and foibles," she replied airily, skirting around boxes toward the door. "Maybe the one we really ought to dig into is our mother's maternal side of the family. Someone had to pass on good sense."
"I promise you, you don't want to go there," Axell muttered, opening the door and pointing to the hall. "Believe me when I say you came by your eccentric genes naturally."
Cleo shot Maya a look of disgust. "Homeboy knows something."
Maya grinned back. "Homeboy has connections." She smiled sweetly at her husband. "Headley's been at it again, hasn't he? Spill."
"It's hearsay," he warned. As both women watched him expectantly, he sighed. "According to Headley, your mother's mother was the black sheep of the Arnold family."
Cleo looked blank. Maya grinned wider.
"The mayor's family? We're the black sheep of the mayor's family? Can we call him up and tell him now?"
Axell caught the nape of her neck and shoved her out the door. "Don't you dare. And if you greet him in church as 'cousin,' I'll disown you."
"Won't be the first time," Cleo called airily as they departed.
"Daddy! Daddy!" Constance shouted in alarm as they reached the bottom of the grand staircase.
"Mr. Axell, Mr. Axell! Fire!" Matty yelled in excitement, rushing down the hall toward them.
Exchanging looks of panic, Maya and Axell dashed down the hall toward the kitchen.
Through the window over the sink, they could see flames licking at the walls of the woodshed. The smell of wood smoke seeped beneath the kitchen door.
Axell slammed his cell phone into Maya's hands. "Get the kids out and call 911. I'll look for a hose."
"There's a connection on the right," she shouted as he raced toward the kitchen door. "Cleo!" she yelled up the back stairs. "Get down here now! Fire!"
Pounding the cell phone, gathering up Alexa, and shooing the two excited children toward the front door, away from the fire, Maya didn't even consider what valuables might be left behind. She'd never learned appreciation for material things, but she knew the value of human life.
Shouting directions into the phone, she listened for Cleo's feet on the stairs, and satisfied she heard them, herded everyone out the door.
She couldn't leave the children to help Axell. Anxiously, she sought a place in the side yard where they could keep an eye on him. The old shed contained nothing more than spiders and snakes, as far as she was aware. It was the proximity to the house and Axell's determination to stand between it and the fire that scared her. She heard the hiss of the hose and smelled the smoke the instant he turned the water on the flames.
Cleo ran out carrying an armful of old books and letters. Frantically, she glanced up at the house, then back to where Axell fought the flames. She dropped the papers at Maya's feet. "It's not at the house yet. Are there blankets in there?" Apparently remembering the stack of cots and blankets in the back room they'd passed, she darted back up to the porch.
"Cleo! Wait!" Maya screamed after her, but bent on helping, Cleo dashed inside.
"Mr. Pig!" Matty wailed. "The fire will hurt Mr. Pig!"
Oh, Lord, please don't... Maya couldn't phrase the petitions she wanted most. Save Axell, save Cleo, save the school, save the animals... The list was too endless for debate, and she wafted wordless prayers heavenward as she crouched beside Matty, and hugging him as well as Alexa, watched the flames leap higher.
Constance gnawed on her bottom lip and clenched her little hands as she watched the shadows illuminated by the growing fire. Axell attacked the highest flames with the hose. Cleo ran out the back door with a stack of blankets and began beating at the sparks leaping to the dry grass and dead brush of the uncleared lawn between shed and kitchen.
As sirens wailed in the distance, Maya wondered what could possibly have set off a fire in an unused shed. There was no wiring, no cans of gasoline, no gas lines, no heaps of chemical-laden rags, no nothing but old wood and spiders.
And spiders didn't light fires.
Chapter 35
I'm not a complete idiot. Some parts are missing.
Soot-coated, soaked, and sweating, Axell wearily trudged past the charred embers of the woodshed and the storage building containing all the school's yard maintenance equipment. Volunteer firefighters continued dousing the back of the house and the smoking ruins of the outbuildings with water pumped from the school's well.
They'd managed to protect the school building from all damage except to a few