Instructions for the End of the World (19 page)

So I grab the rifle from under my bed and I go to Izzy's room. She's already awake, just getting out of bed.

“What's going on?” she asks.

“The guys from Sadhana are out front. Something about evacuating for the fires.”

“Kiva?” she asks.

I look at her and nod. “I'll tell them to leave. We can take care of ourselves.”

“No!” she says. “Don't go down there. Please. Let's just stay here and wait for them to leave.”

I try to think what the safest thing to do would be, but I can't. My dad's plan for fire has always been a well-stocked camper that we all get in and drive away. But he's not here, and neither is the camper. And I keep thinking,
No way could the fire cross the river.
That just makes no sense.

I peer through Izzy's curtains, careful not to show myself. Not answering the door is definitely the easier option. We have a fire escape ladder for her window, if for some reason they decided to … I don't know … break the door down? I can't imagine Wolf doing that, but if he thinks we're asleep during an evacuation, I don't know what he might do.

He stops pounding on the door and goes to the side of the house where we are now, looking up just as I duck out of the way. Then he starts yelling up at us. “Nicole! Izzy! Wake up!”

I hear what must be a small rock strike the house near the window. Then another. And then a third strikes the antique glass and comes through, landing near my feet.

Izzy looks at me with wide eyes, all her usual ironic attitude nowhere to be seen. She is sitting on the bed with her knees pulled to her chest, looking like a little girl.

Wolf and someone else—Pauly, I think—are calling for us outside still. Then there is some discussion between the two of them, Pauly wanting to leave and Wolf insisting they have to find us. Pauly points out that we may already be gone, and this silences Wolf.

After a while I hear someone try the back door, then bang on it hard. I'm doubly relieved one of the first things Dad did when we moved in was to install extra deadbolts on both of the doors and remind us to use them religiously. And I do. But a minute or two passes, and then I hear glass breaking, and my heart leaps in my chest as Izzy, still sitting on her bed, emits a whimper. I think of the utility room window, its proximity to the rear porch railing, how easy it would be to break the glass, unlatch it, and climb through.

I know in an instant this is what Wolf is doing, and with every fiber of my being I feel invaded.

“Nicole, you can't let them come in here!”

I look at Izzy, and her face is as pale as it was the day she came home from being with Kiva. She is a frightened kid, depending on me to keep her safe.

I know the rifle is loaded, and I cock it, causing a bullet to descend into the barrel.

“Don't worry,” I say. “I won't.” And I go down the stairs.

“Don't come in!” I call out as I near the bottom step, and just to make sure they know I'm serious, I fire a warning shot into the wall that faces the staircase.

The rifle blast is deafening in the small space, and the force of the shot slams the gun into my shoulder, but I barely feel it as I watch a cloud of dust from the lath and plaster wall settle below the large hole I've just blasted into it. I hear Wolf cursing from inside the house, and someone yells for him outside the house.

I lean against the stairwell wall, unable to face him if he is still downstairs. My hands shake, because this is the first time I've ever fired a gun to scare someone, and it feels more wrong than I thought it would.

It's only when I hear the van start up and drive away that I think to go to the back of the house to see how close the fires to the north look. From my parents' bedroom window, I see a black sky, a wall of smoke, so close the fire could be on our property. So close I don't know if we can even get out fast enough to escape it.

WOLF

It feels wrong to leave Nicole in that house, but I've never been shot at before, and I don't even know what to think of someone who could aim a gun like that, and fire it, knowing a human being could be hurt or even killed. I don't know what she was thinking, or why she did it, but I got the message that she wanted me out.

It makes no sense, but then, little about her life does. I try to imagine how her warmth could shift to coldness, even violence, so quickly, and all I can think is that she regretted letting her guard down with me in the tree house. Regretted it in a big, big way apparently.

As we drive out to the main road I dial the fire department on Pauly's cell phone and give them Nicole's address, letting them know that two people in the house need to be evacuated.

ISABEL

I guess I never thought much about the advantages of having a sister who's a gun nut. I mean, when I saw those guys get back in the van and pull away, I was so relieved I started crying like a freaking baby.

Then Nic came back into my room and told me we had to leave, and I was sure she'd lost her mind, until I saw the wall of black smoke above the hillside.

We gather what little we can in backpacks and run down the gravel driveway, the air heavy with smoke and ash, causing us to cough. My lungs and eyes burn. We've made it maybe halfway to the main road when we hear a fire truck's siren getting closer and closer, and then a red pickup truck with some kind of fire department logo on the side is upon us and we're being swept into it by strong hands.

As we bounce along in the truck on the main road, headed away from the fire, the last person I expect to see is our dad heading in the opposite direction—toward the house, in his truck. Nicole sees him at the same moment I do.

“That's our dad!” she calls out. “You have to stop him!”

NICOLE

I watch through the truck window as my father is arrested for refusing to cooperate with the evacuation. His face, sunburned from wherever he has been, is also red from anger as he argues with the arresting officer who arrived on the scene soon after the fire truck we are riding in caught his attention and stopped him. He doesn't even seem to realize we are in the backseats of the truck, and I have no real desire to come face-to-face with him right now.

Aside from the fact that he will be humiliated at us seeing him in handcuffs, I'm filled with rage over everything, but especially that he left us to contend with so many things alone. Not the least of which is the fire that might be destroying everything we own, any minute now.

I feel some heat and pressure on my hand, and I look down to see Izzy's hand wrapped around mine. I don't know how long it's been like that, and I don't pull away, because I can't remember the last time she touched me voluntarily.

The police officer escorts my dad into the back of his car, then slams the door, and a moment later they are pulling away. It's only at the moment they are passing us that my dad's gaze finally meets mine through the police car window.

*   *   *

We find out the next day, after sleeping on a cot in an elementary school multipurpose room that had been set up as an evacuation center, that the fire didn't destroy our house. Firefighters were able to hold it off near the river and contain it, but we still won't be allowed to return to our property until the fire is fully under control. Our dad is released from jail after being held overnight, and he moves us to a motel room an hour away—the closest place he can find a room, he says, with so many people evacuated.

We don't bother to act happy to see him.

He doesn't bother to pretend he found Mom.

He is sunburned and silent, his shoulders slumped in a way I've never seen before.

“You've been watching the fire?” he asks me. I'm sitting at the foot of the bed I have to share with Izzy, staring at the TV news. Izzy is outside bonding with her cell phone, overjoyed to have a signal, finally.

“Yeah, well, listening on the radio for evacuation alerts.”

It strikes me as ridiculous then that the one natural disaster we can't hunker down at home and stockpile for or protect ourselves against is fire. And that's the only natural disaster that might affect us anytime soon, far as I can tell. I wonder if Dad has thought of that, too.

“I saw the fires on the news and came back to make sure you two were safe.”

“Where did you go?” I ask, not so much caring about his answer as needing to ask the question.

“I went down South. I didn't find your mother.”

“She wrote us a letter that said she's filing for divorce.”

He gave me a sharp look. “What?”

I shrug. “Is it true? About you having an affair with one of your junior officers?”

“No, and that's none of your damn business.” He slams a hand onto the top of a nearby dresser and heads for the door.

I follow, because I know he's lying. I don't know how I know, but I do.

I just don't believe in him anymore.

“I know Mom never wanted to have kids, too. Is that why you cheated on her? For revenge, because she didn't want to keep churning out babies for you?”

Izzy opens the motel room door just then and hovers there in the light.

He turns on me, all six foot two inches of him, and his palm strikes my cheek before I even see it coming. The force of it knocks my head sideways. I stagger and then regain my footing, staring at him without flinching. I remember the opposite scene playing out between Mom and Dad, and I almost laugh that we have somehow become the family that slaps each other.

I dare him with my stinging eyes to do it again. Izzy looks nervously from me to him and back again.

My cheek is on fire, probably bright red with the imprint of his hand.

“She was right to leave you,” I say, even if I don't totally believe it.

I just want to hurt him, or see if I can. I think he's going to hit me again, but instead he turns and walks into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

When I look over for Izzy, she's not in the doorway anymore. She's not anywhere to be seen.

LAUREL

Everyone is able to return to the village four days after the evacuation. The winds have shifted and the Oasis Ridge fire, the one closest to us, is considered totally contained. I try to imagine where I would go if the village burned down, but I can't. I know for sure now that I don't want to find my parents, and I don't feel ready to be on my own.

When I see Annika struggling to carry a large box across the courtyard, I call after her and run to catch up.

“Need some help with that?” I ask.

“Could you just get the door to the general store for me?” she asks, and I hurry ahead to open it for her.

“Mailing someone a present?”

“Actually I'm mailing some of my things to Berlin,” she says as she eases past me into the store.

I want to ask why, but she is busy talking to the store clerk now, asking for a customs form. I wait while she fills it out and completes the mailing, and then I follow her back outside.

“I've been meaning to talk to you,” she says when we are alone again.

My stupid heart leaps a little. “Oh?”

“I'm thinking that maybe the fire coming so close was a sign, you know? It's like my addiction. If I'm not careful, I'll destroy everything.”

“But you are being careful, right? You're sober.”

She slips one arm around my waist, pulling me along beside her as she walks. “I'm sober, barely. It's just hard here, you know? So many temptations, old habits, old friends. I don't know if I can keep it up, and I've been praying about what to do.”

The praying again.

“Okay?”

“I think the fire was God's answer to my prayers. I think he's telling me I should go, if I want to save myself.”

“Go where?”

“Anywhere, but I've always wanted to live in Berlin, so I will go there, I think.”

I don't know what to say to this. I'm stunned. I can't imagine Sadhana permanently without Annika. It's like the sky being permanently without the sun. It would make no sense.

“But—”

“I wanted to tell you first,” she says, “Because I am afraid of how Wolf will take the news. He's going to need the support of his friends.”

“Yeah,” I say, not really listening, because I'm thinking,
But what about me?

“Have you thought of taking him with you?” I ask, when really what I wanted to say was that I want to go with her.

“I'm going to offer that, yes,” she says. “I just don't think he will like that idea.”

“He might,” I say halfheartedly.

“I've talked to Helene about all of this, and I know she thinks I ought to stay here at least until Wolf graduates, but I just don't know if I can.”

“Helene knows what she's talking about,” I say. “Maybe you should listen to her.”

She stops walking and turns to give me a hug. “You're very dear to me, you know. Like a daughter.”

I melt into the hug, tears burning my eyes. I want to say so many things. I want to cling to her and tell her she is the world to me, but instead I just close my eyes and inhale her scent, which is a mix of lavender and beeswax soap.

“I'll go with you if he doesn't,” I finally say.

“But what about your plans?” she says. “I want you to make some, you know.”

And I listen as she offers me real, momlike advice.

I go back to my room, relieved that no roommates are there, and lie on my bed, too shocked to cry, too sad to move. I think about Annika leaving, and her advice, and I feel a strange sense that I will do exactly what she's told me to do. I don't know how long I've been lying there when I hear a knock at the door, and I open it to find Isabel.

She wants to know if I can give her a ride into town. I don't ask why. I have already decided I am going there to register for classes at the junior college in the fall, and I hate the thought of going alone for this particularly depressing task. I keep thinking some better chance will come along, but for now I will do what Annika has told me to do. Sign up for college, plan for the future, be practical. It's the last advice I expected to get from her.