Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits

by Robin McKinley

  Leslie gave a shaky laugh, and the heel in Miri’s hand dropped about two inches. ʺKeep thinking about Peggy,ʺ said Miri. ʺYou want her to have a good time too, right? Just nudge her forward gently—keep your hands and legs steady. Try—oh—try to make her take the bit down to her ankles—till you’re holding the reins by the buckle. Do that every time you notice you’ve been crouching. Well, maybe not every time. That’ll keep you busy.ʺ

  Mal, in his detestably easy way, swung up into Twilight’s saddle. He wasn’t wearing his helmet, and out of the corner of her eye Miri just saw their mother bursting out of the barn where she was overseeing the Kindergarten Quadrille team tacking up, when Mal leaned over, put his hand on the back of Leslie’s neck, and kissed her. For quite a long time. Jane was now standing beside Miri, who felt she could almost hear Jane’s mouth closing with a snap. She could see several of the Quadrille members watching this performance in varying postures of longing and despair—and Leslie was quite pink by the time he stopped. Mal being Mal, he would know perfectly well that his mother had just almost bitten his head off for not putting his helmet on before he mounted. But he didn’t look their way as he unslung the helmet over his arm and carefully strapped it in place; and he gave a careless wave as they rode out of the yard. Leslie waved too, but she looked back, her expression a combination of joy and consternation.

  ʺThey’re too young to be that serious,ʺ said Jane.

  Miri silently agreed that that hadn’t been any old birthday kiss. ʺYou and Dad were just that age,ʺ she said. ʺAnd I was born two years later, and you told Gran you were waiting tables while she looked after me when you were training three-year-olds and Dad was in college, and we’re all still alive to tell the story.ʺ

  Jane grimaced. ʺDon’t remind me. I don’t suppose you’d buy ‘that’s different’?ʺ

  ʺNo,ʺ said Miri. ʺA baby wouldn’t be nearly as much trouble as Dorothy.ʺ

  By four o’clock both Jane and Miri were beginning to glance a little too often down the old road that led to the nature reserve. There was no reason the birthday party needed to be back yet; five o’clock was probably the time to start expecting them, and it could be later still; it wouldn’t be dark till after seven. But the clouds were beginning to stack up, genuine thunderheads, grey and ominous. Five o’clock came and went, and the last lessons of the day. A couple of boarders were still out on the trail, but Miri (it being Jane’s turn to get dinner: steak, for Mal’s birthday) would come out, check around, and lock up later.

  Flame had spent the day looking for goblins, and for the first time ever, when Miri tied him between his trees while she gave lessons, paced back and forth. It wasn’t only Flame; Oscar had refused to get out of Cindy’s car, and had stayed in the back seat and howled. Cindy left early.

  They were heading back to the house, emphatically not saying anything to each other about wondering where Mal and Leslie were, when the two missing boarders came trotting down the old road. Jane and Miri stopped dead. Riders walked their horses back down that road, finishing the cooling-off process before the horses were put away; and both these horses had sweat darkening their shoulders and white showing around their eyes.

  Miri could hear how hard Jane was working to keep her voice level: ʺYou two don’t look too happy. Or you four.ʺ

  Miri made a grab at Applepie’s bridle as he jigged past sideways, his nose curled into his own shoulder; it wasn’t a good idea to let a horse trot into the barn. Applepie, recognising the hand of authority, stopped, but Miri could feel the tension in him just from his mouth clamped on the bit. Sheila dropped the reins with a sigh. ʺThank you. I don’t know what’s got into him; I’ve never seen him like this. I know there’s some weather coming but . . .ʺ Applepie was middle-aged, round and—most of the time—placid, rather like Sheila; Sheila rode for exercise, not excitement.

  It was beginning to rain.

  Charis dismounted from Moose, who had never pranced in his life, but was trying to do so now. ʺThis must be the mother and father of all storms, is all I can say,ʺ said Charis.

  Miri thought, somebody tell me it’s just the barometric pressure that is making my hair stand on end. But she looked at Flame, and he was looking back down the road the way Sheila and Charis had come—the way Mal and Leslie should have come, and hadn’t—and he was so still he looked like the statue of a dog. The statue was entitled Awaiting the Arrival of the Enemy.

  As Sheila and Charis led their horses away Jane said, ʺThere’s nothing we can do.ʺ

  ʺNo,ʺ said Miri.

  ʺAnd standing around in the rain is dumb,ʺ said Jane.

  ʺYes,ʺ said Miri, but neither of them moved.

  There was a little silence, and then Jane said, ʺI suppose we might as well go indoors and start getting supper ready.ʺ

  Any other evening it was Jane’s turn to cook Miri would have corrected her: ʺAnd you can start getting supper ready.ʺ Tonight she only said, ʺYes.ʺ

  They went indoors and were instantly mobbed by restless, fretful house cats. There being only four human ankles to twine around, Jessica, always the bravest, chose to avoid the crowd, and twined around Flame’s. Mal’s birthday cake sat on the kitchen table, under a meat save to protect it from the cats, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY MALACHI was still clearly visible through the mesh. There was a little pile of presents next to the cake. Miri listlessly started peeling potatoes, for something to do, something that would stop her looking at the cake and the presents.

  Dorothy rocked back and forth on her perch in the living room, screaming, ʺMal! Mal! Mal! Mal!ʺ Ordinarily Miri could ignore Dorothy in one of her tantrums; tonight Miri wanted to scream along with her. Flame crept under the kitchen table and stayed there. Jessica and Charlotte joined him. It was a big old table with a lot of gnarly bent legs, and the cats disappeared in the shadows, but Miri could see Flame’s eyes glowing if she looked carefully. She thought, he almost looks like a very large dust bunny. No, a dust hellhound. She hoped, if she ran a broom under the table, he wouldn’t disintegrate. She finished the potatoes, pulled a chair out of the way and joined Flame and the two cats under the table. She put her arms around him and hugged him hard; he was warm and solid.

  ʺYou haven’t hidden under the table since you were seven,ʺ said Jane in that too-level voice she’d used to Sheila and Charis.

  I used to hide under the table because I was afraid that the ghosts in the old graveyard would come back here and get me, she thought, but she didn’t say it aloud. ʺIf you want to join us,ʺ she said, ʺbring a cushion. Two cushions.ʺ

  Jane’s hands had stopped rinsing lettuce. She was staring out the kitchen window. Even from under the table Miri saw the flash and when the thunder immediately followed the whole house rattled. She was pressed so closely to Flame that she felt the vibration when he made a noise; but it wasn’t a whine, it was more of a groan.

  ʺThat looked like it was right over the old graveyard,ʺ said Jane in a voice even flatter and more remote than the one she’d been using.

  Miri climbed out from under the table and joined her mother at the sink. She turned the still-running tap off. ʺYou can’t know that,ʺ she said.

  ʺNo,ʺ agreed Jane. She turned the tap back on, and went back to swishing lettuce. ʺBut it might have been. It was certainly somewhere over that way.ʺ

  Miri stared out the window for a while. There was another flash of lightning, but farther away; the thunder, when it came, was only a distant growl. The sky was still dark grey, but the wind had got up, and the clouds were rolling and twisting around each other like enormous snakes. It was still raining; when a gust of wind threw a handful of rain at the kitchen window, Miri started, as if it had been deliberately thrown at her. ʺWe still can’t do anything,ʺ she said.

  ʺNo,ʺ said Jane. She was loading the clean lettuce into the salad spinner.

  ʺWe don’t even know which way they went,ʺ said Miri.

  ʺNo,ʺ said Jane.

  ʺAnd they could have taken shelter somewhere,ʺ said Mi
ri.

  ʺYes,ʺ said Jane. She was about to give the salad spinner’s handle the first pull when there was a blur among the trees at the end of the old road that led to the preserve. ʺOh, no,ʺ said Miri, and Jane looked up, fractionally later, and gasped. Miri had her hand on the doorknob before her brain had confirmed that the blur was a galloping horse; but it was Jane, behind her, who’d seen who it was: ʺPeggy,ʺ she said.

  Flame was there too, getting between their legs as they crowded out of the door. You don’t run at a panicky horse; Miri made a grab for Flame’s collar and discovered that he was already walking half a step behind her. ʺOh, god,ʺ said Jane. Peggy was riderless, and alone.

  She came to a bouncing, unhappy stop in the corner between the barn and the first arena, switching her forequarters back and forth as if looking for the way through. She turned around and saw them, let out a frantic whinny, and trotted toward them. Jane reached out quietly and took her bridle with a hand that trembled.

  ʺHer reins have been knotted and her stirrups run up,ʺ said Miri. ʺThey’ve sent her to us. Twilight—must have hurt herself. But they’re okay. They must be okay.ʺ

  ʺIf they were okay,ʺ said Jane grimly, ʺLeslie—or Mal—would have ridden Peggy back. Whoever ran the stirrups up didn’t dare leave the other one.ʺ

  Miri was already jogging toward the barn. She could see Balthazar’s head over his stall door: he always looked out when he heard her voice. Jane followed, leading Peggy. ʺYou still don’t know where to go,ʺ said Jane. It would be Miri and Balthazar that went looking; Balthazar was the most reliable horse they had, and he was at his steadiest with Miri.

  ʺNo,ʺ said Miri. ʺBut Flame does. Look at him.ʺ She’d let go his collar as soon as Jane had pulled Peggy’s reins over her head. He was standing at the nearer end of the old road, staring into the trees. His head and tail were high; as they looked at him he turned his head and looked at Miri, clearly saying, Hurry up. ʺYes,ʺ said Miri, and ran for the tack room.

  She led Balthazar to the mounting block and tested everything once more, forcing herself to pay attention; she was so preoccupied she wasn’t certain that she could be trusted to buckle a bridle, to tighten a girth, things she did several times a day, every day, and had done for years. She checked the first-aid kit and the thermos of hot coffee twice: but even these were familiar adjuncts from the ordinary weekend trail rides. She settled her helmet on her head and swung into the saddle. Both wind and rain were lessening, but they were still going to get wet. Peggy was tied up in the breezeway. Jane had made the coffee in the tiny barn kitchen and then pulled Peggy’s saddle off and was running her hands down her legs and looking at her feet, checking for any injury. Or possibly for any sign that whoever had sent her home was bleeding. She straightened up as Miri mounted.

  ʺGood luck,ʺ was all she said.

  Miri nodded. The moment Balthazar moved away from the block Flame took off. Miri asked Balthazar to trot. She already knew where they were going: they were going to the old graveyard.

  The wind seemed to drive the rain into her eyes; she kept shaking her head and holding the reins with one hand so she could wipe her eyes with the other. But Balthazar seemed to know that he was supposed to be following Flame, and Flame clearly knew where he was going. Occasionally Balthazar had to slow to a walk to pick his way, and Flame would stop and wait for them, but Flame, who was never impatient, paced or danced in place; and once he lost himself so far as to bark, a single, sharp, commanding sound. Balthazar raised his head as if to say, ʺYou might as well calm down; I know what I’m doing.ʺ Miri had to hope he did, because she couldn’t see well enough to guide him. It was not only the wind and rain; it was also getting dark. And she was lost. And should it be taking this long to get to the old graveyard?

  She thought, why am I so certain Flame is going to find Mal and Leslie? That if I follow him I’ll find them too? He glanced back just at that moment, his red eyes flaring weirdly in the twilight. He was an unearthly figure, and he seemed bigger, somehow, out here in the malign-feeling, restless, still-volatile end of the storm; he seemed nearly as big as Balthazar. Don’t be silly, Miri said to herself, but her thoughts wouldn’t shut up: he’s the sort of thing that ought to live at that graveyard, they gibbered on, with the ghosts, and the—the lamias, or the vampires, or whatever. Even if he is going to find Mal and Leslie he could just be leading me to the same fate. Why did I know him at once for a hellhound? She watched the long bristly-feathery red tail ahead of her for a moment, thinking about her first sight of him, at the pound, when he’d turned around and she’d seen his eyes for the first time, and seen the hopelessness in them. I might as well mistrust Balthazar, she thought. I’m just not going to.

  And at that moment she saw the old bent tree that stood or leaned over the path into the graveyard. And at the foot of it she saw a bulky shadow that she was sure wasn’t usually there . . . and then it moved, and she saw Leslie’s face looking up at her. Leslie was sitting on the ground holding one of Mal’s hands with both of hers . . . and Mal was lying in a strange, twisted position. . . .

  Miri nearly fell, getting off Balthazar. ʺIt’s okay,ʺ Mal said in a hollow hoarse voice nothing like his normal one. ʺI’m not dead or anything. It’s just . . . I can’t feel much below my neck.ʺ

  Leslie said, ʺIt had been such a lovely afternoon. Blue and clear and warm.ʺ

  No it hasn’t, thought Miri, startled. It’s been grey and thundery-feeling all day, in spite of the weather report. But she didn’t say anything. She was too busy staring at Mal. Don’t move him, she thought. Spine injury. Don’t move him. Mom’ll have called the ambulance by now—I’ll leave in a minute and tell them where to come. But she couldn’t help herself dropping to her knees beside him and picking up his hand. It was like picking up a stone or a grain bag or a baking dish to put in the oven, except that it was warm. There was no tension, no response—no life. Leslie was clinging to his other hand; her other hand alternated between wiping her face—it could have just been the rain, but Miri could see her crying—and stroking Mal’s hair. ʺSuch a lovely afternoon. Mal brought me here, we had our picnic here. The storm came out of nowhere. It was—it wasn’t right, that storm.ʺ

  ʺLeslie,ʺ said Mal, in his stranger’s voice.

  ʺIt wasn’t right,ʺ Leslie said, and Miri realized she was near hysterics, near breaking down completely. ʺThe lightning struck as if it was aiming for us. Twilight bolted—and that tree reached down and knocked Mal off. . . .ʺ

  ʺLeslie,ʺ Mal said again.

  It wasn’t the tree, thought Miri . . . and then she thought, how do I know that?

  Flame was standing beside them, at the end of the path, staring toward the graveyard as he had stared into the forest while he waited for Miri to tack Balthazar up and follow him. As he had stared up the path a few short weeks ago, when Miri and Leslie had come this way.

  ʺI ran Peggy’s stirrups up and—and knotted her reins,ʺ said Leslie.

  ʺShe did that all by herself,ʺ said Mal. ʺI didn’t tell her to. I was so proud of her.ʺ

  And Miri saw that he was crying too.

  ʺAnd led her onto the path and pointed her toward home and told her to go and she went,ʺ said Leslie. ʺAs if she knew. I didn’t dare leave Mal. I—In case of concussion, you know. You mustn’t leave someone alone if they might be concussed, in case they fall asleep or—or go into shock. . . .ʺ Her voice cracked on the last word.

  Miri was horribly aware of the inert hand she was holding. The fingers lay limply in hers; she had to hold on with an effort to prevent the hand from sliding away from hers and flopping back to the ground. She saw the two riding helmets and the remains of the picnic piled up behind where Leslie and Mal were. In the middle of the crisis that little heap of human gear—Mal’s useless helmet, which had not prevented what had happened—suddenly seemed the saddest thing she had ever seen.

  She laid the hand down gently and stood up. She had brought blankets and the useless first-aid kit and a thermos of
instant coffee with half a bag of sugar in it. She was embarrassed by the first-aid kit, by her adult-ed emergency training, by her ability to splint a broken bone on a healthy unbroken volunteer at the adult-ed center, while an EMT with a clipboard watched her. She’d never had to do more than put a Band-Aid on a graze, and once she’d created a sling for a sprained wrist. She unrolled the blankets and retied the first-aid kit to the back of Balthazar’s saddle. She uncapped the thermos and made Leslie and Mal each drink some of the hot too-sweet coffee; Leslie drank a few sips mechanically, and then held the plastic mug awkwardly for Mal. She does it better than I would have, Miri thought. They didn’t teach us that in the first-aid course. She laid one blanket over Mal as he lay, and tucked the other one around the sitting Leslie. Neither of them seemed to notice.

  It had stopped raining, and the wind had died, but the feeling of tension and fear didn’t ease. Almost as if they were in the eye of a hurricane.

  ʺI’d better go tell the ambulance crew where to come,ʺ she said. She paused. She had to say something, but the words didn’t exist. ʺWill you be okay?ʺ

  Leslie looked up, an expression on her face not unlike the one that had been on Flame’s, that day at the pound. She didn’t bother to try to smile, but she understood what Miri was saying. ʺYes,ʺ she said. ʺWe’ll be fine.ʺ And Miri clearly heard in her voice that she wouldn’t break down or have hysterics while Mal needed her.

  But when Miri turned away, to go back to Balthazar, to mount up and ride back as quickly as she still could—dusk would be black dark soon, and if they were following a flashlight she’d have to dismount and both of them walk—there was Flame, standing in her way. She tried to brush past him, but he wouldn’t let her. ʺFlame,ʺ she said, ʺwe have to go back—well, I have to go back. If you want to stay here and—and guard them, that’d be good. But I have to go.ʺ And she reached over him to pick up Balthazar’s reins.