“Mister, I—” He sounded groggy, I guess from hitting the wall.
“Shut up,” I said, “and be glad I don’t shoot you.”
“But I—”
“I said shut up.” I tied him as tightly as I could. Then I dragged him over to the same side of the room as Laurie, so I could keep an eye on him while I tended to her.
“Laurie,” I said softly, and touched her face with my hand. She gave no response. She was out cold on some thing—I peeled back her eyelid, and saw a light blue eye floating, dilated, drugged out on who knew what.
“What the hell did you do to her? Where’s her mother and sister?” I bellowed.
“I don’t know—I mean, I don’t know where they are,” the kid said. “I didn’t do anything to her. But I can help her.”
“Sure you can,” I said. “You’ll excuse me if I go call an ambulance.”
“No, please, Mister, don’t do that!” the kid said. His voice sounded familiar. Amos Stoltzfus!
“She’ll die before she gets to the hospital,” he said. “But I have something here that can save her.”
“Like you saved your father?” I asked.
There were tears in the kid’s eyes. “I got there too late for my father. How did you know my—oh, I see, you’re the friend of Mo Buhler’s I was talking to this morning.”
I ignored him and started walking out of the room.
“Please. I care about Laurie too. We’re—we’ve been seeing each other—”
I turned around and picked him up off the floor. “Yeah? That’s so? And how do I know you didn’t somehow do this to her?”
“There’s a medicine in my pocket. It’s a tomato variant. Please—I’ll drink half of it down to show you it’s OK, then you give the rest to Laurie—we don’t have much time.”
I considered for a moment. I looked at Laurie. I guess I didn’t have anything to lose having the kid drink half of whatever he was talking about. “OK,” I said. “Which pocket?”
He gestured to his left front jeans.
I pulled out a small vial—likely contained only five to six ounces.
“You sure you want to do this?” I asked. I suddenly had a queasy feeling—I didn’t want to be the vehicle of some sick patricidal kid’s suicide.
“I don’t care whether you give it to me or not,” Amos said. “Just give some to Laurie already! Please!”
I have to make gut decisions all the time in my line of work. Only usually not about families I deeply care about. I thought for another second, and decided.
I bypassed his taking the sample, and went over to Laurie. I hated to give her any liquid when she was still unconscious—
“It’s absorbed on the back of the tongue,” Amos said. “It works quick.”
God, I hoped this kid was right—I’d kill him with my bare hands if this wasn’t right for Laurie. I put an ounce or two on her tongue. A few seconds went by. More. Maybe thirty seconds, forty… “Goddamnit, how exactly long does this—”
She moaned, as if on cue. “Laurie?” I asked, and patted her face.
“Mmm…” she opened her eyes. And smiled! “Phil?”
“Yeah, honey, everything’s OK,” I said.
“Laurie!” Amos called out from across the room.
Laurie got up. “Amos? What are you doing here? Why are you tied up like that?”
She looked at him and then me like we were both crazy.
“Long story, never mind,” I said, and went over to untie Amos. I found myself grinning at him. “Good for you; you were right, kid,” I said.
He smiled back.
“Where are your mom and Emma?” I asked.
“Oh,” Laurie suddenly looked sadder than I’d ever seen her. “They went over to the funeral home this morning, that’s where Dad is, to make arrangements. They took your car, Mom found the keys for it in your bag.” And she started crying.
Amos put his arms around her, comforting her.
“You have any idea what happened to you? I mean, after your Mom and sister left?” I asked gently.
“Well,” she said, “some nice lady was coming around selling stuff—you know, soaps, perfumes, and little household things—like Avon, but some company I never heard of. And she asked me if I wanted to smell some new perfume—and it smelled wonderful, like a combination of lilacs and the ocean, and then… I don’t know, I guess you were calling me, and I saw Amos tied up and… what happened? Did I pass out?”
“Well—” I started.
“Uhm, Mr., uh, Phil—” Amos interrupted.
“It’s Dr. D’Amato, but my friends call me Phil, and you’ve earned that right,” I said.
“OK, thanks, Dr. D’ Amato—sorry, I mean Phil—but I don’t think we should hang around here. These people—”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I’m saying I don’t like what the light looks like in this house. They killed my father, they tried to poison Laurie, who knows what they might have planted—”
“OK, I see your point,” I said, and saw again the Stoltzfus farm—Amos’s farm—ashes in the dirt.
I looked at Laurie. “I’m fine,” she said. “But why do we have to leave?”
“Let’s just go,” I said, and Amos and I ushered her out.
The first thing I noticed when we were out of the house was that Sarah and my car—Mo’s car—were gone.
The second thing I noticed was a scorching heat on the back of my neck. I rushed Laurie and Amos across the street, and turned back to look at the house.
Intense blue-white flames were sticking their searing tongues out of every window, licking the roof and the walls and now the garden with colors I’d never seen before.
Laurie cried out in horror. Amos held her close. “Fireflies,” he muttered.
The house burned to the ground in minutes.
We stood mute, in hot/cold shivering shock, for what felt like a long, long time.
I finally realized I was breathing hard. I thought about allergic reactions. I thought about Sarah.
“They must’ve taken Sarah,” I said.
“Sarah?” Amos asked, holding Laurie tight in a clearly loving way. She was sobbing.
“Sarah Fischer,” I said.
Laurie and Amos both nodded.
“She was a friend of my father’s,” Laurie said.
“She’s my sister,” Amos said.
“What?” I turned to Amos. Laurie pulled away and looked at him too. He had a peculiar, almost tortured sneer on his face, mixture of hatred and heartbreak.
“She left our home more than ten years ago,” Amos said. “I was still just a little boy. She said she could no longer be bound by the ways of our Ordnung—she said it was like agreeing to be mentally retarded for the rest of your life. So she left to go to some school. And I think she’s been working with those people—those people who killed my father and burned Laurie’s house.”
I suddenly tasted the grapes in my mouth from last night, sweet taste with choking smoke, and I felt sick to my stomach. I swallowed, took a deliberate deep breath.
“Look,” I said. “I’m still not clear what’s really going on here. I find Laurie unconscious—you, someone, could’ve put a drug in her orange juice for all I know. The house just burned down—could’ve been arson with rags and lighter fluid, just like we have back in New York City.” Though I knew I’d never seen a fire quite like that.
Laurie stared at me like I was nuts.
“They were fireflies, Mr. D’A—Phil,” Amos said. “Fireflies caused the fire.”
“How could they do that so quickly?”
“They can be bred that way,” Amos said. “So that an hour or a day or week after they start flying around, they suddenly heat up to cause the fire. It’s what you scientists,” he said with ill-concealed derision, “call setting a genetical switch. Mendelian lamps set to go off like clockwork and burn—Mendel bombs.”