On Fire by Dianne Linden

sure it would be easier for them.”
    The woman made a curve toward the door with her hand. “This part of the school isn’t open to students now,” she said.
    â€œI’m not a student,” I told her.
    â€œLucky me,” she said. She drank the rest of her water.
    I ended up doing my thinking outside while I walked around and around the school yard. By the time I got to the front for the third time, Marsh was there, leaning up against a cedar tree.
    â€œToo much coffee makes you hyper,” he said. “Aren’t you afraid it will stunt your growth?”
    â€œToo late,” I said.
    About then a family came out of the school with their suitcases. The man was one of the snorers so I should have been glad to see him go. But it actually made me a little queasy. I was just getting used to the way things were and now there were going to be more changes.
    â€œAre you still sort of helping me out when Frank’s not here,” I asked him.
    The sun glinted through the branches behind Marsh’s head. I had to squint to look at him.
    â€œAs long as it’s legal.” He took the keys to his truck out of his pocket and jingled them. “Anywhere within reason you want to go?”
    â€œThere’s someplace I need to go,” I said. “I wouldn’t say I want to go there.” Then I told Marsh what I’d found out from Chuck.
    â€œDon’t get your hopes up,” Marsh told me, which was the opposite of what Mrs. Stoa kept saying.
    The problem was, I didn’t really know what my hopes were. I wanted Dan to be the person they found in Cato City. I wanted him to be in the hospital getting better.
    But if he was there, I’d have to face up to the fact that he’d pretty much run away from me. And unless the ring I was still wearing around my neck was a message, he hadn’t even cared enough to say goodbye.
    We tried the community hospital first. They said they couldn’t give us any details because we weren’t family, but they could tell us he wasn’t there then . That sounded like he might have been there and was gone now, which was encouraging.
    But it was also discouraging because if he’d been released or whatever you call it when you leave the hospital, where would he go?
    We went back to the truck and sat. “I don’t know what to do next,” I said.
    â€œYes, you do,” Marsh said. “If the . . . if Dan is in the condition you heard he was in, the hospital wouldn’t just send him out into the street. Not that fast, anyway.”
    â€œSo you think maybe they sent him to the mental hospital?”
    Marsh started the truck. “Believe me,” he said, “I’m not any more excited about going there than you are.”
    The road out east to Metal Springs was in horse country, all rolling hills and aspen already turning yellow for the fall. It would have been an excellent trip except for where we were going. Every time we passed a white horse I made a wish.
    An appaloosa raced along beside us for quite a while. His ears were back and his tail stretched out behind him. He kept looking over at the truck like he wanted to tell us something. In a perfect world he would have been able to.

7

P ERJURY
    T HERE USED TO BE SOMETHING CALLED a spa at Metal Springs. Hot water bubbled out of the ground and people came there to soak in it and get rid of their aches and pains. Sometimes they drank the water as well.
    This was all written on a sign just inside the gate to the hospital grounds. It went on to say that fifty years or so ago, they found out there was too much arsenic in the water so they shut the spa down, but left the old buildings standing.
    I had no idea which one of those buildings to go in to and ask about Dan. Marsh seemed to know, though. He’d been pretty quiet on the drive out and kind of moody, but he took me up to the registration building like he knew exactly where he was