Finally, Emily’s adrenaline kicked in, and she hurried inside to fetch the second extinguisher while Nina ran for the hose.

Between them, they managed to put out the worst of the fire before Yves hurtled through the gates in his white utility truck. Still, he attacked the remains with a vigor that bordered on comic; he seemed to leap from his car before it even came to a stop and came tearing toward them carrying a huge gray blanket and an extinguisher of his own. “Bouge! Bouge toi!” he yelled, throwing the blanket over the burning mess. Then he stalked around with his extinguisher, snarling as he sprayed the foam.

Afterward, they all stood around the charred, soapy mess, their skin shiny with sweat, extinguishers hanging at their sides like guns.

“Who needs the fire brigade?” Emily grinned proudly. “We are the fire brigade.” She turned to catch Nina’s eye, but the smirk soon fell from her face. Nina was bone white, her lips thin and colorless.

Emily looked away, chastened, but not before she caught something pass between Nina and Yves—a look, a pulse. Something obscure and ephemeral, like a flash of reflected light from an unknown source.

Spinning around to where Aurelia was still sitting quietly on the steps of the house, Nina marched over, her limbs stiff with rage. “What did you do?” she spat, grabbing her daughter by the shoulders. “Tell me! Look at me! Why would you do that? Why?” She raised her hand in one furious movement, and Emily held her breath.

But at the last minute, Nina seemed to check herself. She lowered her hand and burst into tears. “Oh, Strawberry, I’m sorry. Are you okay?” She pulled Aurelia into a tight hug. “Are you hurt? What happened? How did you even…?” Releasing her grip, Nina stared into Aurelia’s eyes again, her fingers fluttering over her daughter’s body like butterflies unsure of where to land. “How many times do I have to tell you, bubba? You mustn’t play with fire! Please don’t ever scare me like that again.”

Emily watched as Aurelia melted into her mother and sobbed. Tears streaked down her face, and Nina swept them away with her fingers. As they pressed their heads together, lost in their own private world, Emily experienced a wave of compassion so strong she nearly wept herself. Aurelia’s condition was, of course, tough on Aurelia herself, but perhaps even tougher on her mother. The constant hard work, planning, and forethought; all the emotional battles: it was a wonder Nina didn’t break down more often. But she kept on going because there was nothing that mattered more to her in the world than her daughter.

Suddenly, Emily felt terrible about not having phoned home yet. Juliet would be losing her shit.

As soon as all the tears had subsided, Emily jogged over. “Hey, Nina?” she said. “Could I possibly use your phone?”

* * *

Nina took Aurelia inside to watch a movie and returned a few minutes later with a slim cordless landline phone in her hand.

“What a drama, hey?” she said, with a tight smile. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” Emily pressed her fingers against her forehead and felt a gritty sheen of dirt and ash. She needed a shower—a cold one. Possibly it was the effect of standing near a raging bonfire for so long, but it seemed to her as though the heat of the sun had intensified since lunch. Maybe this was the start of the dreaded humidity. “How’s Aurelia?”

“She’s fine. No harm done, thank god.”

They stood facing each other for a moment, Nina tapping the phone thoughtfully against her chin. Behind them, Yves poked at the scorched earth with a shovel, scraping up what was left of the playhouse.

“Look,” said Nina, her voice lowered. “About what just happened. I should’ve said something when you first arrived but, I don’t know, I guess I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. The thing is, Aurelia can be…” She stopped. Took a breath. Started again. “Remember I told you she got sick as a baby?”

Emily nodded.

“Well, there were some … aftereffects. Besides her medical condition, I mean.” Nina closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again they were bright with tears. “Sometimes she does things that don’t make sense. Things that seem…” She trailed off.

Emily waited, unsure of what to say.

Wiping a finger under her eye, Nina smiled. “She makes me so mad, but then she looks up at me with those dark eyes of hers. Her father’s eyes, really. She looks so much like him, don’t you think?”

“The spitting image,” Emily said.

“Yeah.” Nina’s expression was hard to read. “Anyway, she’s a good kid. A wonderful kid. You see that, don’t you?”

Emily nodded, touched by the depth of Nina’s emotion. At the center of her sudden homesickness, she noticed a prickle of resentment: if only her parents’ love for her could be this strong. Was it a biological thing? Would Emily’s birth mother have felt this innate pride, this unqualified adoration? No, of course not. Her birth mother was a violent drunk who’d passed her on like a disease.

Nina took a breath and seemed to change gear. “Look, I hope this isn’t too rude of me,” she said, “but can I ask who you want to call?”

Emily shrugged. “Just my mum.”

“Your mum.” Nina smiled and shook her head slightly, as if to dismiss a foolish thought. She held the phone out to Emily. “Of course. Can I ask a favor, though? I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention the fire. I don’t want her thinking that you’re living with a bunch of derros.”

“Derros?”

“Aussieism. You know, unsavory types.”

“Oh. Sure, I won’t mention it.” Emily took the phone.

“Thanks.” Nina turned to go back inside. “Oh, and by the way, the phone only works within a certain distance from the base unit, so if you move too far away from the house you might find that the line breaks up a bit.”

“Okay. No worries,” Emily said in her best Australian accent.

Nina chuckled. “Ah, we’ll make an Aussie of you yet, young sheila.”

Emily grinned and turned away, dialing her parents’ number as she walked. Would they even be home? What day was it, anyway? It was so easy to lose track of time at Querencia; every day felt like the weekend. She lifted the phone to her ear and waited for the ringing, but the phone was silent. She pressed the green call button and listened again. Nothing. Walking back to the house, she tried dialing one more time, but still the phone remained dead.

Nina was over near the front door, hunched over a potted rose bush.

“Uh, Nina?”

“Not home, huh?” Nina asked, fingering a leaf speckled with dark, moldy spots.

“No—well, I don’t know. I don’t think the phone’s working.”

Nina stood up, plucking off the spotted leaf as she did so. “Really? That’s weird. Can I see?” Emily offered the phone and Nina took it, pressing it to her ear. She pushed a few buttons and listened again. “Bloody hell.” She sighed. “Looks like the line’s gone again. We’ve had some problems, but I thought they were all fixed. Sorry, hon, I’ll have to get Yves onto it again.”

Emily shrugged, trying to mask her disappointment. “It’s okay.”

“I’ll let him know. Maybe he can look at it before he leaves.” Nina held out the rose leaf. “In the meantime, would you mind giving that bush a spray with the fungicide? And clear the dead leaves out? The last thing we need is a spread of black spot.”

Emily nodded, but as she made her way around the back of the house to the potting shed, she couldn’t help but wonder: if the line was dead, how had Nina managed to call Yves to tell him about the fire?

Convulsion. Infection. Coma.

They’re just words. They can’t physically touch me; they don’t exist except in the brief form of sound waves. So how can they pierce my heart so efficiently, so brutally?

“The cause is unclear,” a doctor says—young and blond and inappropriately pretty. “We’re running tests.”

Beside me, my husband is nodding, his fingers steepled beneath his chin.

“The seizures are similar to those associated with epilepsy. We’ve administered antibiotics and anesthetics to stop them, but in the meantime we need to consider all possibilities. Cardiac disorders, neurological conditions, abnormal intracranial development. Of course, the most likely explanation is a strain of meningitis.”

My chest feels tight. I want to hit her for lying, for being stupid and making what is clearly a huge mistake. “Meningitis?” I say. “It’s not possible. She’s fully up-to-date with all her vaccinations.”

“I’m sure she is. And nine times out of ten vaccines give excellent protection.”

Nine times out of ten. I don’t understand. “But I’m so careful about hygiene; I always keep a close eye on her.”