Tamia couldn’t bear any more silence. “Charlie,” she called sharply. “Talk to me.”

“Now we wait.”

“How long?”

He shrugged. “It’s up to them.”

She cast her gaze out over the valley. Trees continued to creak and pop as planes buzzed overhead. Bitter ash coated the inside of her mouth. What would happen now? Had her family gotten out in time? Wasn’t there anything more she could do?

The hours passed as the sun marched overhead. Tongues of flame leapt up from the valley, and load after load of blue retardant floated down into the forest. Charlie pulled out his phone, turning away from Tamia as he dialed and waited. He spoke softly, but she still heard the message he left. “Dad, if you’re still in Seattle, get out. Now.”

So they’d failed. It was going to be all out destruction. Tamia closed her eyes and wiped tears off her grimy cheeks. She felt numb, helpless. She sat down on the ground and buried her face in her hands.

Then, finally, Charlie tapped her on the arm.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He pointed out toward the valley. The smoke billowing up from the forest had thinned a bit, enough for her to see that the trees had changed their movements. Instead of thrashing into one another to pass along flames, they were swaying gently from side to side. Tamia jumped to her feet. In another minute, the trees stopped moving completely.

Tamia scrambled for her phone. She pressed redial for Palmer and put the phone to her ear. All she heard was a stream of rapid, high-pitched beeps before the line went silent. Oh no. No! She punched her screen to call again. This time she didn’t hear anything.

“Charlie, I can’t call Palmer. There’s no service!”

She tried again, stumbling over the buttons on her screen. No connection.

She tried again. Silence.

This couldn’t be happening. They couldn’t have come this close for her to fail at the very last step.

Charlie jerked into motion, digging his phone out of his pocket and handing it to her. Hands trembling, she typed Palmer’s number into Charlie’s phone. Her knees almost buckled with relief when she heard ringing.

The call clicked through. “Palmer.”

“Governor Palmer, it’s Tamia. Are you still watching the White Pass fire?” The connection was hollow and scratchy, like through a radio system. He must be evacuating, his phone forwarded to whatever car or helicopter he was using to flee.

Garbled voices rose behind his before he replied. “Yes.”

“So they can stop dumping retardant, right?”

“Don’t be stupid,” he scoffed. “We still have to get the fire under control.”

Her face flushed with anger. “But can’t you use something else? Water or a different retardant, one that doesn’t poison them?”

“Look, whatever you may have done to slow this down, I thank you, but—”

“What about the people?” she argued. “There are towns around here. And the waterways; didn’t the Forest Service guy say—”

“Who are you to question me?”

“Call off the poison, now!” she demanded, clenching her fist. “If you don’t, and the trees start moving fire again, it’s on you.”

“Tamia—”

“Has anything else you’ve tried worked?” she yelled. “Are you going to call this off and save millions of lives, or do you want to watch those trees rise up and burn the whole damn state to the ground?” Silence. “Do you really want that to be your legacy?”

She hung up and had to stop herself from throwing Charlie’s phone into the valley. She slapped it into his palm and stood with him on the ledge, watching helicopters buzz overhead as the smoke died down further. They watched and waited. The forest remained still, but how long that would last was anyone’s guess.

Charlie pointed toward an approaching tanker plane. Tamia sucked in her breath. She would be sick if she had to watch another cloud of blue smother the trees.

Charlie put a hand on her shoulder. “We did everything we could.”

“But what if . . .” She couldn’t even finish.

“The trees have given us as much room as they could,” he said quietly. “Whatever happens next is exactly what we deserve.”

Tamia held her breath, praying she wouldn’t see blue.

The tanker doors opened, and a roiling white cloud poured out. Suspended by velocity, the churning plume of water trailed the plane for a moment before descending, clean and clear, into the forest below.