. What was there to tell? Nothing.
But the look on her face as her entire family drove her away from the table.
"Justis?"
Eat the pudding. "Sure," he called back and got up.
"No, you're our guest. I'll bring it out. The rest of you, come and get it."
Justis slowly sank back onto the couch as the others nearly trampled each other to get to the kitchen. "I'm a guest, too," Ned whined.
"Shut up, you." Cathy fought her way back through with a heaping bowl and a spoon. "Here, Justis. Go nuts."
Justis reached up and took it. "Thank you."
"Hollin? Alex? Want some banana pudding?" Cathy called out and she sounded overly cheerful to Justis's ears.
"No, thank you," Hollin said.
"No, thank you," Alex echoed.
"Oh, c'mon, it's nummy nummy!" Cathy tried again.
A chilly silence met that and then Hollin's head appeared in the window. "Will you make choo-choo noises while you feed us?"
Cathy blinked. "What?"
"No, thank you," Hollin repeated, firmly, and disappeared.
"Goo goo ga ga," Alex muttered.
Cathy huffed and went back to the kitchen.
Justis analyzed the pudding. 'Nilla wafers, sliced bananas, meringue, some sort of pudding sauce...would it taste as good as it looked? He scooped a spoonful into his mouth. Yep. So good. The crunch of the vanilla cookies and the cool sweetness of the bananas...you don't get that out of a box of instant pudding mix.
Hollin's voice drifted in. "Alex, try to project your voice without yelling. Yelling brings you down to their level."
The game came back on and the others rushed to reclaim their seats.
Justis polished off his dessert. He took the bowl back to the kitchen and washed it out.
"Justis!" Ned called. "You're missing the game! Again."
"How much football can you watch?" Justis asked and returned to the couch.
Justis's phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket. Flam-bee to MacDaddy, "So hows the happy disney family? I was telling sharika about them and she dont believe me. Can I put some pictures on facebook?"
Justis read that sentence three times. He could do that. He could post that picture of Ellery holding up a pie with a great grin on her face. Look, the family that worships baked goods. Or he could post the tiaras in their showcase. Look, everybody, look at all these sparkling fakes. He could post a picture of the elaborate food. But! They ran out of celery. The horror. Can you say First World problems? Or he could let everyone know that he made out with a beauty queen in the garage. Wahey.
Alex's voice dropped to a whisper and Justin heard the hiss of his own name. He tuned out the game, Ned's commentary, and the buzz of the Green conversation all around him.
Alex whispered again. "Aunt Meryl spotted you and Justis, um, gathering wood. She saw ya'll go behind the shed. She went nuts. She ran and told Aunt Cathy..."
"It was nobody's business!"
"Aunt Meryl says Justis is trash. Staring at everything like he's in a museum and taking pictures. Asking questions. She says he's going to rob the house. Aunt Cathy said there's too many people in the house for him to try that. She was going to go out and break it up, though, and then..."
"Stop," Hollin said. "They're both crazy. If Justis was going to steal anything he would've robbed Ned blind long before now. He hasn't. And he isn't casing the joint, Aunt Meryl, God."
Through a haze of anger Justis was gratified by her defense. He looked over the crowd and wondered which one was Meryl. That piggish, older woman with the upturned nose and the Notre Dame sweatshirt? She looked like the type that would throw 'He's trash!' around with no evidence whatsoever...
"He's just," Hollin went on, hesitantly, as if she were unsure. "He's just a tourist. Recording everything that's weird to him. Maybe he grew up in a log cabin in the woods or a hippie commune or whatever. I don't know. He won't tell me anything."
No evidence whatsoever.
Justis flipped his phone over and over in his hand.
Hollin sounded low and defeated. "Anyway, don't worry about Justis. He's Ned's friend and an art student. And nothing else."
His phone vibrated. Fam-bee wanted to know, "Did you die?"
"No, still here." he typed out. "Stand by."
She didn't want to stand by. "You need to share your findings remember? report on the natives! Well make a website. Itll be funny."
Yeah, he could make it funny. He could do that.
Or he could remember the pain in Mae's face when she spoke of her sumbitch husband. The beauty of Sarah's thrown pie. The feel of Hollin's skin. How he felt eating lunch next to her empty chair.
Hollin.
His phone buzzed again. "ANSWER MEEEEEE!"
Justis's thumbs very carefully typed out, "No website."
He looked around at the crowns, the Impressionist art prints on the walls, the unstained carpet, the small crowd of sports fans clustered around a thirty-year old glass TV.
There was a game on. Georgia Tech was playing Notre Dame and winning. Half the watchers were ecstatic, on the side of any Southern team. The other half were the Greens, a family founded by Aoibheann O'Celtic Throat Gurgle, and they weren't happy at all. Fiona Green proudly told Justis all about it when she explained the rift during the last commercial break.
Family history. What a concept.
And trust? Another vague notion?
Justis typed on. "Don't share anything with Sharika either. Sending the pictures to you was rude enough."
Flam-bee sent him an emoji of a puppy with begging eyes. "Oh come on. She's got to see all those crowns."
Hollin's court built a house for Habitat for Humanity. Justis shook his head. "Rude, I said! rude rude rude rude" And it was rude, wasn't it? Way to return hospitality, Justis. No wonder Hollin got angry.
Flam-bee was a perceptive young woman. "What did you do?"
Justis lost his powers of punctuation. "nothing i had a small fight with neds cousin i have to go im watching the game"
"Yeah right. Bye."
"Bye." Justis put his phone away and sunk even lower into the couch.
The commercials came on so it was time for conversation. "I'll tell ya'll what," said the woman with the snout, "That wasn't a good lunch, was it?"
"Meryl, drop it," Newt requested.
Justis felt validated. He'd been right. Piggy woman was Aunt Meryl.
She wasn't going to drop it. "Well, it wasn't. Hollin ruined it, being a spoiled little brat."
"I thought she handled herself pretty well," Justis said. "Considering."
The word 'considering' was a carrot, tempting Aunt Meryl to ask for the details Justis was ready to give her but she didn't take the bait.
She ignored him. "In my family we didn't sit at the adults' table until we were married." She looked over her shoulder at Devon, the Scrabble champ, who was flipping through an old Reminisce magazine. "If this were my home, Devon would be with the children. Out on the porch!"
Devon didn't look up. "If this was your home, Mama, I wouldn't be here."
She turned another page while the Greens made disapproving tut! noises at both of them.
Damn, Justis thought to himself. Did he really think this family was saccharine sweet and unreal?
They were real, all right.
"Are you sulking, Justis?" Ned asked.
"Yes," Newt answered for him.
"No," Justis corrected. "I'm just thinking."
Hollin was still talking.
Justis didn't want to listen. He listened anyway.
*
ALEX HADN'T HIT HIS growth spurt yet so Hollin doubted he was intimidating enough to use her good advice. Still, she had to try. "You're the leader of the pack now, Alex, not their buddy. Not even Ellery's buddy, even though she's only a year younger."
"Grandma wants you to be the boss just because you're a girl." Alex was red.
Hollin almost laughed at his fury. What did he think girls went through every day? But now wasn't the time for one-upmanship. "Is it fair to me?" she asked. "Being forced to watch all the kids, and you, just because I'm a girl?"
Alex blinked. "No," he muttered.
"And how old is Grandma?"
"Seventy-something." He thought about it a moment. "Oh."
"Right. She's old school and not the good kind of old school either. So don't listen," Hollin said. Alex swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "And don't lose your poise, whatever happens."
Alex muttered, "It's just so frustrating. And those little shits! Those little, tiny shits. Like mouse turds."
Hollin did laugh then. It felt good.
Alex wasn't through. "And Dad thinks I'm stupid."
"Your dad's a dipstick."
Alex smiled and his spine slowly straightened again. "He is. He really is," he said but he said it quietly.
Hollin suddenly felt like throwing a toddler's tantrum. She should've had this talk with Alex before lunch. She should've talked to the little kids, too. Alex's total failure at lunch was all her fault.
She hid her dismay and carried on. "Let me tell you about the Voice of Death."
"Oh, I remember you using that on us." Alex threw his head back. "Stop sword fighting with the turkey legs!" he shouted then he looked for her approval.
Hollin shook her head and he drooped. "You have to say it as if you hate everyone's guts. You have to say it mean. And low. And deep. They won't believe that you actually hate them but they'll believe you mean business."
"Stop that!" he tried again and it was pretty good.
"One more time and lower, you've got a deeper voice than I do. Project like Darth Vader," she encouraged.
"STOP THAT," he said and the very birds in the trees checked themselves to see what they were doing wrong.
Hollin applauded. "That's it! That's it. Good!" And Alex raised victorious fists.
A loud clatter followed by a terrible WHOOMPH! of rushing air cut across the property.
Hollin's cheer died. That wasn't a healthy sound.
There was a man's pained shout.
"What was that?" Alex asked, standing.
Hollin was already down the steps. "I don't know, it came from around back." She smelled an oily stench. "Something's burning!" she shouted and started to run, Alex right behind her. They tore around the corner.
The back yard was on fire. A spreading patch of hot orange flame was eating everything near the shed in front of the woodpile.
Hollin stared, shocked. Nearby, backed against the fence, Hal was holding half a broomstick with one hand and wiping his face with the sleeve of his jacket with the other. Clear on the other side of the yard Mr. Barkis was leaping at Ned who had the other half of the broom and was staring at the disaster in horror.
"What did that?!" Alex yelped.
Hollin saw the answer gleaming silver at the base of the blaze. A large metal pot with a hissing, popping burner next to it. "Oil fire!" she shouted. "The oil spilled over onto the burner when they put the turkey in."
"Are you kidding me?"
"You see it on the news every time Thanksgiving rolls around," Hollin said. "And on America's Funniest Home Videos."
Alex stared at the tall, violent flames. They lit his face and Hollin could feel the heat. Alex spoke for them both when he said, "That's not funny."
The dog barked and barked and the family poured out of the house to add their noise to the bedlam.
Hollin grabbed Alex by the arm. "Go to Ned," she ordered and Alex pelted across the yard as she turned and ran to her uncle. Well, neither he nor Ned were on fire so... "Everybody calm down!" she shouted at him and Hal staggered back, surprised. "Everything's all right."
"If you say so, honey," Hal said as blisters plumped and reddened on his skin.
Roy, Hill, and Kirk's two small sons were running back and forth from fear and excitement. "Alex!" Hollin shouted, "Put the kids on the porch! And somebody call 911!"
"I called 'em," Justis said, leaping down the steps. “No! Ned, put that hose down, are you kidding?" Ned retreated from the flames. "That's oil. You don't put out an oil fire with water."
"Oh, they're burned, they're burned!" Anne gasped.
"No!" Mae was waxy white and her hands clenched together. "Please, God, no."
"We're okay, Mae!" Hal called out. "Everything's okay. We're just a little...splattered. Ow." He waved to his far-off son who unhappily waved back. Hal slowly began to walk to the house. "I think we both broke the land speed record getting away from there."
Viv was running down the steps, her quiet voice turning to steel. "Both of you get under the hose. It'll stop the burning. Did somebody call 911?" She shucked her grown son out of his jacket and shirt as quickly as if he were three years old again.
"Justis called!" Hollin said. She turned to him. "Help me with Uncle Hal, please."
"Sure."
"I don't need help, thanks," Hal said as he walked, painfully, under his own power. Hollin and Justis shared a look and flanked him, just in case.
"Does it hurt?" Roy almost fell over as he rushed up, his brother right behind him. "Can I see?"
"Can I ride in the ambulance?" Hill asked. Both boys were blocking the way.
"Guys, you have to move," Justis said.
They didn't. "Will the fire get to the house?"
"Are we going to be on TV?"
"YOU'RE GOING TO GET ON THE PORCH, NOW!" came ripping out of Alex. Roy and Hill backed away, eyes popping, and did what they were told. Kirk's two kids were already there, standing very still. Alex even seized the dog and threw him up the steps, too. "HOLD HIM!"
The little boys held Mr. Barkis in a tight web of skinny arms and all five of them watched the action with huge eyes.
"That's my boy," said Hollin. She laid a hand on Hal's shoulder and jerked it back with a gasp. "It's still hot!" She frantically wiped her hand off on her own jacket.
"Boiling oil, doofus," groaned Hal as he stripped out of his gleaming coat. Hollin blew on her palm.
Mae had managed to calm down but she was still pale. Her arm was locked with Cathy's. "What in the world happened?"
"We did everything right," Hal said as they reached the others. "The turkey was thawed, we were away from the house." He rubbed his neck. It was splotched with red. "We even had it hooked to the broom so we'd be safe lowering it in. And the damn thing broke right in the middle! The bird knocked the pot over and the oil hit the burner. Bang! Son of a bitch. Is Ned okay?"
"Ned?" Justis asked. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Ned was calmly training the hose on his bare arm. It was covered in red splotches. Ned usually drove Hollin nuts but she wouldn't wish that on anybody.
Hal stiffly peeled out of his shirt. He had a wide, red band running down his stomach where his t-shirt didn't protect him but the flannel jacket, the one Hollin had worn, had kept the worst of the oil away from him. "Hold still," Ned said and turned the water on his dad.
Hal sighed with relief. "Never again."
"Damn right," Viv said, the harshest thing Hollin had ever heard her say. "You're never cooking again!"
"I'm not leaving it to you, Captain Ptomaine," Hal said and laughed.
"Food poisoning can happen to anybody," Viv insisted. She finished her examination. "Neither of you have to go to the hospital, thankfully. You just need some bandages. "
"And some Morrrphiiiine!" Ned howled and shivered. His mother laughed and tried to block him from the cold wind. Hal was too stoic to shiver.
Kirk was looking on in his phlegmatic way. "Well, ya'll don't get frost bite on top of everything else."
"No worries," Mae said. "They have my blazing shed to keep them warm."
Everyone turned to watch as her outbuilding and its woodpile sent up a near-biblical pillar of black smoke and flame. "I bet you can see that for miles."
There was a drone of sirens and Mae turned to Ellery who was wringing her hands nearby. "Go wave them down, please, honey," she asked and the girl shot around the house and out of sight.
"Mae, I'm so sorry," Hal said.
She looked at him, surprised. "For what? The stupid broom broke."
"Anything important in there, Mama?" Sarah asked, watching the pyre with wide eyes.
"Just gardening supplies. And a full cord of firewood. Nice and dry, too." Now that her fright was over Mae felt free to groan a bit.
"You feeling better now?" Cathy asked, putting her arm around Mae's shoulders.
Her mother nodded.
"Got any marshmallows?"
"Cathy!" Anne protested but she was laughing despite herself.
And Mae finally laughed, too.
Hollin almost shuddered with relief. Her Grandma lived in terror of accidents and this one, a father and son in danger, hit close to the bone. But all was well.
"I do have marshmallows," Mae admitted. "I was saving them for the firepit tonight. No, don't get them now!" Roy and Hill were leading the charge for the pantry. "The fire's too hot."
Hollin felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Justis. "Look over there." He pointed off to the side. Hollin looked and spotted little Alma and Annie Junior huddled next to the fence. They weren't anywhere near the flames but they seemed frozen. "I thought they were waiting for the fire trucks," Justis said. "But I think they're too scared to move."
"I'll get them," Hollin said and crossed the yard again. To her surprise, Justis came along. The girls ran to meet her. "Hey, that was scary, huh?" she said. "Kaboom!"
"They got hurt and the house is burning down!" Alma sobbed and held up her arms.
"The house isn't burning down. Just the yard," Hollin reassured her and picked her up. "And let's have a moment of silence for Uncle Hal's turkey."
Justis picked up Annie Junior. She was too shy to speak to him but she wrapped her small arms around his neck anyway. Hollin thought they made a sweet picture.
Speaking of, why wasn't Justis snapping away with his phone and cackling like the Joker on a spree? This was great stuff he was ignoring. Maybe he was sick.
No. He rubbed Annie's back as they walked back to the house and spoke total nonsense. "Just roll Charley 'round. Roll him 'round. That'll put him out."
Ned seemed to understand, though. "Now that's a fiah!" he shouted to Justis and both laughed.
Watching him comfort the little girl, listening to his jokes, Hollin's resentment began to fade. She looked up at Ned and Hal's crackling achievement. Close. Close call.
The sirens cut off and Ellery came running back. "Here they are!" She was grinning. "There's a camera crew, too!"
Hollin, Viv, May, Cathy, and Maud ran their hands through their hair.
