Page 34 of Smoke and Fire
The type of questions that Jakob and I had forgotten mattered, until theyreallymattered. By then, it was too late. My gaze lingered on the horizon.
Who talked to Bastian?
Probably no one, if he sat around heart-ing every comment that someone left on his account, or writing twenty-one books in just a couple of years.
Did his publisher get frustrated at publishing novels that quickly, or did they like it? How did he manage it? I knew nothing of the publishing world beyond the handful of tidbits I’d gleaned since meeting him.
Technically, I knew more about Jess than I did about him, but I had the feeling he didn’t have many close people in his life. Why else would he ask a total stranger at a coffee shop to bail him out of a big problem? He was best friends with Dagny and Hernandez, so why not ask them?
On a whim, I pulled up my phone and accessed the camera. The sight of a bird swooping nearby broke into my concentration, but I forced myself to push through it before I lost all my nerve. I positioned the camera on my face, turned to video, smiled, and hit the record button.
“Hey, Bastian. Just wanted to let you know that I got through about a hundred emails today, but that was cleaning out some spammy stuff and responding to easy ones. I’m speed reading through the books so I can answer the questions, and trying to organize all the rest. Depending on how many come in per day, I think I could have your inbox back to level zero before you finish with this fire.”
A silly feeling crawled over me, but I smiled through it. Why was I doing this? Would he think me a total dork? Maybe he didn’t want this level of updates.
I ignored those thoughts and pressed on.
“I have a few questions if you have time, like your plan for the series, how many books there will be, where you get your inspiration, when to expect the next launch, and your favorite type of bagel and shmear.”
I giggled, still disbelieving.
“Someone really wrote in and asked that. You can’t make this stuff up!”
My dialogue wavered for a moment, but I forced myself not to stop and delete it. Instead, I nodded once.
“Anyway, be safe out there. Text me your answers when you get the chance.”
The video stopped, and I let out a huff. Before I lost my nerve, I hitsend. Why I felt compelled to give him a video of me, I had no idea. Just a hunch that Bastian didn’t have anyone to talk to him.
With a sigh, I spun on my heels and headed back to work, Jess’s fourth book bright on my mind.
10
BASTIAN
My entire body ached when I finally settled back on my sleeping pad that night.
Sounds from fire camp filtered through the trees where I lay on the ground, my inflatable pad beneath me. I’d spent the last five minutes huffing air into it to get a modicum of a barrier between myself and the pine needles. My joints and muscles already protested, and we’d only dug line for ten of sixteen work hours today.
Darkness spread around me in a gentle skirt, broken only by the distant hoot of an owl or call of a nearby bird. It was a quiet sound, and felt like home.
To my right, Nilla, the only girl on our crew, had already fallen asleep on top of her bag. She snored lightly, but she always racked out first. She’d get cold later and cozy in. Beyond her, a couple guys laughed over a nasty joke, and the sound of someone slapping a mosquito followed.
As much as I hated sleeping outside by the end of the summer, right now the cool air and slowly settling night felt good.
Mack, the Supervisor, murmured quietly into his phone not far away. I glanced at my phone, startled to see two tiny bars of reception. When we were digging line in the forest to block out an advancing spur of the fire, we never had reception. Back at fire camp, though, we sometimes had just enough to squeak by. A rare luxury. One fire in Alaska had us just below the Arctic circle, clearing trees. For fourteen days, we hadn’t breathed a soul of civilization. No reception. Nothing.
I sat up and grimaced as I settled my back against a tree, then rubbed out my forearms. Heat spread across my shoulders, tightening the muscles at the base of my neck into knots.
Before I put too much thought into how much line we’d dug through thick forest that probably hadn’t been accessed in years, a notification popped up on my phone.
3 new text messages.
My heart raced when I saw that one of them was from Inessa’s main nurse, Shayna. No reason to think anything had changed, except Inessa had always been outside the usual for expectations.
I suspected that it wasn’t usual for the staff to text family members updates from their personal phones, but she had been kind about my situation from the start.
Shayna:Things are good with Inessa. She had a good painting day yesterday. The doctor is coming in soon to talk with her again. Probably in three days. I had to bump her oxygen up a little higher so she wasn’t breathing so hard. She’ll probably sleep better.
