Hearth Fires
Page 2
Heather argued, of course. She pictured her living room, the photograph with the curling edges, the old woman down the hall who waved every time she passed, and she reasoned and debated and yelled until her voice went hoarse. She cried, and hated herself for it, because tears were the type of weakness that belonged to the woman she had chosen not to be. When all her arguments came to nothing, as she had known they would, she thought of running, losing herself in the anthill sprawl of Alpha Dome. She had the skills to disappear forever, if she chose. She could build herself a mundane life, try again to grow something from barren seeds, this time in red Martian soil.
But that, of course, brought her mind back to the last time she had tried. She pictured Matt and Charlie on Earth, gasping as they sucked in poisoned air. She swallowed her tears and accepted her orders.
She had already done enough to hurt them.
“You remember destroying your home, turning something bright and beautiful and buzzing with life into a dead husk.”
She’s standing in a stranger’s living room, the walls decorated with pictures of smiling people she’s never met. She’s already been betrayed, and in less than an hour, the door will burst open to reveal an army’s worth of weapons pointed at her head. But she doesn’t know that yet. Right now, she’s watching the news, alongside someone she still thinks is a friend. She holds her breath at the images of the bodies drifting, and the buildings left eerily intact. In one frame, she imagines she sees Matt and Charlie, frozen in a final gasp.
“That’s what you remember. But you’re wrong. Listen to me, Heather. If you hear nothing else I say, hear this. What happened to Theta Dome was not your fault. Those people did not die because of you. You were nothing more than a pawn in other people’s war games.”
“Not her fault? You can’t possibly believe—”
“Control yourself! Never mind the voices, Heather. It’s only the rumble of the storm, passing overhead, bathing you in cleansing rain. Washing away your guilt. You did not do this. Only the ones who ordered this atrocity are responsible.”
She’s standing in her living room. Light is streaming through the windows. One of Charlie’s cartoons is playing; a dog chases a chicken with a laugh track in the background. Out the windows, storm clouds darken the sky. She lights a match. She drops it. The rain pours down, through the ceiling, and douses the fire before it can start.
“Your house is unburned. You light your match, but keep it in your hand. You walk to the mantel.”
She steps across the just-vacuumed carpet, almost tripping over a toy fire truck. Upstairs, Charlie is roaring like a dinosaur. The flame of the match flickers above her fingers.
“Hanging over the mantel, you see a row of frames. Each contains a portrait of someone important to you.”
She hears the words in two voices. The one that just spoke, but also another, layered over it. She’s heard that other voice before, a dozen times, in a dozen different intonations. How many times has she stood here?
“Touch the match to the pictures, and free yourself. The ones responsible will burn, and this house will be yours again. But first, you need to look them in the eye.”
It was the other voice, that first time. When she walked down the path, and turned the corner, and saw her house waiting for her, warm and inviting. Matt opened the door and pulled her in for a kiss, as if their final conversation had never happened. Charlie rocketed into her arms, wearing the same t-rex shirt as the day she had said goodbye.
“Look at the pictures, Heather. Study their faces.”
She’s standing in a hospital-green room, hands with fingers like iron holding her in place. The walls are bare. She fights with flailing limbs, bruised and aching from the days of questioning where she refused to break. The hands don’t let go. A sharp needle pierces her arm as those hands force her down into a gel-filled tank the size of a coffin. The gel forces itself into her nose, her mouth, her lungs. She drowns in darkness, until a voice drives the dark away. You’re walking along a dirt path.
“Who is responsible? Who gave the order?”
She’s standing in her living room. Light is streaming through the windows. On the TV, a cartoon dog is running in a futile chase. When the voice tells her about the pictures, they appear. When the voice tells her to look, she can’t drag her eyes away.
But the voice never said anything about what she was holding in her hands.
She imagines the matchbox, and it appears, solid and reassuring. She strikes a match, and raises it above her head.
She won’t look at the pictures, because it doesn’t matter who gave the order. She left her family behind, angry and grieving, in this house. She left those bodies drifting in vacuum.
She’s brought enough pain to enough people. It ends here.
This guilt is hers to bear.
She drops the match.
“Do you get it now? There’s no garden in her head. Only fire and death. We’re wasting our time.”
She’s standing in her living room. The walls are a crumbling skeleton. The room smells of charred wood and wet rot. In the distance, mouse feet skitter across the floor.
“I’m telling you, we should cut our losses and send her for a walk outside without a space suit. Poetic justice. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t smile to see it.”
“No mind is so damaged that it is beyond our reach. We will try again tomorrow.”
Then silence. Heather stands alone in the ruins, waiting for the drugs to fade.
She stays where she is, in case she isn’t really alone. She waits until the bees start flying frantic circles inside her, and the urge to move becomes unbearable. The voices don’t come back.
She bends down and pulls back the remnants of the carpet, thick with mouse droppings. Underneath, she finds smooth unburned wood, and an iron handle.
She pulls the handle. The trap door swings up.
Mom? Is that you?
She climbs down the ladder.
She’s standing in a room where she’s stood so many times before, after the voices faded, after she was sure she was alone. The walls are papered with crayon-scrawled dinosaurs. The room is small and square, with bunk beds in one corner and a kitchenette in the other. Matt looks up from his newspaper, and smiles. His wedding ring gleams gold on his finger. She raises her hand, and the matching ring catches the light.
Charlie is wearing his t-rex shirt. He grins up at her. She reaches down and musses his hair.
The bees start buzzing again. She lets the light wash over her, and feels the warmth sink into her bones, and ignores them.
It’s me, she says. I’m home.
Want more?
For more stories about how our tech makes us who we are, try these stories:
The New Me
The Happiness Algorithm
Stasis
Lost in Translation
Exactly Like She Was
Or get them all in Digital Soul, available on all major ebook retailers.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this book, please take a few minutes to leave a quick review at the retailer where you bought it. Reviews help other readers find my books, which lets me keep writing and keeps my dog in treats. Ever had a 130-pound dog try to climb into your lap because he hasn’t had his nightly treat? Save my lap, leave a review.
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About the Author
Zoe Cannon may or may not be a supervillain out to conquer the world through writing. When not writing, she can be found perfecting her schemes for world domination, plotting against her archenemies, and staying up too late reading a book. Her secret lair is rumored to be located somewhere in
southern New Hampshire. She also writes as her mild-mannered alter ego, Z.J. Cannon.