Fire Raiser Read Online Free PDF Page A

banister were all that remained of the original dwelling. The three bedrooms upstairs were transformed into one large and one small, with a bath between. Nothing was kept of the other furnishings, which, after more than sixty years of neglect, consisted mostly of wormholes or rust, and sometimes both.
    It became a tidy, creak-free, comfortable little home, finished three weeks after the twins were born, and as familiar to them as their own sprawling house two hundred yards up the gravel drive that meandered among oddly spaced apple, pear, peach, and apricot trees—stubborn leftovers from attempts by various generations to establish orchards. For all the magic in their blood and bones, assiduously applied, farming on more than a for-the-table basis had never paid off for the Flynns. It had taken an infusion of McClures to pay off the last of the mortgages, and this had left Lulah free to pursue horse breeding as a profitable occupation.
    She spent a lot of time baby-sitting, too. Before she even moved into the redone cottage, two days of intricate, esoteric magic had made both houses childproof. Or so they had all thought. About half an hour after Bella learned to walk, she figured out how to circumvent the baby gates. Every one installed in both houses had to be spelled so she couldn’t do it again and it took Lulah a week to get it right; baby gates were not of her generational experience. When Kirby outfoxed her by scaling instead of unlatching them, their doting aunt was compelled to contribute thirty bucks to their scholarship fund—and respell the gates yet again.
    As Evan got out of the SUV, boots crunching on the drive, he heard Holly cussing him and the gravel and the Fuck Me shoes—but under her breath, mindful of her bank balance, because from within the house came two ecstatic little voices: “Mommy!”
    The Progeny pelted from the house, alarmingly coordinated and wickedly swift for being only twenty-seven months old, wearing denim pants and t-shirts given by their adored Uncle Elias. Kirby’s shirt was green, Bella’s was yellow, and each bore the words Warning: I Am Two .
    His Honor believed in truth in advertising.
    “Mommy!”
    “Munchkins!”
    Steps negotiated at a breakneck pace, Bella and Kirby raced for Holly, four little hands covered in chocolate reaching for her skirt. Lachlan fell in love with her all over again when, instead of leaping back and warning them off, she laughed and crouched down to seize the twins in her arms.
    “Chocolate fingers!” she exclaimed. “My favorite!”
    By the time they noticed their father, and were duly tickled and kissed, the mess had pretty much been transferred from them to Holly’s clothing. But why scold them? The kids were washable; the dress was washable; she was washable; what was the point?
    It was a measure of Evan’s adjustment to the ambiance of his Virginia home that he didn’t jump two feet in the air and draw his Glock when he heard a miniature roar, and then another, and then a high-pitched shriek from inside the house. Lulah was indulging herself again.
    All the plants were gathered into a jungle in the parlor. Across a hundred-year-old Moroccan carpet, through cacti and succulents, herbs, flowers, and the two potted palms from the dining room, prowled a throng of dinosaurs. Lulah McClure, past sixty and still as supple as a teenager, sat cross-legged on the floor, flicking a finger here and there to direct a splinter of magic to this or that plastic rendition of an extinct creature, seeming not to notice that her playmates had abandoned her. Evan ducked instinctively as a winged whatsis swooped up to perch on a curtain rod, and heard a frustrated roar from the t. rex near Lulah’s right knee. She used a careful finger to coax a lumbering herd of long-necked herbivores toward a pot labeled catnip —while Brigand, the plant’s rightful beneficiary, watched from an armchair and yawned. The cat had played this game before, and knew from