Adam tried the door handle. Locked.
The dog’s owners were not there. Hanging on the wall next to the dog was a photo of a middle-aged couple. Adam had a sinking feeling he knew where they’d gone.
“Poor thing,” Adam whispered. The dog reminded him of his own beloved Speedy. The next moment, Adam had gently lifted the window. The terrier leaped outside and bounded into his arms, where he curled into a whimpering ball. The dog gave Adam courage as he kept walking.
Several houses later, Adam came across the first people. A mother and her daughter were packing suitcases into a car in their garage. Adam timidly approached them.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Did something happen here?”
The mother turned to him in surprise. Her eyes were puffy and had dark circles underneath. “Why, yes, child. Didn’t you hear about the disaster?”
The daughter, a wiry teenager, spoke up. “The factory burned down two weeks ago. A lot of people in town died.”
Adam stared at them. No, it was not possible. There was still time, there had to be—
“There’s nothing left for us here,” said the mother. She cast a weary glance at their suitcases. “Most of us survivors are leaving town. Without the candle factory, there is no source of income. My husband would—” She gasped with a shudder and hid her face in her sleeve.
“My—my dad was killed in the fire,” explained the girl, clearly trying to appear brave, but the flicker of fear and shock in her red-rimmed eyes gave her away. “Where’s your family?”
Adam’s heart hammered. He had to get to Jack’s house. “I’m sorry. I—I have to go. But first—” He held up the whimpering terrier in his arms. “Do you think you could? I found him abandoned.”
“Oh, that’s the Bordens’ old dog,” said the mother. “They were both in the middle of their shift when the fire broke out.”
“Mom?” said the daughter, after a long pause.
The mother sighed. “Yes, dear, of course we can take him.”
After they exchanged goodbyes, Adam turned and started running. He sprinted up and down the next hills, coughing from the smoke.
Across the desolate town, the few folks that Adam ran into were either packing up and leaving or looking lost and scared. An old man stood on his porch silently staring into the distance. Twice, someone asked Adam if he was all right. He answered yes but hurried along. His hasty footsteps disturbed the confetti in his snow globe, but the town inside the glass had not disappeared yet.
When he arrived at the redbrick, two-story house on Oak Street, his stomach sank again. The front porch light was off, like all the others up and down the street. The windows were pitch black. Adam pounded on the door, but no one answered. This door was also locked.
He peered inside Jack’s bedroom window. The bedsheets were gone. Half the books and magazines on the bookshelf had disappeared. A few of Jack’s model airplanes remained, including the one that was half-finished last time. That particular model had now been completed, and sat in the same spot on the writing desk. Next to it were a few sheets of paper, the candlestick—this time with an unlit, white-and-green-striped candle in it—and, in the corner of the desk, Jack’s music box, its lid firmly shut.
Dejected, Adam looked around at the darkening town. Looming ahead of him, much larger now, was the scene of the disaster—Candlewick’s Candles Corporation.
He found himself slowly trudging to the factory. He needed to see the destruction with his own eyes. Even though the main walls of the factory remained standing, the inside looked like a demolition site, with its window shards and piles of broken cement and black rubble. There was a stillness in the air, heavy with smoke and the scent of lavender left over from the burned candles.
Adam stood alone in the dark, helplessly rooted to the spot, not wanting to move. When he finally shifted sideways, his foot unearthed a scrap of clothing.
Later, when recounting these dark events, Adam would leave out these details, because he didn’t want to admit that he had gotten terribly sick at the sight, and had thrown up like he had the stomach flu. He didn’t want to admit how he’d rolled up into a ball, coughing and crying until his eyes were swollen.
When he finally managed to pull himself together, something metallic in the rubble near his feet caught his eye. It glistened in the starlight. Adam carefully dug out the object from beneath the black soot and examined it, but he couldn’t make out what it was.
He slipped it into his pocket and wiped some of the grime and tears from his face. Other things were distracting him at the moment—like the fact that he needed to wash up badly. He decided to try Jack’s house again.
There was still no answer when he knocked on the door, but the window to Jack’s bedroom was unlocked. Adam pushed it upward. “Hello?” he called inside.
Breaking into someone’s house, of course, is frowned upon in many places, if not outright against the law. But sometimes there is a dire need to break the rules for a very good reason. For example, using the forbidden back door of the school to get inside, because a pair of sixth-grade bullies awaited you in the front each morning to dunk your head in the toilet. Or skipping homework in order to help your uncle manage the bakery, because otherwise you might not have a roof over your head the next month.
