25
Soul Aflame
Amber sat on the back porch and watched as the moon slid lazily over the Olympic Mountains and hovered at the peak of Mount Constance. The night was cool and quiet; she could almost hear the wind under the eagle's wings as he glided like a dark shadow over the glimmering waters of Hood Canal.
Meg and Twojoe had gone to bed hours ago, but Amber couldn't sleep. She was still too full of amazement and wonder at what this day had brought. In one brief moment, in the blink of an eye, everything had changed. Everything.
Amber had work—real work, bringing in real money. Twojoe wouldn't have to sell the llamas . . . or the farm . . . or his soul. They could all stay together, right here, where they belonged.
Maybe Susan was right—maybe God did answer prayers. Just not in the way we expected. And without a moment to spare, Amber admitted wryly. But no one seemed inclined to quibble over the timing.
They had all gone out to dinner to celebrate. Amber and Twojoe and Meg, Vernon and Emmaline Houston and little Sam—even the Reverend Doctor Susan Quentin—had piled into two cars and driven into Port Ludlow to have seafood at a restaurant overlooking Paradise Bay.
For two hours they had laughed and joked and hammered crabs and thrown shells at each other. Sam had circled the table gathering a box full of scraps to take home to Pocahontas. Meg and Susan marveled over the Miracle, as they called Amber's commission. Twojoe sat beside her, gazing at her, his expression filled with pride and wonder. The anxiety of the past few weeks was gone, replaced with joy and tranquillity. And at the head and foot of the restaurant table, Vernon and Emmaline Houston beamed over all of them like the proud parents of a slightly rowdy brood.
As Amber recalled the scene in her mind, a creeping awareness trickled through her veins and into her heart. For the first time in years, she had trusted—or at least she had tried to trust. And a response had come. But the wonder of it was that the answer turned out to be a gift much more valuable than simply the money they needed to save the farm.
A phrase floated to the surface of her mind, a verse Susan had quoted to her a couple times, something like "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief." She had looked it up later, that Bible story, and it seemed that Jesus had honored that honest prayer—just as Amber's feeble attempts had been honored. But as usual, God had done something different—and deeper—than anyone had expected. God had reached into the hidden places of Amber Chaney's soul and answered a need even she had not been able—or willing—to articulate.
God had given her back a family. Not kindred of blood, but of spirit. A protecting father. A doting mother. A sister who loved her. A mentor who challenged her to grow. A little brother who made her laugh and swelled her heart with delight. A big brother who—
Her heart accelerated as she recalled the look on Twojoe's face, his brown eyes dancing with candlelight. A look of pride. Of tenderness. Of . . . love.
He had been willing to sacrifice everything—the land, the llamas, his dreams—for Meg, and, somehow in a deeper way, for her.
For her.
God loved her. Twojoe loved her. And with a clarity that startled her, Amber realized that nothing inside her, no buried secret, no insecurity, would be terrible enough to undermine that love.
Almost physically, she could feel the change. At the epicenter of her spirit, in a place she had never been able to reach, that cold dark something, that lump of black ice, began to melt. As if the sun had started to reappear after a total eclipse, her bones began to warm from the inside out, her lungs exhaled a pent-up breath she had held for years.
Amber Chaney surrendered. And the cleansing tears came.
Heavy clouds had shrouded the moon, and the night had grown cold and damp. An owl hooted in the distance.
Amber didn't know how long she had sat there weeping. She only knew that she didn't feel depleted and exhausted, the way she usually did when she cried, but somehow filled and rested and energized—as if she had just arisen from a perfect night's sleep. Her heart overflowed, and her mind raced with ideas. She wanted to wake Twojoe, but it was late; she would talk to him in the morning. But since she was awake—perhaps more awake than she had ever been—she would go to her studio in the barn and do some preliminary sketches, to get some of these ideas down in more concrete form.
A small boy and a llama, Andrew Jorgensen had said. That's what the customer—probably one of those rich estate owners who kept llamas as pets—wanted. A life-sized sculpture, cast in bronze.
Life-sized. When Amber had first heard the request, her heart had quailed with fear, even though she knew she had to accept the commission. They needed the money. It was their way out.
Now, barely twelve hours later, she had a different perspective on the job. It was her way in. Into her own soul, into a place of joy, into an expression of everything that now filled her heart.
Amber could see it all, like a photograph burned into her brain, just the way she would sculpt it. She would use Lloser and Sam as her models—the enormous packer and the adoring little boy. Lloser lying with his feet folded under him, his long neck stretched upward, his gentle face looking down at the innocent child who slept with his head on the llama's thick woolen coat. She would capture the expression of love on the llama's guileless countenance, the implicit trust in the relaxed form of the boy, warm and protected, smiling in his sleep. She would call it the Guardian.
By the time she got to the barn, Amber could feel the creative impulse flowing through her veins like wine. She didn't bother with the overhead lights, but went directly to her sculpting table, turned on the big lamp over her work area, and pulled out a sketch pad from the bin underneath.
Then she smelled something—a strong, pungent odor. Recognizable. What was that stench? It was almost like . . . gasoline.
Amber rose from her stool, intending to find the source of the odor, but before she had a chance to follow it, she eyed something in the corner and stopped. In the farthest corner of the enormous old barn, where she should have been able to see nothing but blackness, her eyes discerned a faint, flickering light. A spreading light. A distant crackling noise came to her ears. Another smell—
Smoke.
The barn was on fire!
Panicked, Amber looked around. There was a fire extinguisher hanging in here somewhere, but where? On the front wall, maybe. The lamp over her sculpting table cast a little light in that direction, but not nearly enough to help her find it. She ran to the wall and groped around, knocking down a rake and a pitchfork before her hands grasped the cylinder and pulled it from its bracket.
There was no time to go for help. The barn was old, and the dry walls were like tinder. Hay was scattered about over most of the floor. By the time she would get back to the house, it would be too late.
Pulling the nozzle out and extending the hose as she ran, Amber dashed toward the back corner of the barn where the flames were already as high as her head, and spreading quickly. She pointed the hose at the base of the fire and felt a rush of relief as foam poured out and smothered the blaze.
But her relief was short-lived.
When Amber turned, she saw a line of fire snaking across the floor, flaring up against the south wall, slithering toward the door.
And a few yards from the doorway stood a dark figure holding something bulky in one hand.
Spraying foam as she went, Amber lunged in his direction. The fire blazed up around her, and just before she hit him, she caught a glimpse of a face and a big red gasoline can.
The heavy cylinder found its mark, striking the man in the head and sending him reeling. But Amber was trapped now, with the fire behind her and the man between her and the door. He regained his feet and staggered in her direction, blood rushing from a crescent-shaped cut above his right eye. If she could just get past him—
She hesitated a fraction of a second too long.
As she tried to make a run for it, the metal gas can came crashing into the back of her skull. Amber felt h
erself falling, falling, into a bottomless pit. The stench of gasoline overpowered her. An eternity away, she heard bumping noises, like feet running.
And then the darkness closed in.
Under the dark, heavy clouds, in the dense trees at the edge of the property Shiv hunkered down, watching. He could see flames coming out of the door of the hayloft and up through one portion of the roof.
He cursed under his breath. If it hadn't been for the woman, this job would have gone perfectly.
Blood trickled down from the cut on his head, and he touched it gingerly with one finger. He hadn't had time to set the fire properly, hadn't spread nearly enough gasoline around. If only the woman hadn't surprised him. Now she was in there, and if he hadn't killed her with the gas can, the fire would most likely get her. It was too late to go back.
He swore again, clenching his fist and banging it against one knee. Underwood told him the woman should be lost, should disappear. He had made it very clear that killing her was not an option. Now everything was going wrong.
Shiv hadn't signed on for murder. He wasn't going back upstate for the rest of his life on somebody else's ticket. And if the woman was dead, prison would be the least of his worries.
She shouldn't have been out there in the middle of the night, anyway. He couldn't have known she would show up. It was an accident, that's all.
He heard a rustling sound above him. It was beginning to rain—that slow, steady kind of drizzle that could go on all night. Blast! Well, he'd just have to sit tight and see it through. It might be a long night, but he wasn't going anywhere until the job was over and done with.
What he needed was a drink to steady his nerves. He reached into his jacket and retrieved a small flask. He took a long pull, relaxing as the burning liquid slid down his throat and warmed his belly. Then a second one, just a little one for good measure.
That was better. He felt calmer now, more in control. He shook a cigarette out of a mashed pack and reached for his lighter. It was his favorite—a sleek, silver one with his initials engraved on one side. Where was it? He knew he had it. He had used it just a little while ago . . .
In the barn.
Frantically he stood up patting down all his pockets—his jacket, his pants, even his shirt.
But the lighter wasn't there.
26
The Guardian
Dark. Everything was dark.
Something was tickling her face. Tiny little gnats, maybe, or feathers floating on the wind. She raised one hand to brush them away and felt two sensations at once: something moving, velvety, on her cheek, and a searing pain up her fingers and through her arm.
If she could just go back to sleep for a little while . . .
But some kind of noise kept blaring in her ears, wailing like a banshee. An alarm clock? She moved to shut if off, but the pain came again—in her hands, her arms, her neck, her back, inside her head. Her skull felt as if it might explode; white-hot lightning forked through her brain in agonizing throbs.
All right, all right, I'm getting up, she thought, but when she went to say the words aloud, she found her tongue swollen and stuck to the roof of her mouth. She couldn't swallow. Couldn't get her eyelids to open.
She flung out one arm, searching for the clock, groping for the snooze button. Still the alarm went on, howling high above her. Her hand reached out, gripped something. But it wasn't a clock. It was alive. And it moved.
With great effort Amber pried one eye open to see what looked like a slender tree trunk, covered in shaggy, chamois-colored wool. Her mind wrapped groggily around the image. It was a foot. Attached to a leg. An enormous llama foot.
She gasped in a lung full of air and began coughing. Smoke stung her eyes and made everything swim, but she raised her head to see Lloser standing over her, his neck stretched to full length, caterwauling madly.
Then she remembered. The barn. The man silhouetted in the doorway. The smell of gasoline. The fire.
She attempted to get up, but her head reeled. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick. Then her mind cleared, aided by small splashes of cold water dripping on her face. She peered upward into a yawning chasm above her. Part of the barn roof had fallen in and lodged in the rafters overhead. Rain was pouring in.
Holding onto Lloser for support, Amber struggled to her feet and looked around. Some of the flames, apparently, had been doused by the rain, but on the far side of the barn, fire still licked up the posts and consumed whatever dry wood it found. It had reached her sculpting table. She watched as it curled upward, dancing around the broad wooden legs, up over the top, further up toward the shelves that stretched between the posts, toward the sculpture of the man in the chair, toward the plaster cast of. . .
The Two Sisters.
Amber's breath caught in her throat. Jorgensen had already sold the sculpture; she had to get that cast.
Before her, the flames seemed to be gathering strength, leaping higher toward the shelf. At her back, Lloser was still screaming. She staggered forward a couple of steps.
She turned and looked over her shoulder, past the llama, past the rain-soaked circle where she had lain. The barn door stood open, beckoning her away from the fire, into the night, into the rain, into a place of safety.
It only took a split second to make up her mind.
Twojoe sat bolt upright in bed and strained his ears. His heart pounded as if he'd been running. There had been a noise, something.
Sometime during the night, rain had begun to fall, but that wasn't it. It was more like a shriek, an ear-piercing call. He stared at the silent telephone, then at the clock on his bedside table. The luminous dial indicated that it was a little after two. The house was quiet. He must have been dreaming.
Twojoe punched his pillow into a ball and started to lie back down when the noise came again. A strident bellow. But this time he was wide awake. He had heard the sound before, a year or two ago, when three wild dogs had gotten into the pasture. It was the alarm call of a male llama.
He thrust his legs into his jeans, grabbed his boots and jacket, and slammed open the door that led from his small apartment into the main part of the house. By the time he got to the front door, Meg was downstairs in her pajamas.
"What is it?"
"It's Lloser, I think. An alarm call. Something's in the pasture."
Twojoe pulled on his boots and jacket and flung open the door. Amid the misty rain, a pall of thin, gray smoke hung over the front yard. The acrid scent stung his nostrils and made his eyes water. "Call the fire department!"
Meg went for the phone. Twojoe grabbed the flashlight that hung on a hook next to the door and set out on a dead run toward the pasture. The bawling continued, growing louder by the minute. When he finally came around a bend in the path, he flashed his light around to see the cause of the disturbance. The barn door yawned like an open maw, and above, from the hayloft, black smoke billowed into the dark night. Beyond the barn, he caught a glimpse of the gate standing open. That earsplitting shriek came not from the pasture, but from inside the barn.
Twojoe covered his eyes with his arm and fought his way into the barn.
The doorway was so thick with smoke that his flashlight could barely penetrate three feet ahead of him. Then suddenly the smoke cleared; he saw light. . . and movement.
He took it all in with a single glance: the blackened barn, the hole in the roof, the huge llama standing with his feet planted on the floor, sounding the alarm. The flames racing across Amber's sculpting table, consuming the studio corner of the structure. And the silhouette of someone headed directly toward the fire, lurching unsteadily, falling to her knees, then reaching upward.
"NOOOOOO!" The scream came up from somewhere deep inside of Twojoe, louder than Lloser's bellowing. He lunged after Amber, pulling her back, dragging her roughly over the charred floor.
She fought him, clawing at his sleeve with hands that looked like burnt steak. "Let me go! Let me—I have to—" Then, just as he got her to the
door, she lapsed into unconsciousness.
He laid her on the wet grass outside the barn and knelt down beside her. Lloser, apparently satisfied that his job was done, had followed them out and stood quietly gazing down at her.
"Stay with me, Amber," Twojoe urged. "Breathe!" His face was wet from the rain, maybe, or from his own tears. He did a few CPR compressions, then placed his mouth over hers and exhaled into her. In the distance he could hear sirens drawing closer and he muttered a fierce prayer under his breath that they would get there in time.
27
First Contact
Diedre hung over the rail on the observation deck of the ferry and stared into the dark waters of Puget Sound. She ought to be enjoying the scenery, but she could not quell the churning of her stomach.
"Need something to eat?" Carlene pointed back toward the passageway that led to the cafe area. "A donut or something? I think you can even get a full breakfast if you want it."
Diedre groaned. "I couldn't eat anything if my life depended on it."
"Butterflies?"
She slanted a glance toward Carlene, who stood holding Sugarbear's leash. "More like fire-breathing dragons."
"Try not to think about it." Carlene lifted Sugarbear up to the rail and waved her paws in the air. "Look, Mommy!" she said in a high squeaky voice, as if she were a ventriloquist throwing her voice into the dog. "Look, I see dolphins!"
Diedre looked. Sure enough, a small pod of dolphins ran beside the ferry, arching their fins out of the water and zipping ahead toward the massive prow. As if everyone on board had heard, a group of passengers surged to the left side of the ferry. But none of them paid any attention to the dolphins. Instead, they all raised their eyes outward, toward the horizon.
"What is everybody staring at?"
The young man next to her turned and grinned. He appeared to be a college student, wearing a flannel shirt and faded jeans and carrying a backpack over one shoulder. "The mountain is out."
The Amber Photograph Page 17