Tori had spent the rest of Saturday in her room trying to study, but her thoughts kept coming back to Alistair’s angry red face. How he’d looked at her as if this had all been her fault. It hadn’t been her decision to come here and move into Alistair’s father’s house. And she certainly didn’t have anything to do with the fire. If anything, the fire seemed more like an accident. The police officer even said as much. That it had started in Matilda’s house, and it was the wind that had carried the flames toward Alistair’s fields. So why was Alistair so quick to point fingers? Why was he so desperate for someone to blame?

Unless it hadn’t been an accident at all.

Al Senior gave me this house! And I ain’t leaving….

Tori laid her pencil down and pushed aside her textbook, Matilda’s words echoing in her brain. What if Alistair had set the fire? But what reason would he have? Matilda was already gone. His family had already made sure of that. Unless it was only to make sure she never came back.

Tori thought about the tractor in the cemetery and the busted padlock on the shed. She thought about Alistair’s boot bracing open her front door and the broken window in her mother’s room. Her stomach turned and her pulse became quick. She could imagine it all so clearly in her mind: Alistair sneaking into Matilda’s house and lighting a match.

When it all became too much, Tori ran to the bathroom with the knife she’d hidden behind her dresser tucked inside her sleeve. After a few minutes, when her racing heart had finally quieted, she leaned against the bathroom door, applying pressure to stop the bleeding of a fresh cut and carefully inspecting the wound. She listened for signs of her brother snooping, but it was quiet until her mother slammed the front door and shouted up the stairs that dinner was getting cold.

At the table, she dared a cautious glance at her brother, but he didn’t look back, and they ate their french fries one by one, as if they were both hoping to put off the inevitable.

Her mother was a whirlwind of frizzy curls and tension as she wet a washcloth and threw it in the dryer with one of her brother’s school shirts to coax the wrinkles out. “Hurry up and finish eating. We’re going to be late. And put on something a little more presentable. You can’t wear sweatpants to a vigil,” she said, pulling a broccoli casserole from the oven for Will’s mother. It smelled too strongly of curry, and Tori was grateful she wouldn’t have to be the one to eat it. She dragged the last of her fries through the pool of ketchup on her plate, put her dish in the sink, and headed to her room to get ready, dreading the night ahead of her. Jesse would be there. Alistair would be there. And everyone in town was probably gossiping about the fire.

The texts had started coming to Tori’s phone around noon. First Magda. And then Drew. People already exaggerating the facts, making it sound like more than just a shift in the wind that spared her land and not Alistair’s, as if Alistair had been the only victim. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone that the fire had started in Matilda’s house or that Matilda’s home had been destroyed. Everybody was too busy spreading rumors about who might have wanted to hurt Alistair’s family and why. And Tori seemed to be at the center of every conversation, everyone curious about the strange boy who’d been hanging around with the transplant on Slaughter Farm.

Tori shook off those thoughts and stood in front of the mirror. She turned sideways a little, looking down at her scars and her hair and her chest, hating herself for caring about Bobby Coode’s opinion. She pulled on her tights and her skirt and tugged her school sweater over her head, careful to avoid catching the fabric on her bandages, determined not to care what anyone thought of her.

“Tori! We’re late!” her mother called up the stairs.

By the time she tromped down, Mom and Kyle were already waiting in the car. Tori knew Alistair would be at the vigil, but she locked up behind her anyway. Though she was pretty sure it would take more than a lock to keep him out.

Tori had been to the Slaughters’ house once before, the day they’d picked up their keys, but they’d never been invited inside. Her mother pulled into the long driveway. Last time she’d seen the lawn, it had been freshly mowed in diamond-shaped patterns, as lush and green as a photo in a home-and-garden magazine. As they rolled up the hill, Tori couldn’t look away from a long brown swath of yard stretching up from the road, becoming a sickly yellow finger of dying grass. It looked like it was pointing up the hill and it made Tori shiver as they rolled past it, toward the familiar emerald lawn surrounding Jesse’s house.

Tori shut the car door and stared up at the front porch. It was a farmhouse, like hers, but not like hers at all. It stood taller, wider, and newer…more stately. There were fluted columns and ornate carvings around the front door, and cool, crisp white siding and flower beds bursting with brightly colored marigolds. The smell of fresh mulch nearly choked her as she climbed the porch steps behind her mother. They didn’t creak under her feet. And something about that felt off somehow. Like the house was waiting, silently watching them. Or like it was ignoring them altogether.

Dorothy Slaughter greeted them at the door, clearly surprised.

“I hope it’s okay that we’re here,” Tori’s mother said. “Jesse asked us to stop by.”

“Of course he did,” she said with a tight smile. Her eyes traveled up and down Tori’s school uniform. Then her brother’s. She took the casserole from Tori’s mother and tried to disguise a grimace. “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I’ll set it with the others.”

They followed Dorothy inside. Her hair was tied back in a tight, neat bun. The few strands left loose seemed intentional, carefully curled so they waved gently around her face. She wore a silky blouse, a knee-length skirt pressed crisp, smooth stockings free of pills or snags, and dress shoes that shone with polish. Everything about her—her clothes, her home, her kitchen—was uncomfortably perfect. Family photos in ornate frames and antique-looking collectibles in glass cabinets were all neatly displayed. No clutter, no piles of loose odds and ends, nothing out of place. Tori and her brother walked stiffly, their hands close to their sides, afraid to touch or break anything.

“You have a lovely home, Dorothy,” Tori’s mother said in a small voice.

“Please, call me Dot.” Dorothy set the casserole down amid a countertop already full of them. “We don’t see much of you around here.” Her words were honed with a judgmental edge.

“Oh, I put a lot of hours in at the senior center. I teach painting there.”

“How lovely.” Dorothy’s smile mirrored Tori’s mother’s. It was almost blinding, how polite they were all pretending to be. “You know Jesse, my oldest,” Dorothy said, pointing across a family room packed with neighbors and friends. Tori spotted Jesse’s bright blue eyes and Bobby Coode’s orange hair in the middle of it. “He and his cousins volunteer once a month at the senior center too.”

“That’s wonderful. I’m at the center almost every day, but I guess I haven’t bumped into him there yet.”

Mrs. Slaughter’s smile pressed into a thin line and she snapped open a dish towel. “We were going to use the equity from his granddaddy’s house to pay for his college tuition. Since you all arrived, he’s had to spend a lot more time on his studies and sports to try to earn some scholarships. I suppose in some ways, we all bear each other’s burdens, don’t we?” She wiped her hands of Tori’s mother’s casserole and set her towel on the counter. “If you’ll excuse me, I have family to greet. I’m sure you’ll make yourself at home.” She drew out the last bit as if it burned her to say it. Then she put her warm smile back in place and disappeared into the crowd of Slaughter-like faces. As she passed, a tall, silvering man in an expensive-looking black suit rested a sympathetic hand on her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. It was Magda’s father. He was talking to Jack Slaughter. Tori recognized him from all the election signs. Mr. Schiller spotted Tori across the sea of dark suits and church dresses. Tori gave a small wave, but he excused himself from Jack’s side to take a call on his cell phone, pretending not to see her. The french fries Tori ate an hour ago hardened in the pit of her stomach. She looked the other way, only to find Jesse talking solemnly to a group of his cousin-friends, and she turned her back to the room, hoping none of them had noticed her.

Tori’s mother took a deep breath, steeling herself before stepping toward the family room. “I’m going to pay my respects. Then we can go,” she whispered. Tori and Kyle waited, grateful she didn’t ask them to follow. For a moment, they stood awkwardly with their hands folded, trying to blend in without actually mixing with anyone. Tori listened, overhearing bits and pieces of conversations. There were no new leads in the search for Will. Cousin Maddie’s basement had flooded that morning. Uncle Ray got bad news from the oncologist—he was no longer in remission. Little Jimmy was messing around in the yard, lighting aerosol cans on fire, and accidentally blinded the family dog. And just yesterday, Aunt Donna had caught her husband in bed with someone they went to church with…Tori couldn’t hear who. There was plenty of talk of the fire, and the blight that had encroached into Alistair’s fields. But no one seemed to care about Matilda’s house at all.

After a few minutes, Kyle found a seat in the empty parlor by the front door and sat alone with his chin in his hands. Tori dropped stiffly into the chair beside him, feeling sick.

“Pretty depressing, huh?” Tori said, nudging him with her elbow.

Kyle got up and walked through the kitchen, where a line had formed around the casserole dishes, right out the back door.

Tori squeezed her bandage through her sweater until her cut began to throb. She listened to the slow tick of the grandfather clock against the far wall and the hushed conversation on the other side of it.

“What are those people doing here?”

“Dorothy says Jesse invited them.” Alistair.

“I don’t like it. They’ve got no business being here.”

“I can’t do nothin’ ’bout it now, Jack. Not without raising a stink.”

“You’d better get your boy in line. And make damn sure he stays on the right side of it.”

She couldn’t listen anymore. Tori got up and went to the kitchen, catching sight of her brother through the window over the sink. He was standing in front of the kennels in the yard. Four beagles—the dogs she’d always heard barking at night—jumped and howled, with their paws on the fence. He rested his palms against the chain-link, talking sweetly to them, hoping one of them would lick his hand. But they only howled louder, jumping higher. Tori went out to the yard and hollered for him to stop, but he couldn’t hear her over the din.

“Don’t worry about him,” a smoke-husky voice said. “They’re louder ’an hell, but they won’t bother him. They’re just not used to the attention.” A woman close to her mother’s age sat alone at a picnic table in the backyard, smoking a cigarette and tapping her ash into an empty cup.

“Why not? Are they in those cages all the time?”

“Not all the time. They’re hunting dogs. Can’t spoil ’em like house pets, or they won’t hunt right.” She switched her cigarette to her other hand and reached out to Tori. “I’m Francine. Don’t believe we’ve met.”

Francine. The name felt familiar, but Tori couldn’t quite place where she’d heard it.

“I’m Tori Burns,” she said, hesitating before taking Francine’s hand. Tori waited for the look of recognition. For the usual cold stare she got from most of the Slaughters. But Francine didn’t seem to register the name. Or maybe she didn’t care. Her red-rimmed eyes looked swollen and tired. There was a disconsolate glassiness to them, a subtle slurred edge to her words that made Tori wonder what had been in the cup before she’d drunk it. And then she recalled Jesse’s conversation with Bobby in the library. His Aunt Francine was Will’s mother. Suddenly it made sense why she was sitting out here alone.

Tori recognized the plate of picked-over casserole in front of Francine. “You might not want to eat that,” Tori told her. “My mom’s not exactly the best cook.”

Francine laughed halfheartedly, pushing it away. “I thought maybe it was just me. Nothing seems to taste right lately.”

Tori looked at her feet, not really knowing exactly what to say. She knew what not to say—what everyone always said at things like vigils and funerals. Things like “I’m sorry”—vague apologies and awkward condolences that never came out right, somehow managing to do more harm than good. So Tori kept quiet. Her brother had given up on the dogs and wandered around the house toward the driveway wearing a long face, probably to wait for their mother in the car. Tori should have gone too, but it felt wrong to leave. She knew, because that was the other awful thing everyone always did after something horrible happened. They’d descend on your life out of nowhere with terrible food, say something stupid, and then they’d leave. And you’d be left to wash a million casserole dishes alone.

After a moment, the dogs started to settle. The sun was nearly gone and the dusky evening air was cold and humid, the first few stars twinkling through the clouds overhead. Francine rose slowly to her feet, steadying herself on the edge of the table. “I guess I’d better go inside with the others. It was nice meeting you, Tori,” she said. And then the only Slaughter Tori had ever felt any connection with was gone.

Tori took the picked-over plate Francine had left behind and carried it to the kennel, past the soft glow of the porch lights, and used the fork to scoop the rest of her mother’s casserole through the fence. The dogs fell quiet, ignoring Tori as they licked every drop from the kennel floor.

“You can’t feed them that.” Tori turned sharply as Jesse Slaughter reached around her, snatching the paper plate from her hands. “They’re on strict diets.” The dogs started barking again, lunging and pushing on the fence.

“So I’ve been told.”

Tori and Jesse stood there, staring awkwardly at each other in the almost-dark. He wore creased black slacks and a French blue shirt that was probably the same color as his eyes, and Tori wondered if his mother had picked it out. The top button was loose at his throat, along with the knot of his silk tie, like he was ready for the night to be over. Tori couldn’t get the conversation with his mother out of her head. That house…her house…was supposed to be his future. And now, for reasons neither of them understood, suddenly it had become hers.

“What are you doing here?” Jesse asked, startling Tori from her thoughts. It took her a minute to realize he was mocking her after their conversation a few days ago, when he’d been standing in her yard and she’d asked him the same question.

“Sorry,” Tori said, cracking a smile in spite of herself. “My mom. She thought we should come. But I don’t think it was a good idea.”

“Why not?”

She could think of a million reasons. “That casserole is dangerous,” Tori said, pointing to the empty plate. “You probably shouldn’t eat it.”

“And why’s that?” He sniffed the mayonnaise and curry smudges left on the plate, his lip curling higher.

“Because my mom made it. And she’s a pretty lousy cook.”

Jesse laughed. And then everything felt even more awkward than it had before.

“I should go,” Tori said, backing away from him. “I’ll see you in school tomorrow. And for what it’s worth, I really am sorry about everything that’s happened….You know, the fire. And Will.”

Something shifted in Jesse’s expression, and his warm smile cooled. He didn’t answer, but she felt his eyes on her back all the way to the driveway. And suddenly, she felt like everybody else inside that house, descending on his life and saying all the wrong things.