Ting Ting’s family’s shop was ablaze. The flames were only one wall away as The Golden Palace became fully engulfed in fire. Blossom watched how everyone was uneasily moving away from the wreckage. A store full of fireworks and open flames don’t make good roommates.
“Your parents, Ting Ting…they’re fine?” asked Blossom as she ran her fingers through Little Sunflower’s hair.
“Our parents are fine. They want to leave Chinatown to be safe and go to Oakland to be with some cousins I’ve never even met. We were on our way there. I looked back and then I saw you! Oh, Blossom, I’m so glad to see you.”
Blossom bent down to be at Ting Ting’s height. She struggled to summon the strength she needed to say goodbye.
“I’m so glad to see you…both of you. But I’m leaving too and I need you to be strong for me. I’m not sure when I’ll see you again.”
Ting Ting began to cry loudly as if in physical pain. She kicked the damaged rice bowl again. Several chips of the bowl rested on the cobblestones nearby.
“So much for the Immortals keeping this rice bowl always full for Grand Ma Maw. Where is she?” asked the girl between sobs. Feeling an overwhelming sense of mortality, Blossom raised her eyes to the heavens. She could not bring herself to say that her grandmother was dead, her broken body resting in the burning pile of rubble. Blossom just shook her head.
“Can I have the bowl…to remember Grand Ma Maw by…even if it is broken?” asked the girl with the sincerity of someone much older.
“Of course you can,” choked out Blossom. “We have to say goodbye now so you and your family can safely get to Oakland. But we’ll see each other again. I know it in my heart. Ting Ting and Little Sunflower, you must not tell anyone that you saw me and Brock, no matter what.”
Ting Ting sadly nodded. Little Sunflower nodded as well.
“No one?” asked Ting Ting.
“Yes, absolutely no one must know. Hug me as tightly as you can. It’s going to have to last me a long time.”
Ting Ting did as she was told. The embrace was as tight as a vise’s grip. Little Sunflower hesitated. Blossom freed a hand and outstretched it to the little girl. Little Sunflower added her vice-like grip to the two who were already hugging.
“I promise we’ll be together again. But you must run to your parents and get to safety. Goodbye.” Blossom could hear a hissing, sizzling sound as the wind gusted strongly again.
Ting Ting showed Blossom the hurdy-gurdy music box that had been in her pocket for safekeeping, the one Blossom had given her. Sobbing, she scooped up the pieces of the bowl. The pair dashed away, looking back several times. Through the high tide of smoke that was again filling the street, they waved one last time to Blossom.
Blossom quickly turned to her other friends. “Anna Mae…Monique…I can’t take losing anyone else today. I don’t know where we’ll end up, but I’ll let you know when we get there. I’m going to miss you more than you’ll know.”
“Go on. Live your life. You got your man and his love. That’s more than a lot of people can say today,” replied Monique.
“Maybe you better not tell us where you are or we’ll move there too!” added Anna Mae as she came up close to Blossom. “Are you sure?” she whispered in Blossom’s ear. “Are you sure he’s the one? He’s leaving his fiancée for you. Who’s to say he won’t leave you for—”
“I’m sure!”
“Sure of what?” asked Brock.
Blossom’s eyes blinked hard and her shoulders abruptly rose repeatedly as the first string of firecrackers ignited.
“There go a few more evil spirits,” announced Austin. “Lighting firecrackers drives them away, right?”
Within a few seconds, a fireball pinwheeled aimlessly down the street. Other fireworks that were usually devoted to New Year’s celebrations shot skyward, leaving a trail of stars behind. The falling embers joined the wild dance of swirling sparks.
“There go some more!” Austin added as he erratically pointed in several directions.
Peaches nearly escaped Monique’s arms, the noise making an already high-strung dog even more anxious.
Brock pulled Blossom away from the girls with his arm around her waist. As they hurried to their now-agitated horse, she looked over her shoulder at her friends, Austin and at the blazing ruins that had been her home.
Just as they mounted Ebony, the fireworks from Ting Ting’s family’s shop exploded with greater regularity. Peaches began to bark with even more intensity than before. The crackling and booming spooked their horse, and together they bolted down the street that was strewn with what was left of Chinatown’s buildings. Blossom didn’t dare look back over her shoulder again for fear of falling off. She knew it was definitely a time to look forward, and the fireworks made sure of it.
Once they were a few blocks away, Ebony settled down and they made their way back to Twin Peaks.
“Who could have ever dreamed this nightmare?” she asked.
Brock turned and looked her in the eyes deeply as only he could. He lovingly responded, “And who could have dreamed this dream?”
Chapter 56
Broken Hearts
Wednesday, April 18, 1906, 7:49 a.m.
The day of the earthquake and firestorm
Faye called out to Clarissa, “For Pete’s sake, is the world coming to an end or what?” Clarissa left the mansion’s front door open behind her and, seizing the moment, Romeo and Juliet noisily darted out the opening and circled overhead before disappearing. Clarissa covered her mouth with her hand and caught her breath, helplessly witnessing the caged birds set free. She came down the house’s front steps to the gate at the street’s edge.
“I don’t know if the world is ending, but I’m not leaving it without Brock. Now that you’re here, I won’t be leaving it without you either, Miss Huntington!”
Clarissa continued as they began to walk, “Come on, my parents are fine. As you just witnessed, Romeo and Juliet have flown the coop. Unfortunately, Zelda is dead in the garden.”
Faye stopped walking in an exaggerated jerk and looked at her friend. “Do I know you?”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“As cool as a cucumber, you just said Zelda was dead in the backyard, didn’t you? Are you in shock? Denial? What was she doing in the garden at a time like this?”
Clarissa wiped away a few loose strands of hair that tickled her forehead. “She was having her head smashed in with a stone urn as she cut fresh flowers for our breakfast table. That’s what she was doing in the garden!”
“There’s a body in your yard and you described the situation with all the emotion of announcing how a string on your harp needs tuning.”
“I know, I know,” admitted Clarissa. “I just can’t think about it right now. I’ve got to go down to the St. Clairs’ house to see if Brock and his family are alright. My parents didn’t let me go until now. Are you coming with me?”
“You mean he hasn’t been here yet to check on you?” Faye replied. “My stars, I could count on my nipples—and that would be two—how many minutes it would take for my fiancé to come check on me. That is, if I had a fiancé.”
Clarissa paused to admit to herself that Faye was correct. Why hasn’t Brock come to my rescue yet?
“I just hope he’s safe. Now, stop talking and start walking.” She grabbed Faye’s hand. They headed down the street toward Brock’s house.
The pair side-stepped debris on the sidewalk, finally deciding it was easier to walk in the middle of the road beyond the immediate dropping range of the house fronts. The two moved among people who were going in all directions, but without any real purpose. Clarissa sensed anxiety and despair floating in the air like the wind-blown smoke and ashes.
It was those who were dragging trunks who captured Clarissa’s attention and wouldn’t let go. She was certain she’d never forget the grinding sound of people who correctly sensed the gravity of the disaster and were dragging everything they had left in the world i
n steamer trunks. Some had children trailing behind them. Some were empty handed. Others carried prized possessions and cherished keepsakes. Still others, focused on their own needs, appeared to be heading out alone. In the distance, huge mushrooming clouds of smoke reached skyward. Closer to them, the smell of smoke grew heavy and pungent, adding to the disaster’s feeling of urgency. A dangerous momentum of destruction was swelling with no end in sight.
“It must be chaos in other parts of town if people have already packed up their belongings and started to move on,” observed Clarissa.
There was another tug at the earth’s crust. Church bells erratically rang out a confirmation of the tremor. Everybody stopped to assess what was happening and to brace themselves. It was over nearly as soon as it started, but it didn’t escape anyone’s heightened senses.
“That was a real bell ringer,” remarked Faye as she started walking again, only to be stopped abruptly as she tripped over a chunk of brick. She fell to the pavement. As Clarissa bent over to offer her friend a helping hand, the earth’s pressure erupted yet again, forcing Clarissa to fall on top of Faye.
“Damn it,” cursed Faye as she and Clarissa separated and got back on their feet. It was a swift aftershock. Houses creaked as beams split and more loosened bricks and mortar fell.
“Watch your language, please.”
“Truly? Now is not the time for etiquette and manners, my dear one,” said Faye as she wrinkled her nose and narrowed her eyes. “This whole city and everyone in it can go to hell!” She looked around. “Hmmmm, I see we’re already there!” she said as she shrugged shoulders.
They began to walk again and passed—and tried not to look at—a dead horse in their path.
“Ugh! This is totally unacceptable.”
Displaying her inner strength and some restraint, Clarissa simply fired back, “Oh, Faye, just shut up!”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” said Clarissa crossing her arms.
“FINE!” ricocheted Faye.
“FINE!” said Clarissa firmly to end that exchange.
Clarissa watched as smoke blew through in waves, like a typical evening fog from the bay but at a brisker pace. Inhaling it was unavoidable. The smoke didn’t smell like a familiar wood or coal fire in a hearth. It was a foul mixture of scents, of things the women had never smelled burn before. They both instinctively raised their hands to cover their noses and mouths.
When they got closer to Brock’s house, Clarissa’s pace quickened along with her heart rate. However, her hope of finding her fiancé unharmed began to slide down a slippery slope as Silverado came into view, or what was left standing where the silver-encrusted mansion once stood proudly, even arrogantly.
The front was gone. It looked to Clarissa as if a giant had peeled it off so anyone could look into it, much like her childhood dollhouse. The rooms appeared as if the giant’s little brother ran his fingers through that dollhouse and knocked over and upturned just about everything in sight. The glass-covered conservatory was no longer glass covered. It stood like a fleshless skeleton.
Brock’s mother and her maid, Pearl, were standing in the side yard. “Oh, Clarissa,” Mrs. St. Clair called out in a crazed way. “You’re alive. Thank goodness. I was so worried.”
“And you, you are—” Clarissa stopped speaking. The full sight of the rubble was too much to take in while speaking and thinking coherently. Clementine, the cook, was walking toward the front of the house from the side yard.
“Pearl and I were in the kitchen,” Mrs. St. Clair recalled as the pair approached. “I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I came downstairs to make some tea. Pearl heard me and came out of her bedroom to see who was in the kitchen.” She stopped and swallowed.
“Then Clementine heard the two of us. As noisy as we are, we’d make terrible mice, wouldn’t we? Anyway, all of a sudden…well, I have to say it felt like a miner set off some dynamite right under us. Everything was shaking and swaying and falling. The crystals on the dining room chandeliers were crashing against each other and making a horrible sound, almost like an alarm telling us to leave. We got outside as fast as our feet would carry us. The house was coming apart.”
She put her hand to her chin and shook her head. “If Mr. St. Clair was alive to see this happen to his dream house, well, it simply would have killed him!”
Clarissa looked at Faye and whispered, “She’s losing her mind, or maybe she’s already lost it.”
“Sweet child, I know what you’re going to ask, and I don’t have an answer,” the woman said plainly, as she sobered and stopped her ranting. “Brock and Austin, I don’t know if they’re here…in there, I mean.” She couldn’t speak anymore.
“Brock!” Clarissa screamed at the tangled ruins of the mansion that was Silverado.
“Austin! Bang on something. Yell at me!” Faye shouted with a strained voice and then coughed. “You may never get that offer again. Come on!” The smoke from the burning city continued to make its way across Nob Hill. Heavier than before, the smoke made it harder to see. A breeze parted the murky cloud to reveal that a mansion down the street was ablaze and no one was tending to it.
“I never thought I’d see this again in my lifetime,” muttered Clementine loudly enough for others to hear her. “It’s like how I remember Atlanta at the end of the war, the flames, the chaos, the tears. God Almighty, it brought out the best and the worst in folks. Indeed it did!”
The ground jolted sharply under their feet, and all eyes went to the house as the creaking and crashing turned much louder as ceilings fell in. The chandeliers were sounding their alarm again. Great puffs of dust were exhaled out of the structure’s many new openings.
Mrs. St. Clair looked on. “I’m already a widow…and I could be childless now and not even know it.” She asked herself softly, “What have I done to deserve this?”
“Mother! Mother!”
Mrs. St. Clair turned to Clarissa and Faye. “You didn’t hear that did you? Must be ghosts. I better get used to having ghosts around.”
***
Faye looked down the street as far as she could. While the smoke made it difficult to see and all of the noises made it hard to hear, she heard, “Mother! Mother!”
Mrs. St. Clair turned in the direction of the voice.
“We’re coming for you!” It was Austin, with Monique and Peaches in tow.
“You’re safe—” was all he could get out before his words dried up and disappeared. He gasped at what appeared before him.
“I can see we don’t need to ask where you’ve been,” said Faye as she eyed Monique. “Why do you have your lover’s lingerie wrapped around your head? Oh, don’t answer that. I’m not sure I want to hear your answer.” Oh, but I do…I really do!
“Have you seen Brock?” asked Clarissa in a guarded way that revealed how she almost didn’t want to hear Austin’s response.
Austin started to cry. His lips quivered. His chin quivered as well, with a patch of dimples forming on it. Austin reached out for his mother. Her arms hung limply by her sides in a gesture of disengagement. From her body language, it was clear to everyone she didn’t need Austin to speak anymore. He’d already delivered the news without having to utter a single syllable.
Faye braced Clarissa around the shoulder with her right arm. Clarissa bit her lip as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“He’s gone…he’s gone,” squeezed out Austin, raising his hand to his wounded temple. Monique stood by comforting the poodle she was clutching, not having an obvious role to play in the conversation.
He continued after clearing his throat. “We were on our way here when we saw him. I called out and he turned to look, just as we had another shaker. He was helping an old man who was sprawled out in the street, bloody and broken, in front of a building not far from here. It was completely on fire.”
Austin stopped speaking. All eyes were on him, waiting for him to finish the story. Heavy smoke swirled around them, helping him choke up for real,
not pretend. He winced and slightly adjusted the stocking around his head.
Faye watched Austin and Monique as if she was studying a pair of insects in a glass jar, with a mixture of close-up scrutiny and repulsion.
“The entire building fell forward out into the street, like someone had pushed it from behind. Down it came. He didn’t have a chance to get out of the way. The last I saw, Brock was crouched down and over the old man, as if he could protect him from the burning building. And then—”
He said no more.
Faye gave Austin a glance as he delivered the final punishing words…a glance Austin knew all too well himself. He’d given it before, many times. It was a look that replaced all spoken words.
He’s up to something, that lying shit heel. I don’t know what, but he’s lying like a corpse in a cheap casket. Faye held her tongue and avoided yet another barb-for-barb verbal assault on Austin. She knew there was plenty of time for that in the future.
“And then,” Monique added, “everything seemed to explode in flames. Bricks were falling. Horses were running wild in the streets. Even cattle were loose. Poor little Peaches hasn’t been able to settle down since then.” She looked down and then got back on track by saying, “There was nothing for us to do, except save ourselves before we were crushed too.”
The word “crushed” brought an impossible-to-miss wince of pain to Mrs. St. Clair.
The wind started to blow fiercely in not one or two directions, but in every direction. Smoke, ash and sparks were everywhere.
Clarissa stared off to the distance, hearing what was being said by those around her and being mesmerized by an undulating cyclone of smoke that was spinning so powerfully that it was picking up pieces of lumber and roofing materials along with flames larger than she could have ever imagined in her worst nightmare. The whirling, burning funnel was carrying away life as San Franciscans had known it.
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