by Cai Emmons
How heavy her body is. Stuck to the ground, sessile, she’ll never rise again. But how light she is too, pure energy capable of rising and finding a thermal on which to travel. The tone she hears, she now realizes, is the sound of her own breathing, the music that keeps her alive. She counts its rise and fall, until she swoons back into sleep.
35
A gate and fence block the entrance to the driveway so Matt parks by the side of the road and inspects the fence in both directions looking for a way around. When he fails to find one, he scales the eight-foot gate at some peril, the pointed tip of one of the iron spikes catching his pants and ripping the crotch. On the ground on the other side of the fence, he brushes himself off and assesses the damage; the tear is pretty obvious, but nothing can be done now. He takes the packed dirt driveway through the smoke-scented woods on foot. This rustic approach surprises him. Except for the gate nothing would indicate that this is the home of a movie star. But Metcalf said she wasn’t the typical star. Woo-woo, is how Metcalf described her. Beautiful, but a little too dedicated to strange ritual for Metcalf’s taste. Metcalf worked on one of her movies and before production began, when she was still considering the role, he was asked to bring her a script, so he drove up here and drank hibiscus tea with her. It was exciting to sit in a movie star’s elegant home and drink tea as if she was your friend, but it wasn’t relaxing. Metcalf wanted something to come of it, some career advantage, but he knew he was stupid to hope for that. He was just a PA, a grunt, and in the end, something about her—the way she spoke with a pseudo-English accent one minute, the next minute with a tinge of a Southern drawl, and the way she stared at him in the long silences—made him so uncomfortable he was happy to leave.
Matt is at least fifty yards from the house when the front door opens and a woman he presumes to be Lyndon steps out. Even at this distance it’s clear she’s furious.
“Stop!” she shouts. “Don’t come any closer.”
He raises his hands instinctively. He really hoped this wouldn’t happen, hopes she doesn’t pack a gun. “Hi!” He smiles aggressively, showing his teeth as a sign of good will.
“Who are you? You’re trespassing. Get out now!”
“I’m Matt Vassily. A journalist.” Stupid to admit—stars always despise the paparazzi. “I wanted to talk to you about your tweets. That woman you saw who said she would put out the fire—I think I know her.” He feels ridiculous yelling over such distance, his arms raised as if he’s a felon.
Her stance shifts a little, but not in any way he can interpret. “I’ve told the world everything I know. There’s nothing more.”
“I need to find her, and I thought you—”
“How did you know I live here? How did you get through the gate?”
He tries to make light of it, making a face and pointing down at his torn pants. “My friend Metcalf brought you a script once. He’s a PA. He told me where you live.”
She descends the front steps to the driveway, stately, accustomed to being watched. In form-fitting black exercise pants and filmy turquoise blouse that flutters with her every movement, she is sexy and leggy and, except for her pony-tailed hair, she looks remarkably similar to the way she looked in the movie he saw. He is unexpectedly star-struck.
“You can put your hands down,” she says when she’s about ten feet from him.
He lowers his arms and they size each other up. Matt feels acutely aware of his short stature and the hole in his crotch.
“So you know Nancy?” she says.
“Nancy?”
“The woman who said she was going to put out the fire.”
“Are you talking about a small woman with red hair?”
Lyndon nods. “Very intense.”
He nods. “Her name is Bronwyn.”
“How do we know we’re discussing the same woman?”
“Are there lots of small, intense, red-haired women passing through here claiming to be able to put out fires?” Matt says.
Lyndon laughs, much to Matt’s relief. “You’ve got a point there. Why do you need to locate her?”
“It’s complicated. Kind of a long story.”
“I’ve got time,” Lyndon drawls.
36
Thirst drives her. She senses her cells wizening, slowing, failing to remember their specific tasks. Fighting vertigo, she forces herself to stand. The water in both her bottles is long gone, she should have known to bring more. Her head throbs. The sun bears down with greedy animosity. She turns her back on the depressing expanse of scorched landscape and begins to walk in the other direction where trees and bushes are still intact. A slow deliberate plodding, drawn by the promise of water. She should be trying to retrace her steps, but there are no visible steps to retrace, no signs of her passage through this scrubby forest.
Her body aches and itches everywhere, but she tries to ignore it. She imagines rain, lifting her head to it, mouth spread wide as a cistern to receive the drops in the gradual way of the earth. But it won’t rain, not now—she is far too exhausted to bring it on—and if it did, it would wash away the entire hillside, taking her with it. She plods on, remembering the cascading water of the Swift River where she and Lanny camped at the beginning of summer, not so long ago, but eons ago.
She walks with her eyes closed, weaving, aimless, forgetting who she is and why she is here, wondering how far she might be from dying. Her body is numb and yet it moves, slowly, compulsively, bent on preserving itself. Through the empty cauldron of her mind vagabond thoughts keep trundling. Wind soughing; someone hula hooping; Karla Dickman, a college friend who once was mugged. She hasn’t thought of Karla Dickman in years, why would she come to mind now? Arpeggios of laughter float by, Diane’s laughter, close then receding. Diane can’t possibly be out here. She opens her eyes to check. No Diane.
She thinks of the creature staring at her. That thoughtful gaze. She remembers opening her eyes on darkness, closing them quickly, refusing to acknowledge the presence of night.
Her knees buckle. She lies on her side on the ground, yielding to exhaustion. Where is her phone? Would it work here? The thought passes. Her vision sputters, makes dots and sequins of the sere landscape.
The voices of the birds sound human, rising and falling, considering things in the way of humans, ruminating, stopping and starting, sometimes solo, sometimes contrapuntal. She always imagined death would be silent.
Bronwyn, the birds say. Bronwyn. They speak quietly, reciting her name like a mantra. So touching really.
She opens her eyes. A person crouches over her, shading her from the sun. Two people. A man and a woman.
She blinks. Their faces press down, ponderous, querying, carrying signifiers she can’t read. She may be mute, but her mind is alive. She must find a voice and let them know she is present.
37
She lies on her back on Metcalf’s futon in death-like sleep, unnaturally still, her face smooth and pale as wax, arms at her sides, palms up. Every once in a while she mutters something incomprehensible.
Matt can’t relax. After they found her they got her back to Lyndon’s house, and she drank glass after glass of cold water and slept for two hours, and then Lyndon helped her shower. She was returning to normal, though she still wasn’t saying much, and both he and Lyndon thought she should be checked by a doctor. Bronwyn was downright fierce in her refusal. I just need to sleep a little more, she insisted, which is exactly what she’s been doing since they got back to Metcalf’s.
He has the feeling he has custody of a rare bird, some endangered species of great importance to the world, entrusted to him. It is his charge to keep her safe. He needs to make sure she’s still breathing. He can’t leave her side or take his eyes off her. And he has an odd feeling that her skin is emitting something, rays of light or energy or—it’s a crazy thought but he wishes he had something like a Geiger counter to test his hunch.
A text comes in from Lyndon—How’s she doing?—A movie star! Who would think?!—Still sleep
ing, he texts back. He’s glad Metcalf won’t be back until almost midnight. It is shortly after noon now.
He takes a leak, staring into the foamy stream of his urine, wondering what he should do next and trying to remember when he last ate. His entire life has changed in a matter of days, and now a new agenda is taking shape in this unfamiliar city without his consciously willing it. He must stand by, see how things play out, hope for the best—what else can he do? He brought this on himself. Hearing movement in the living room, he zips up and hurries out. She’s crouching by the side of the futon, pawing for something in her backpack. She looks up at him, eyes engorged with such alarm he stops where he is.
“You’re awake,” he says quietly.
The medley of sounds, distant and near, must be parsed. The fire’s gnashing. The ocean’s murmur. A hawk’s caviling cry as it comes in for its prey. Closer, in this room, a man’s breathing, incomprehensible words that match the percussion of his heart.
How can he be here, this man with the unusual beret of hair, in this place so far from where she first saw him? She squints, a substitute for the questions she might pose. Words still evade her.
“Are you alright?” he says. He’s keeping his distance, as if she might bite, as if he, too, sees her as the creature she feels herself to be. He isn’t unkind though, only curious.
“I won’t bite,” she says, finding a voice, laughing a little. “My phone. I think I might have lost it.” She resumes her search. There isn’t time to waste, not with the other fire still on the loose.
“Can I do something to help?”
She hears, but can’t respond. The rhythm of conversation is alien and stilted. The fire’s rasp dominates her again, its seduction magnetic and tyrannical. Ah-ha. She palms the phone and holds it up for him to see. They both smile. His smile is boosting. It singles her out and carries conspiracy.
“Could you drive me to my car?”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She hesitates. Then, what the hell. “There’s another fire out there, still burning.”
“Shouldn’t you rest some more?”
“There isn’t time.”
She watches his face play with resistance. She isn’t sure what he knows, what he has seen. She shuffles memories of events that have no obvious linear order. No one was there with her at the fire. But later—he was one of the ones who found her.
“What do you know?” she asks, a question that enfolds a multitude of questions like the bundled strands of DNA. How did you come to be here in this city? Where are we? Do you understand what I do?
She is suddenly lively, fluttering with nervous energy, apparently recovered. What a relief. When they first found her unconscious on the ground, on the edge of the charred woods, he thought she might be dead. It took several minutes before her eyes opened, and she couldn’t speak. Now she stands in apparent health and brushes herself off, a clean floral scent wafting from her loose hair. Her expression is unmistakable. Can I trust you? it asks. He has not formally explained himself, which was a primary reason for coming here, but all of what he would try to explain happened in a past that holds little relevance now.
“Well?” she says.
“All I know is that something unusual is happening here.” He smiles faintly. “That’s about it.”
“Are you with me?”
“I guess so. Yes. Sure.”
38
It is not the cylindrical white scanning machine itself that resembles a casket, but the position that Diane must assume inside it, arms and legs straight, head centered, everything cadaver-still. She can almost hear lugubrious funeral music and see mourners filing by, whispering and peering down to see how she’s faring in death, some gloating a bit, glad her life’s tenure is finally done. It’s cold in here and she can’t suppress a shiver. The high, saccharine voice of the young female technician comes over the intercom.
“How’re we doing?”
“We’re fine,” Diane says, trying not to be curt, but not succeeding. The woman failed to appreciate Diane’s earlier comments about cryogenics so there’s no reason to assume her sense of humor has improved now.
The scanner has begun rotating slowly. Its movement is disturbingly quiet, covert as the moon managing the earth’s tides. Diane closes her eyes, trying to will her neurotransmitters into firing robustly. Joe is convinced nothing is wrong, and she has tried to convince herself too, telling herself this is merely a procedure to confirm nothing is wrong, but the fillip of uncertainty inflated as soon as she entered the building. Everyone has been treating her as if she’s already an invalid, as if they know something about her she doesn’t know herself. Joe never tries to make her do things, but he insisted on this scan, which makes her wonder if he was seeing something he wasn’t admitting.
What Diane would really like is to get Bronwyn in here to have her brain looked at. A tumor might be the root cause of her strange thinking. Diane has not been able to unlink speculation about her own brain from speculation about Bronwyn’s. That, too, is disturbing. They have known one another for years, yes, but there is no biological connection between them, and Diane has known plenty of people for years without feeling disturbed by the vagaries of their brains.
Aware of holding her breath, she releases it slowly to avoid excessive movement. Her chest deflates; her arm jerks. If you’re not dead complete stillness is unattainable, for god’s sake, not to mention ill-advised. They injected her with radionuclides and she can almost feel the gleaming positrons cavorting about in her brain, seeking the areas of high cortical activity and, god forbid, cortical atrophy. The very words are terrifying. The technician hasn’t said anything for some time. Perhaps they’ve forgotten about her and she will be alone in this room forever, radioactive, stuck inside this machine. This is the claustrophobia they warned her of—she insisted it wouldn’t be a problem. She should have taken the sedative they offered.
She can’t get the word eternal out of her mind. It’s a word from her childhood, from the years in elementary school when she was made to attend church. All the hymns mentioned eternal tides, eternal earth, eternal life. She didn’t like the idea of forever. It wasn’t comforting. The school day seemed to last forever and so did church services and dental appointments. Now she regards the notion as an outright lie. Nothing is forever. Not the oceans or the tides or the earth or the sun. And most definitely not the human brain.
The image of the Mexican man comes to her again. She sees him clutching his child for a moment, stilled by relief and love. She sees the next moment clearly too, how he bolted into a side street, to a fate she’ll never know.
39
Matt has agreed to take her to her car in Topanga. As they drive, she and the second fire, the one still burning, exchange silent messages over miles. Like an enthralled lover she begins to shape herself once again to the fire’s will. The blaze is a torrent now. She senses its progress as it breaches the mountain’s summit and heads down toward civilization. Her life has never been simpler, boiled down to a single intention.
“Do you know what I’m going to do?” she asks, wrenching herself from the swill of her dialogue with the fire.
Matt regards her intently, curiously. “I think so. You’re going to try to put out the fire.”
“You’re not going to stop me?”
“How could I?”
“You believe I can do it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
For now that must be enough.
Her car sits exactly where she left it, unfazed by her absence. The landscape around it is desiccated and weary, trying to find a new stasis now that the immediate crisis has passed. They drive in tandem, she in the lead, up over the summit and down into the valley, then east to the base of the mountains. Her pores sense the lure of charged ions. The sky, volatile with smoke, streaked yellow and purple, appears to be in anaphylactoid shock.
At the ATV rental they are the only customers, and she
gratefully yields the negotiation to Matt. The voluble clerk keeps stealing suspicious glances at her. In her long pants she is inappropriately dressed for the hot day. She would rather not subject herself to the clerk’s questions, anyone’s questions. Her social skills are inaccessible, bent as she is to the fire’s rhapsody.
Matt signs the rental papers, and they are given helmets, and warned where not to go. Avoid the fire, the clerk stresses. Right? Right. He escorts them to their vehicle. Matt’s attention is trained on her, his body bearing the questions he isn’t voicing. They mount the vehicle, he in the driver’s seat, she behind. The clerk won’t leave. He is telling lame jokes and spilling last minute instructions. The only one on duty, he seems desperate for company, reminding her of a sick rooster, dashing across the barnyard, shedding feathers.
The motor clatters to life. “Hold on!” Matt shouts, and she clings to his wiry waist. She would prefer to be driving, but does not want to draw attention to herself by appearing to be the one in charge.
They head up the mountain on a wide dirt road which has been heavily traveled by ATVs though it’s empty of traffic now. A series of switchbacks winds through a barren brown landscape of grass and low sedge. Behind a cluster of bushes Matt stops and turns off the motor and they exchange seats without discussion. At the helm now, she starts the motor, and he clings to her waist this time, the girth of his arms anchoring. As they head uphill the motor quivers in her crotch, the wind grazes her face. She hopes there will be a view at the summit, south to the blaze.
