The sirens grew louder. Smoke poured thick through the broken bedroom window upstairs, and flames began licking upward from the house. Tori heard her mother’s car door slam in the front yard. She began shouting for Tori and Kyle, her voice pitched high with panic. Kyle was already on his feet, running to meet her.

Tori turned to Nathaniel. Her breath caught at the sight of him. The scab on his cheek had opened. His face was smeared with blood, and he wavered, his shoulders heavy with fatigue. “You shouldn’t let anyone see you here,” she said, trying not to reveal the tremble in her voice. “Wait for me at the barn, okay?”

“Will you be all right?” he asked, wiping soot from her cheek.

“I’ll be fine.” She took his hand and squeezed. It was as hot as the fire. “I promise.”

Tori waited until Nathaniel disappeared into the woods before racing after her brother. She found her mother, clutching Kyle tightly to her and rocking on the blighted stretch of grass, tears rolling down her cheeks as she watched the fire spread to the roof. She opened her arms, and Tori fell into them, all of them holding on to the last of what they had.

“What happened?” she asked as the lights of the first fire truck became visible through the trees.

“I don’t know,” Tori said, still coughing from the smoke. “We were upstairs when it started.”

“We couldn’t get down. Nathaniel rescued us through the window in your bedroom.”

Tori cringed inside, wishing she’d had the forethought to tell Kyle not to mention that part. The fewer times Nathaniel’s name came up around catastrophic events involving the Slaughters, the better.

And Tori had no doubt the Slaughters were involved in this. Somehow.

Her mother reached for Tori’s hand. “Then I’m grateful Nathaniel was here,” she said with a gentle squeeze. “Where is he? We should make sure he’s okay.”

Just then, the fire trucks turned up the driveway. And the police. The lawn erupted in chaos, and not long after, the last charred vestiges of Tori’s house slumped, drenched and smoking.

“It’s an old house,” the fire marshal told them. “Old wiring. Not unusual for problems to develop, hidden behind the walls.” It was the same thing the police had said about the fire at Matilda’s. Tomorrow they’d come back when the house was cool, and open an investigation for the insurance company so Tori’s family could recover the loss and rebuild.

But Tori wasn’t reassured. How could they put a price on a cardboard box containing the last of her father’s things? How could they write a claim for the security that came with having a roof over their head? Sitting in the dead grass, watching their house smolder, Tori wasn’t sure it was possible to rebuild these things they’d lost. And when she looked at her mother’s and brother’s empty stares, she wasn’t sure there was anything left inside them to brace.

“Where will we go?” Kyle asked when the sun began to set, the last of the smoke blurring with the dusky colors of the evening sky. The question pinched her mother’s eyes. It was the same question he’d asked the day they got their eviction notice at the apartment, after their father died. And Tori regretted every time she’d told them they couldn’t understand what it was like to feel out of place. They were all out of place. They were all ungrounded, trying to find somewhere they belonged.

“I called the senior center,” her mother said, brushing Kyle’s bangs from his eyes and planting a kiss on his forehead. “A patient passed away this afternoon. That’s why I had to run back to town earlier. Anyway, I’ve asked the center if we can use the room tonight. They’re packing up her things and cleaning it for us now. It’ll be a little cozy, but the director said we can use it for a few days until we figure something out.”

Kyle whined. “We have to sleep in a dead person’s room? That’s creepy.”

“It’s a warm bed. And they’re very generous to let us use it.” Her mother tucked Kyle closer into her side.

Tori stood beside them, rubbing her arms against the cold. Close by, three police officers talked in low tones, and she moved a few steps toward them, trying to hear. She recognized one of them as the officer who had come to her house after Matilda’s fire and after they’d found Will. He pulled a notepad from his squad car, flipped pages backward, and showed it to the others. They all wrote something down in notepads of their own. Tori hoped it wasn’t Nathaniel’s name.

A pickup truck idled at the bottom of her driveway. The driver’s door hung open as Jesse took a few steps closer, his expression unreadable as he watched the smoke rise from what used to be his grandfather’s house. Tori locked eyes with Jesse across the lawn and he glared back. His mother said something to Jesse from the passenger seat and he got back in his truck, slamming the door hard enough to make Tori shudder. His wheels kicked up a cloud of dust as they peeled down Slaughter Road. The officers looked up, but hardly seemed surprised, and their heads dipped back to their hushed conversation.

Tori went to sit with her mother and Kyle, her stomach growing sick at the sight of the blighted grass that surrounded them, as if the curse were holding them in the palm of its hand. In her gut, she knew Alistair had started the fire in her house, the same as he’d burned Matilda’s. And yet, she couldn’t deny that Nathaniel had been right. The curse was coming for her. Closer to her house and the people she loved. She couldn’t help but wonder if it had pushed Alistair’s hand. If it had made him light the match. And she was grateful her family would have a place to stay where Alistair couldn’t touch them.

As sick as Nathaniel was, she couldn’t leave him alone here. It was all she could do to stand there waiting for everyone to leave. Tori took her mom’s phone and dialed Magda’s number.

“Mrs. Burns?” Magda shrieked on the other end of the line.

“It’s me.”

“Tori! Thank God!” she said before Tori could get in a word. “Drew called and told me. He just heard the news. Are you okay?”

“We’re fine. We’re all okay.”

“But the house…?”

“There’s not much left of it,” Tori said as a charred piece of what used to be her front porch crackled and fell. “That’s kind of why I called. Can I tell my mom I’m staying with you tonight?”

“I’ll have my mom make up the guest room for you. You can stay as long as…” Tori waited through a heavy pause. “You’re not really coming, are you?” Magda asked, catching on.

“Right,” Tori said with a quick look toward her mother. “Just for the night. My mom and my brother have a bed at the senior center, but it’s a little crammed for the three of us, and I’m sure she’d be more comfortable knowing I’m staying with you.”

“You’re going to be with Nathaniel, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Great, thanks, Magda,” Tori said quickly. “I really appreciate it and I won’t be any trouble at all. Promise. I’ll see you soon.” She disconnected and handed her mother the phone. “That’s Magda’s cell number in your call log. She said I can stay with her tonight. You can call Magda if you need anything.”

Her mom rose to her feet, pulling Kyle up with her. He leaned against her, his face filthy and his hair a mess, his eyelids growing heavy. “I’m going to get Kyle settled at the center. I don’t think there’s anything more we can do here. Will you be okay?” she asked, squeezing Tori’s hand.

Tori nodded. “Magda’s on her way to pick me up.”

Her mother hesitated.

“Go, I promise. I’ll be fine,” Tori insisted, blowing into her hands and bouncing on her heels to keep warm.

Her mother roused Kyle and directed him into the car, where he curled against the door and closed his eyes, his sooty forehead pressed against the glass as they drove away.