We had no choice but to pass by the museum on the way home. There was only one, two-lane road that ran the whole length of the Outer Banks. It connected the hospital in Kill Devil Hills to our home in Duck.
“It’s a wreck,” Gramps warned before he got there. “I’m sure you can imagine what it’s like.”
I couldn’t really. Everything had happened so quickly. It was like one minute I was looking at the museum and the next I was in the road. Even the trip to the hospital seemed surreal.
As we came around the curve in Duck Road, the sight was even worse than anything I could have imagined. It looked like a scene from some TV-news war coverage. The area where the blue museum had once stood was now flattened, filled with ash, parts of the building and other debris. The whole corner was gone; an old picnic table was the only structure still standing.
“Stop the car, Gramps!” I had to see it. I wanted to look at it up close. “Please, Gramps. If you take me home now, I’ll be back up here in five minutes.”
“You can see the fire chief and the county arson investigator are here with their people,” Gramps said. “Maybe later might be a better time, Dae. The doctor said you should go right home and get in bed anyway. Leave it for tomorrow, honey. It will still be here.”
Those might’ve been my thoughts yesterday before the museum blew up. Everything in Duck stayed the same, didn’t it? Nothing ever changed that drastically. Only now we knew that wasn’t true.
“Please, Gramps.” I saw Cailey Fargo, my fifth-grade schoolteacher who was now Duck’s fire chief. I also saw some of the volunteer firefighters raking through the debris. “We can go home after we stop for a minute. It won’t take that long.”
“Okay. All right.” He gave in and turned the car into an open space across the street. “But only for a minute. I know how you are, Dae, but this isn’t the time to snoop around. Leave it to the experts.”
There was nowhere close to the museum that wasn’t covered with tarps and crime scene tape. We had to wait for traffic to pass before we could cross Duck Road. I stared at everything that was left, wishing I was brave enough to pick all of it up and find out what it had to say to me. Maybe this newfound ability would tell me what had happened without the months of investigation that I knew would come.
I winced as we crossed the road and I saw all of the black skid marks, shattered glass and pieces of someone’s bumper. I realized that most of the accidents these parts represented were caused by my abrupt appearance in the middle of the road.
Kevin looked up at me as we reached the scene. He’d saved my life yesterday. I didn’t know what I was going to say to him. Everything seemed unreal right now. My heart was pounding in my chest, and it was all I could do not to break down and cry like a baby. Maybe Gramps had been right about going home first.
Kevin stopped what he was doing and came across the debris field like a man on a mission. His eyes were intent on mine in a way that would’ve made me happy a few days ago. It made me cringe now.
“Dae!” He put out his arms as we got a few yards from each other. I knew he meant to hug me. There was a warm, expectant smile on his handsome face.
I took a step back and put my hands in the pockets of my familiar green skirt. “Kevin.” I smiled back but looked away from his puzzled expression.
He glanced at Gramps. “Should she be here?”
Gramps shrugged. “Try to keep her from it. I wasn’t any good at it.”
“I’m fine,” I assured them both. “You don’t have to talk about me like I’m a child.”
“She wanted to see it,” Gramps continued.
“Maybe she should’ve waited.” They both turned their heads to stare at me.
“Hey! I’m right here!” A little anger made me feel better as I reminded them both of my obvious presence. “Yes. I wanted to see it. I don’t think that’s so unusual, do you?”
Both men backed off.
“Do they know what caused the explosion yet? Or if it really was an explosion?” I tried to sound like the mayor of Duck who was interested because it happened in my town. It was that too, of course, but so much more. I focused on a piece of the yellow duck statue that had stood outside the museum for as long as I could remember. It helped me keep myself from falling on the ground and blubbering like Gramps and Kevin obviously expected me to.
“Why don’t we go say hey to Cailey and that young arson investigator over there,” Gramps suggested. “Dae’s minute is almost up and we still don’t know more than when we stopped.”
At last, someone was taking me seriously.
“You’ll have to put shoe covers on to walk across the debris field,” Kevin said. “You don’t want to contaminate the crime scene.”
He went to what looked like a command center set up near the old picnic table and brought back green cloth booties for us to wear, along with gloves. Gramps started putting his booties on over his worn tennis shoes.
I bent over to pick up one of the green booties, but the exertion caused immediate jackhammering in my head. I couldn’t bend my sore knee to put them on that way. I tried to shove my foot into the covering without using my hands, but it was useless.
“Let me help you.” Kevin crouched down in front of me. “Headache, huh? Head injuries will do that.”
“I don’t have a concussion, if that’s what you mean.” I lifted my foot anyway. I couldn’t do it by myself, and I wanted to talk to Cailey about what happened.
The first foot went fine, but I lifted the other foot too high and almost lost my balance. I reached out and grasped Kevin’s shoulder.
The touch raced through my brain, showing me all aspects of creating the blue T-shirt he wore. My hand jerked back as though he were on fire. It was what I’d feared when he’d wanted to hug me. It wasn’t the history of the shirt that bothered me. I was scared of what I’d see if I touched another person.
“Dae?”
I opened my eyes to see Kevin’s concerned expression. “Sorry.”
“Are you sure you’re up to this? Maybe you should let everyone report to you. Isn’t that what mayors do?”
“Maybe. But I want to know what they know now, not next week.”
Gramps had already started walking toward Cailey and the new arson investigator. Kevin put out his arm. “At least let me walk with you.”
It struck me that the terrible green gloves he’d given me might be useful in this exchange. I didn’t want to take a chance on seeing anything else by touching him. I put on the gloves and went through their manufacture and shipping process. It was kind of drab and unexciting except for a dead mouse someone had found in the box of gloves before it was sealed.
When it was over, I put my hand on Kevin’s arm with all the insecurity of someone grasping a hot poker. But there was nothing. I tightened my hold on him. Still nothing. This was good. I could manage this way.
“Look, I’m taking you home right now.” His voice sounded tough, the way I imagined he might’ve sounded when he’d worked for the FBI before coming to Duck. “You’re not all right. If you fall over out here and we have to take you back to the hospital, what will that prove?”
I smiled my big, bright mayor’s smile at him. It’s the one I had practiced to use when I took office. “It’s okay now, Kevin. Really. I had a bad minute there, but I’m fine now.”
He stared me down, but I didn’t blink. It really was better . . . with the gloves on. Maybe this would give me a chance to get over this new ability or at least learn not to let it take over my life.
“Okay,” he said, giving in. “But if you look at me again like that, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
I caught my breath. “Like what?”
“Like there’s nothing in your eyes. I’ve only seen that kind of blankness once. That person had lost her mind.”