Playing with Fire

by April Henry

  As Natalia’s eyes began to adapt, she picked out more details: a tree trunk, a bush, a patch of ferns. A line of silver on the ground caught her eye. It was one of Susan’s trekking poles. She picked it up. “Susan! Susan, where are you?” A few feet farther on, she found the second. Why had she discarded them? With a jolt of fear, Natalia thought of the drop to the water, far below. Was the reason they couldn’t find Susan because she was no longer here to be found?

  But then she caught a glimpse of something lighter than its surroundings. “Susan?” She squinted. The older woman stood tucked inside a small, gnarled tree, nearly hidden by the branches. She had switched off her headlamp. Only her pale face gave her away.

  Turning back, Natalia cupped her hands around her mouth. “I found Susan! She’s okay!” Then she beckoned the older woman. “Come on out!”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Susan squeezed through the branches, scratching her arms in the process.

  “Careful, Susan!” Natalia swiped at the beaded blood on Susan’s skin with the tissue Wyatt had advised her to save.

  The older woman lifted her chin. “Honey, you’re the one who should be careful. We aren’t alone.”

  Natalia’s blood chilled. “What do you mean?”

  “I saw…” Susan’s voice trailed off. She gestured behind Natalia.

  Natalia whirled around again, but all she saw were the lights of the other searchers bobbing toward them. Turning back, she grabbed Susan’s arm. “What did you see?”

  But now Susan was looking down at her bloody scratches. “What happened to my arms?”

  Wyatt hurried up, followed by the other searchers. He hugged both of them, but Natalia’s hug lasted quite a bit longer. Long enough that she almost forgot about her fear and Susan’s confusion.

  When he let go, she said, “Susan was just taking a little break.” It was too embarrassing to bring up the older woman’s confusion right in front of her. Natalia returned the trekking poles to Susan.

  Back at the bridge, they set off down Twisted Trail. Once they were among the trees, it was too dark for Natalia to rely on her night vision. She snapped her headlamp back on and tried to see past the eddying smoke. While the trees sheltered them from seeing the worst of the flames, they did nothing to block the snapping and crackling at their backs. It almost sounded like the fire was breathing.

  The smoke was irritating her eyes, and she had to keep wiping them. Her boots felt as heavy as boulders. She really had to pee, but she was trying to ignore the urge.

  Wyatt fell into step beside her.

  “Tell me again,” she said. “Why do you think this hiking thing is so great?”

  “I like getting in touch with nature.” He gave her a lopsided grin that was almost enough to distract her from the suffocating feeling of the trees pressing up against the trail, the thought of the fire at their backs.

  “In touch with? This is more like getting mauled. You do realize mankind has spent literally thousands of years thinking up ways to get further away from nature?”

  “Okay. Then I like challenging myself.” He steadied her with a hand under her elbow. “Remember what Nietzsche said. ‘Whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.’”

  Natalia snorted. “The corollary is: ‘Whatever does kill you makes you dead.’”

  “I like a girl who knows the word corollary.” Wyatt gave her elbow a squeeze and then let go.

  “It’s a little late for flattery.” Still, flirting helped her forget the deadly reality for a few moments.

  “I’ll try anything if you’ll just forgive me.” His tone turned serious. “I know I got you into this mess. I promise I’ll get you out.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. He clearly meant it, but would meaning it be enough?

  As they trudged farther down Twisted Trail, conversations dwindled to silence, except for Marco’s continual light cough. Every now and then Zion would whisper an instruction to guide his grandfather around an obstacle. Occasionally the trail tacked in a different direction for no reason Natalia could see except to give Twisted Trail its name. Every now and then she surreptitiously checked the time on her phone. Still zero bars. Soon it would technically be a new day.

  The trees thinned out and the path started to rise, rocky and steep. Her thighs burned. She could tell the red spot on her toe had become a blister.

  A distant rumble began to fill the air. She tilted her head, trying to identify the sound.

  And then they turned for a switchback, and she saw what was making the noise. The path led directly to a waterfall.

  Natalia grabbed Wyatt’s arm. “What are we going to do? The trail just ends.”

  “You just can’t see it. That’s Hideaway Falls. It’s called that because you actually hike behind the waterfall.”

  Normally, that information alone would have been enough to make her freak out, to worry about slippery rocks, about falling into the thundering white water. But now she had eyes only for the narrow trail leading to the falls. It had been carved into the middle of what was basically a cliff. One side was just a rocky wall.

  The other was a straight drop a hundred feet down.

  CHAPTER 13

  A FLASH OF SILVER

  11:37 P.M.

  EVERYONE CAME TO A stop, staring at the faint line of the trail that hugged the cliff face and then disappeared under the thundering falls.

  “What’s wrong?” Darryl swiveled his head blindly.

  “The path ahead is really high up, Grandpa,” Zion answered. “Like on a cliff. And there’s nothing to stop us from falling off.”

  Ryan grimaced. “The trail also goes behind a waterfall. It’s going to be like walking on the lip of a glass—while it’s being filled up.”

  Lisa poked a finger at Wyatt. “Did you know about this back when we started on Twisted?”

  He sighed. “What good would it have done if I’d told you guys? It’s not exactly like we have a choice. This is the way we have to go if we want to escape the fire. Besides, there’s a cable set into the wall you can hold on to.”

  Even Jason look daunted. “Dude, there’s got to be another way. Didn’t you say we could bushwhack if we had to?”

  Wyatt pointed into the darkness. “There’s a river down there. And it’s a long way down on nothing but scree—those small loose rocks. Even if we managed to get to the bottom without spraining an ankle, we’d have to cross the river. The river’s still running high with snow melt, so we’d have to swim.” Wyatt didn’t need to spell it out. Would Zion get swept up by the current? What about Ryan, already weakened by his burns? “And we’d have to leave our stuff behind. People have drowned when they tried to swim with their packs on.”

  “I say we stick to the trail,” Susan said. Then she glanced down, and her certainty evaporated. “Wait, what happened to my arms?” Her fingers traced the scratches she had gotten from hiding.

  “You got caught up in a tree,” Natalia said, biting her lip so she wouldn’t add, “remember?” Because it was clear the older woman didn’t.

  They started off. Wyatt was in the lead and Jason in the rear. Natalia was somewhere in the middle, between Darryl and Beatriz. With each step, the trail got higher and narrower, until it was basically a five-foot-wide shelf on the side of a cliff. She was careful to look only a few feet ahead, her headlamp illuminating just the path, which followed the natural curves and folds of the cliff.

  Wyatt had to shout to be heard over the waterfall. He raised his left hand above his head and waggled it to get their attention. “Here’s the cable.” He reached down and grabbed it.

  When Natalia reached the cable, she clamped on so tightly she could feel the individual strands of metal that had been twisted together to form it. It was hard to let herself loosen her grip enough to move forward.

  Ahead of her, people began to chant. Once she understood the words, she joined in. “Keep to the left, hold the cable.” Her feet fell into rhythm with the words. “Keep to the left, hold the cable.�
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  With the others, Natalia crept along the trail, only releasing the cable each time she needed to slip past an eye bolt set into the rocks. On one side, the cable and the rough cliff wall. On the other, nothing but air and a fall that would surely kill her. She hugged the near edge so tightly that her left shoulder kept scraping against randomly protruding rocks.

  The night, she slowly realized, was actually her friend. Because of it, she couldn’t see the rocks or the water far below. She was only imagining them. Even with the fire behind them, if it had been daylight, she might have refused to attempt this. But if she was careful to focus on the physical details of what was right in front of her, the way Dr. Paris had taught her, her fears would stay imaginary.

  Natalia mentally cataloged sensory details to keep herself from getting lost in what-ifs. In the light of her headlamp, her eyes picked out a tiny tree somehow managing to grow from the side of the cliff. Darryl’s gnarled hand on the cable. Past Darryl, a glimpse of Zion’s tight curls.

  The one relief was the air was less smoky here. She took deep breaths, enjoying the clean taste of it. As they got closer to the waterfall, tiny drops of cold water freckled her face.

  The trail curved to the left. At the same time the edge of the cliff started to curl above them, until it was a seamless curve forming both wall and ceiling. Ahead of them, the falls fell past the trail like a curtain.

  “Keep to the left, hold the cable. Keep to the left, hold the cable.” In order to be heard above the thundering water, they were now half shouting. Something about hearing her voice twining with all the others made Natalia feel stronger.

  Walking behind the waterfall was like entering a cave. Behind her, Jason played the light of his phone over their surroundings. The glistening rock roof was a few feet above their heads. To their right was a thick curtain of gray-and-white water. Its thunder was all she could hear. The air was saturated with droplets that sparkled in the phone’s light. It was like being sprayed by a giant plant mister.

  Once they were out of the falls. Natalia began to relax. The roar slowly faded. The path was starting to slope downward. Eventually they would reach the bottom. The worst was over. They had made it through unscathed.

  Then behind her, almost drowned out by the falls, she heard a faint cry. There was a flash of silver in her peripheral vision as Beatriz’s duct tape shoe flew up in the air.

  Without thinking, Natalia released the cable and turned. She reached out and managed to grab Beatriz’s right wrist as she slipped off the path. The sudden jerk of the other girl’s weight almost yanked her over, but then Marco caught Beatriz’s other wrist.

  But Beatriz was still dangling in darkness, with nothing under her feet.

  Natalia gritted her teeth and bent her knees in a half squat. Beatriz’s weight was inexorably pulling her forward. Her hiking boots found little purchase on the slick rocks. Blue was barking, but everyone else had stopped moving, stopped chanting.

  But then Darryl’s hands clamped below hers on Beatriz’s wrist. Together, the three of them pulled Beatriz back onto the trail. She landed on her belly, then pushed herself to her hands and knees. Her chest was heaving. Marco threw himself down next to her and began to stroke her hair, murmuring into her ear.

  Straightening up, Natalia put her back flat against the cliff wall. She was shaking so hard she felt like she might fall apart. Around her, people’s faces were still distorted with shock. Wyatt squeezed past everyone to hug her. She was finally relaxing against his strong chest, when Lisa’s angry voice interrupted.

  “What the hell, Wyatt! Did you even think about how you’ve got Trask on your back?” she demanded. “What if you had lost your balance just so you could give your girlfriend a hug? Then both of you could have—” Grimacing, she put her hands over her mouth and took a step back. Abruptly, she tipped sideways.

  With a cry, she dropped into the dark.

  CHAPTER 14

  EVERY BREATH

  SIX YEARS EARLIER

  NATALIA DUCKED HER HEAD to look at the burner she’d set the covered pot of water on. Despite the clicking, the gas flame had not started up. It smelled like rotten eggs. She twisted the knob to the off position.

  Her mom had complained about this burner before. But what exactly did she do when it wouldn’t light? Then Natalia remembered. There was a box of wooden matches on the top shelf of the cupboard, kept as far away from Conner as possible.

  The flame of the first match went out when Natalia tried to move it toward the stove. The second died before she even turned the knob. The third time she turned the knob before she scraped the match along the rough brown stripe on the outside of the box. It took three tries before it caught.

  Woof! A ball of orange exploded in front of her. The right cuff of her long-sleeved shirt caught fire. She watched it race up her arm like a magic trick she didn’t understand.

  She had to run for the sink, her arm a torch in front of her. Every step fed more air to the flames. As she turned on the faucet, the fire from her sleeve caught the muslin curtains framing the kitchen window. It raced up one side and then leapt onto the wallboard and found a foothold. It expanded as it burned, making a V shape on the white-painted wall as it made its way to the ceiling.

  Meanwhile, Natalia’s sleeve was still burning. She leaned forward to get the full length of her sleeve under the blast of water. She finally succeeded in dousing the flames on her shirt, but the fire no longer needed her. Bits of burning curtain landed on a dish towel and an open cookbook. Then the cupboard over the cookbook started to burn, as well as the cardboard boxes inside it, and the cereal, crackers, and cookies inside the boxes. Overhead the smoke alarm buzzed like a mosquito, barely audible over the hungry roar of the fire.

  She turned. The stovetop itself was on fire, fed by oily residue in the burner wells.

  A glass sat on the countertop. Natalia grabbed it and stuck it under the faucet. Even before it was full, she was throwing its contents. She put out a few of the flames, but the fire kept spreading. It had reached the ceiling now, rolling overhead and doubling in size every minute.

  Suddenly she remembered she had more to worry about than just herself. Conner was upstairs. She dropped the glass in the sink and ran.

  By the time she reached the stairs, the hot cloud of black smoke had thickened and deepened. It inched down to the top of the kitchen doorway, then quickly streamed out of the room, traveling through the hall and following her up the stairway. By the time she reached his bedroom door, smoke was pooling around her ankles.

  As she swung it open, the fire leapt on the fresh oxygen. The backdraft knocked her to the floor. Gasping for breath, she took in only bitter fumes. Gagging, she crawled across the carpet. Her one thought was to save Conner.

  But when she reached his bed, it was empty. Empty! How could that be? She frantically ran her hands over the rumpled covers, searching for him by touch as much as sight. Thick black choking smoke was filling the room.

  And then she thought to look under the bed. She dropped to her belly. And there he was, absolutely still, eyes wide, clutching his blankie.

  She reached out, grabbed his small arm, and dragged him out. He was nearly limp, and she didn’t know if it was from the smoke or sheer, primal terror. In order to carry him, she had to stand up. Stand up into the dark, choking smoke. Clutching him to her chest, she staggered blindly toward his bedroom window. When she raised it, the air gave the flames another boost. Ashes and smoke blew past her as the fire was sucked toward the fresh supply of oxygen.

  Behind her was the fire, now racing into the room. Below her was a fifteen-foot drop to the concrete driveway. She pushed out the screen and heard it clatter when it landed.

  Natalia’s only thought was for her brother. Every breath was searing her lungs. His were so much smaller. She grabbed Conner’s wrists and then lowered him out the window so he could breathe. He finally made a sound, a wordless protest when his blankie fell onto the driveway. She inched forward until
her hip bones rested on top of the sill. It was as far as she could go.

  Conner dangled from her hands. Behind her, his bedroom was now on fire. The house was on fire. It felt like the whole world was on fire. A chunk of burning ceiling landed on Natalia’s thigh. She had no way of getting it off, not without risking her brother’s life. It didn’t even hurt that much.

  At least not at first.

  Her grip did not loosen. There was nothing underneath Conner to break his fall. Not a tree or a bush. Not even a patch of grass. Just the unforgiving asphalt of the driveway.

  The smoke billowing from behind her was so thick she could no longer see Conner dangling from her hands. He wasn’t twisting or moving. He was now absolutely still. Was he still breathing? Was he even conscious?

  “Help!” she screamed into the blackness. “Help us!”

  But there was no answer. Next to her, the windows in her parents’ bedroom suddenly blew out. A piece of glass sliced her chin as flames shot out.

  Half her body was outside the window. The heat and smoke behind her were pushing her farther out.

  No one was coming. If she did nothing, she would burn to death and he would fall. The only possible way to save him was to bring him back inside, clutch him to her chest and throw herself back out of the window, hoping that her body would cushion him. That she would absorb the force of the fall.

  She adjusted her grip, getting ready to haul him back up. And suddenly, Conner came to life. It was like trying to clutch a twisting fish.

  She tried to hold on to his wrists. Then his hands. Then his fingers.

  Then Conner was gone.

  And Natalia pushed herself out into the air after him.

  CHAPTER 15