Naomi straightened the Digging For Your Roots book and looked at Erin curiously. “Well, what?”
Erin told her about the entry that had begun ‘Who would believe such a thing could happen to one of our Bald Eagle Falls families?’ “It was the right year. May first. I’m not sure what day my parents’ accident was… but it seemed about right. I know it was before my eighth birthday.”
“Well… what did it say? Was it about your parents?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know? What was it about?”
Erin bit her lip, staring down at the family tree. “I couldn’t read it. I shut the journal, and I went to bed.”
Naomi’s brows rose high, and she laughed in disbelief. “You saw that, and you just closed the book and went to bed?”
“Yes.” Erin was shaky just thinking about it. “I just went to bed. I couldn’t… I couldn’t read what she had to say.”
“Erin, you’re as white as a ghost! Sit down.” Naomi moved a chair closer to Erin and directed her into it. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know if I can read it.”
“Ever?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Never. When I think about reading Clementine’s description of what happened to them… I just can’t face it.”
Naomi rubbed Erin’s back between her shoulder blades. “But you can’t just ignore it. You’re going to have to read it sooner or later.”
“It’s…” Erin closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s so awful, Naomi. You don’t know what it was like. Losing both of my parents like that… so suddenly, to just be on my own. It was… like everything that happened in my life before that… was just gone.”
“It must have been very traumatic. You were just a little girl at the time; very young to lose your parents.”
“It was the defining moment in my life. The moment that defined who I was and would be for the rest of my life. And… it just makes me sick, thinking about reading about it, even something written by Clementine. How can I do it?”
There was quiet in the tent as Naomi considered this. Erin could hear a man’s voice on the other side of the tent discussing the sheep in one of the upcoming events. Erin had no idea what any of his jargon meant.
“Well… I guess you don’t have to,” Naomi admitted, pushing her hair back over her ears and fiddling with the glasses she wore on a chain around her neck. “No one is going to force you. But I thought you wanted to know what had happened. I thought that’s why you decided to go looking.”
“Yes. And no. I thought it was what I wanted, but faced with it now, I’m not so sure.”
“What do you already know about what happened? They must have told you something.”
“You know the crazy thing? I can’t remember any details. Even whether they were hit or whether they hit someone else. I don’t remember being told. The only thing I can remember is being told over and over again that they died instantly. That’s all.”
“They wanted to reassure you. To let you know that they hadn’t suffered.”
“I guess. But the death dates Clementine had down… that’s why I started. That’s why I was looking for the details. According to Clementine, they died weeks apart. They couldn’t have died instantly.”
Chapter Seventeen
THERE WAS NO REASON that Vic and Erin should be more tired after the Founders’ Day Fair than they were any other full day they had worked at the bakery. The hours were pretty much the same. The traffic was less. They were standing and walking on springy turf rather than hard, unforgiving tile floors. But Erin felt sweaty and gritty and like she’d just worked two back-to-back shifts. Looking at Vic, who wiped her face and stretched her long limbs stiffly, Erin could tell she felt pretty much the same way.
“Weird, huh?” Erin said. “It shouldn’t have been any harder than any other day.”
“Less. You would think. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the noise or the heat. I feel like I’ve been chewed up and spit out.”
Erin grinned. “Yup. Me too.”
Vic packed the last few things into boxes. “We’ll take these to the car, and then we’re done.”
Erin sighed. “I really should get over to the bakery and start a few batters, so we can start putting them in the oven as soon as we get in.”
“I can’t face it tonight,” Vic declared. “And neither can you. You look as bad as I feel. Let’s hit the sack. We’ll go to bed early and will make up for it with how much more energy we have in the morning.”
Erin had to admit it sounded tempting. And if she went to bed early and ended up tossing and turning and unable to get to sleep, she could always run over to the bakery and whip up a few batters, and then return home to sleep knowing that she was all set for the morning.
“Okay, you talked me into it. Point me toward my bed.”
“Drive first,” Vic advised. “Then sleep.”
Bald Eagle Falls being as small as it was, they were home in a few minutes. They just left everything in the car and went into the house. Erin gave Orange Blossom cuddles and fed him. She’d had enough fair food that she didn’t want anything else. “Now I’m going to bed early,” she told the cat. “I don’t want you howling about how lonely you are because nobody is staying up to play with you. Just come and cuddle up and go to sleep with me.”
Orange Blossom made a small noise around his food. Sometimes he acted just like a human being. Erin waited until he was done eating before turning off the kitchen lights. Orange Blossom’s eyes shone in the dark. He looked at her for a minute, then started to wash. Erin headed to the commode to wash up herself. After giving her teeth a quick scrub, she was headed for bed.
“Goodnight, Vic!”
“Night!” Vic was already in her room with the door shut. Erin hoped it wasn’t a sign that she was upset about something or was going to be too tired to get up in the morning again. She hadn’t acted like she was upset during the day. In fact, she had acted more cheerful than Erin had felt. More like her old self again.
Erin left her door open a few inches for Orange Blossom, and was shortly in bed. No reading. No lists. Just putting her tired self to bed. It felt wonderful to be able to stretch out on the soft bed and just wait for sleep to come.
At first, Erin slept heavily. She was exhausted and just conked out. Sayonara. And she was sure, far away in that dream state, that she’d been asleep for a number of hours. But the quality of her sleep had changed, and she was dreaming. One of those frantic dreams where she was trying to get up and ready to go in the morning, but couldn’t find the bathroom or change her clothes or any of the other things that had to be done before she could go to work. The kind of dream that she often had just before her alarm went off in the morning. Yet she knew it wasn’t time to get up yet.
Orange Blossom started to yowl. For a long time, it was just part of Erin’s dream. She was trying to get ready for work, and the cat was crying, and she just couldn’t get it all together.
Then she finally roused from sleep enough to call Orange Blossom. “Here, kitty, kitty. Come in here. Come cuddle.”
He came to the door of her room, pushing his face through the opening of the door, and meowed loudly. The cat was as loud as an air raid siren sometimes. Erin had never known that cats could make that much noise. She had always thought the cartoons of people throwing boots at cats singing on the fence were an exaggeration. Until she got Orange Blossom and people started complaining about him being so noisy if she left him alone or shut him out of her room.
“Blossom! Cut it out!” she snapped.
He was quiet only for a few seconds and then started meowing again. Erin sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her brain was still thick with sleep, but she was starting to become more aware. Was there something wrong? She had come to recognize some of his different meows. And sometimes when he cried like that, it was because there was water on the floor. A leak in the roof or a drippy valve on the commode, and he would act like the whole house was being flooded.
�
��What is it? Is there water?” She listened for the patter of rain on the roof or a dripping faucet, but couldn’t hear anything. Just the usual night noises. The house settling. A sort of static that filled the night for her that her doctor said was probably tinnitus. Too much loud music as a teenager. “Come on, kitty. Come get into bed. It’s time for sleep.”
He stubbornly refused to enter the room. She heard his claws ripping at the rug. A bad behavior he had developed that she put down to wanting more attention.
“Blossom! Stop that! No claws!”
She had meant to get some claw clippers when she went into the city last. The special safety clippers for cats that kept them from getting cut to the quick, but helped to keep the furniture and rug from being shredded.
Erin dragged herself out of bed to chase him, even though she knew that was probably exactly what he wanted. He was as bad as a three-year-old who squealed with delight when his mother tried to catch him after misbehaving.
“Blossom!”
Erin started coughing. Her lungs burned. She just about fell to her knees; she was suddenly so dizzy and lightheaded from getting up so fast. She tried to get after him again, but she couldn’t stop coughing.
Something was wrong.
Something was really wrong.
Bent over, it was easier to breathe. As soon as she tried to straighten up again, her lungs burned and her eyes teared up, and her head spun. She kept down, dropping to her hands and knees. At first, all she could think of was chasing Orange Blossom to keep him from clawing the rug. But she gradually realized that the cat clawing the rug wasn’t the biggest problem she had. Something was wrong. There was a noise, a sort of a crackling. And something that made her lungs hurt. And her eyes.
Finally, it all connected.
Fire.
Erin swore.
She was already partway down the hallway, and hadn’t seen any flames or felt the heat of a fire, but she knew the feeling of smoke in her lungs, worse than any girl scout campfire she’d ever sat around, and the smells of combustion. Not just wood, but the rank smell of burning plastics and synthetics as well. Those fumes could be toxic.
Erin realized she had followed the cat as far as Vic’s door. She raised her fist and started to bang on it.
“Vic! Vic! Fire! Wake up, Vic!”
She felt the door handle and laid one hand on the flat, vertical surface of the door. It wasn’t hot. She tried turning the handle. It wasn’t locked. The door swung into the room.
“Vic! Vic, get up now!”
There was a murmur of protest from Vic.
“Get up now!” Erin insisted. She put all of the force she could into her voice. “Vic! Get up! There’s a fire!”
Vic woke abruptly, the words finally getting through to her brain. She sat up, as Erin had, looking around her in confusion.
“It’s smoky. Get down on the floor,” Erin told her. “We’ll crawl to the front door.”
“Where’s the fire?”
“I don’t know. We’ll find out. We have to move.”
Vic slid out of bed to the floor, and she and Erin moved together out of the room. Erin’s eyes were streaming. She tried to see Orange Blossom. Where had the cat gone? He could cram himself into such tiny spaces, and there was no way they could search for him if he’d tried to hide from the fire.
“Kitty, kitty?” Erin coughed. She tried to cover her mouth and nose to prevent more smoke getting in.
“Forget about the cat,” Vic insisted.
Erin knew she was right. She kept crawling. They stayed close together, like a couple of kids playing trains on their hands and knees. Vic grabbed Erin.
“Wrong way. The door is this way.”
Erin tried to pull away from her. “No, the door is—”
“Come on.” Vic was too strong, and Erin eventually complied, following her again.
“I don’t think this is the right way.”
“It’s the smoke. Trust me.”
Erin coughed. Her lungs were on fire and all she wanted to do was get outside and breathe clean, fresh air.
She hadn’t been able to see the fire before, only to hear the distant crackle of the flames and to smell the smoke. But in the living room, there were flames. She forced herself to stick with Vic and not to do what every instinct told her to do, to withdraw from where the flames were and curl up in a ball, hiding from the monster.
“Erin? Are you there?” Vic felt behind her and encountered Erin’s arm. She drew Erin forward, her grip like steel.
“Are we there? Where’s the door?”
“Here. I think.” Vic stood on her knees, patting at the door like Orange Blossom did when he wanted into or out of a room. It seemed like an eternity before Vic sorted out the locks and door handle and pulled the door open. There was a suctioning feeling, and then the door opened, and there was a whoosh from the fire in the room as outside air flooded into the room. Vic grabbed Erin again and pulled her out of the house.
They both sprawled on the doorstep, coughing violently and trying to breathe in the fresh, oxygen-rich air.
“Erin! Vic!”
They were surrounded by neighbors wrapping them with blankets and pulling them away from the house.
It’s okay. The fire department is on its way.
They’ll have this put out in no time.
Thank goodness the two of you are safe!
What happened?
Erin was overwhelmed. She coughed and couldn’t answer any of the questions. She just held the blanket that had been wrapped around her, cuddled inside it, trying to sort out in her brain what had happened. An electrical fault? A light left on? They didn’t use candles. Whenever she tried to talk, she was racked with more coughing. Vic seemed to be more under control. Erin could hear her answering questions. Every now and then, she tugged on Erin and asked her if she was all right.
The fire truck arrived, manned by volunteers, their faces obscured by their protective gear. The flashing light hurt Erin’s eyes, and the siren bounced off of all of the buildings, filling her ears even after it was shut off.
As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t watch them fight the fire in Clementine’s house. In her house. She covered her face, crying. Still coughing and feeling like she wasn’t getting enough air. Like maybe there wasn’t enough air in the world, and she would never get enough again.
“Erin. Here. Sit down.”
Someone forced her to sit and, in a few minutes, pressed an oxygen mask over her face. Erin tried to gulp the oxygen down.
“Just take long, slow breaths… Nice and even and regular… Just normal, even breaths…”
She tried to obey the soothing voice, but it was difficult. Time passed. There was a lot of activity around her.
“Erin, are you okay?”
Erin looked up, trying to follow the familiar voice to its owner. Erin eventually homed in on the figure speaking to her. Vic.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Thank you for getting us out of there.”
“Wouldn’t have been able to if you hadn’t woken me up.”
Erin rubbed her eyes and blinked at Vic. She too was wrapped in a blanket, but it hung more loosely around her. Erin studied it, eventually realizing that Vic was holding something beneath the blanket.
“What’s that? Do you have…?”
Vic opened up the blanket a little, to show Erin Orange Blossom nestled in her arms.
Erin’s eyes streamed tears. “Thank goodness he’s all right! He’s the one who woke me up.”
“Good kitty,” Vic crooned to the cat. Erin thought she could hear him purring, even with all of the noise and chaos going on around them.
Chapter Eighteen
IT WAS A LONG time before everything was quiet again. Erin found that she was sitting on the steps of the fire engine. Terry was there, asking her questions and trying to get a coherent story out of her. Erin patted K9, his warmth soothing.
“I know it’s just a house,” Erin said, wiping her tears away. “But
is the fire out? Is it… salvageable?”
“The fire is out. The firefighters will continue to monitor it, make sure there are no hot spots that will reignite. And we’ll have an investigator from the city come and take a look and see if they can tell how it started. You have no idea?”
Erin wiped away more tears. They just wouldn’t stop coming. She told herself it was just because of the smoke in the air.
“Is it a write-off? The house? What’s going to happen?”
“They’ll look at it and get in touch with you, let you know what needs to be done. I’m not an expert, but… it looks like it was fairly localized. It didn’t go through the whole house. Ceilings still intact. Though everything will be smoke damaged.”
“Clementine’s little house…”
“Your little house,” Terry amended. “I know you haven’t been there very long, but it is still yours. That’s your home. It’s okay to be sad about it.”
Erin nodded and sniffled. She had the oxygen mask off so that she could talk to Terry. She was able to breathe without coughing. The smell of smoke still hung in the air, but it wasn’t so overwhelming.
“What is that?” Erin demanded.
“What is what?” Terry frowned at her, his brows drawn down.
“That… smell…” Erin made a face and tried to identify it. “Is it… gasoline? Kerosene?”
Terry gestured to the fire truck. “Diesel.”
She could smell the exhaust and the diesel coming from the fire truck, but there was something else too. Erin got up and walked closer to the house. She wandered the yard, looking at the shrubs and neglected garden along the front of the house. It was sharper there, more insistent.
“There is something here,” she told Terry. “Can’t you smell that?”
“All I can smell is smoke,” he confessed. “What are you smelling?”
“Gasoline, I think. Or something close to it.” Erin sniffed at the breeze as it shifted the directions the smell was coming from. “But that doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if it was arson.”
“Why would it be arson?” Erin shook her head. “It must have been an accident. No one would intentionally light a fire when two people were inside sleeping!”
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