by Ross Turner
The sound of her suffering seemed to give Johnathan renewed strength, and with a great, roaring cry he exploded to his feet and threw the massive fallen timbers and melted thatch across the room, shifting them with apparent inhuman strength.
Immediately he reached under the table and dragged his petrified sister out and onto his arm once more. He reached back for Emily too, but she pushed out against him, seeing how hurt he already was.
“Just go!” She shouted to him. “I’ll follow you!”
There was no time to argue. Johnathan nodded once and turned for the door, darting immediately forwards.
Emily scrambled to follow, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not move as fast as her son.
It was as though he was instilled with a strength that belonged to another.
She had only ever known one person with that kind of strength, and he had been killed a long time ago.
Johnathan reached the doorway and recoiled for a moment as the flames reared in his face, threatening to engulf him completely, but then they dulled slightly and he saw his chance, surging forward with all the speed he could muster.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he broke out into the cool, dark of the night beneath a star-spattered sky.
The relief was instant and unbelievable and his lungs filled with cool, clean air.
There was no time to revel however. He glanced up briefly and laid eyes instantly upon Father Peter. The old man looked shocked beyond all description. Johnathan said nothing however, and simply laid his sister gently down upon the floor before turning on his heel and plunging directly back into the flames, for Emily had not managed to follow him out.
Fear struck at his heart as he re-entered the house and couldn’t immediately see her. Strength flushed through him anew for some reason and he raced back through into the kitchen, his body seeming to move automatically.
Even as he swam through the inferno all around, the heat hit him once again, like a brick wall, and his body threatened to give in to the onslaught.
And then there she was, cowering from the overwhelming flames and heat and smog, coughing and spluttering, unable to move.
Without thinking he swept her into his arms and lurched back towards the door.
His lungs burned for air, his legs and arms just burned, and his body screamed at him for relief.
But all of this Johnathan ignored. He had to get them both out. He had to save his family.
Even in that brief moment, strangely, amidst all the panic and fear, he realised that that desperate, driving wish wasn’t simply his own, and that there was another set of thoughts merged with his, willing and wishing and urging for exactly the same thing.
Suddenly the cool night’s air hit him once again and he was free of the blazing firestorm, and the respite that washed over him was exulting.
He darted straight back to Maddie’s side and laid his mother down next to his sister, sinking to his knees as he did so, utterly exhausted.
As he placed Emily gently down upon the cold grass, his hand stayed upon her head and he looked at them both for a moment, though he felt as though he wasn’t seeing them through his own eyes.
He leant forward and kissed them each in turn on their foreheads, before sighing, rising slowly to his feet and, once again, laying his level gaze upon the old Vicar stood before him.
The young boy winced suddenly as the adrenaline that had rushed and surged through his veins dumped completely.
His strength failed him within a moment and his body seared to life with fresh pain of his injuries, and he promptly collapsed to the floor, his body shuddering and crumbling to a desecrated heap.
Chapter Thirteen
Father Peter rushed over to the three of them, lay coughing and spluttering on the cool grass beneath the light spattered blanket hanging high above them.
His eyes flitted across their steaming bodies.
Maddie, though partly wrapped still in a blanket, seemed to be ok besides her heaving chest. Emily and Johnathan both had quite severe burns, she on her legs, and he across seemingly his whole body.
Soon others swarmed round them too, and gasps became immediately evident.
“Are they okay!?” Someone asked, though surely the scene that lay before them should have answered that question.
“What happened!?” Someone else demanded then, looking fervently between the three on the floor and the collapsed, flaming house, though that question too seemed to have an obvious answer.
But Father Peter had another question in mind, and didn’t need that particular one answering.
He knew exactly who was responsible for this, and for the first time in a long time, anger flowed afresh through his veins.
Then he took control.
“Bring them to the church!” He instructed, talking to no one in particular, but his tone had that ring of immediate finality to it that drove the men and women around him instantly into action.
“Dorian!” The old Vicar barked then, spying the shopkeeper in the darkness. “I need poultices, and dressings, and ice. Bring them to the church. Lots of them.”
The man obeyed inherently and disappeared off into the darkness at a dead run.
A makeshift litter had appeared beside Maddie and Emily and Johnathan, constructed hastily of broomsticks and bedsheets. Regardless, it would do the job.
“Let’s go!” The old man instructed, heading off immediately for the church, with his villagers and patients in tow, not wasting a moment more.
It was many hours later, deep into the night and even further into morning that Father Peter cared for his patients, his dear friends. He worked relentlessly to treat and dress their wounds. Some of their burns he realised, especially Johnathan’s, were extensive and very severe, and they required an awful lot of attention.
He had a few other willing volunteers with him also to help him attend to them, so all three could receive treatment at once. The team worked ceaselessly and the darkness wore on as they mixed herbs and ointments and applied ice and dressings carefully and anxiously, their movements illuminated only, and rather ironically, by flickering candlelight.
Finally, though they were still not conscious, by the early hours of the morning, not far off sunrise, Maddie, Emily and Johnathan’s breathing was at least a little stronger, and their wounds were dressed. They would need to be changed again soon, but for now in any case, there was no more anybody could do.
Father Peter thanked those who had stayed to help him, and even as they left, others streamed in to see how the Davies were doing.
How little they knew.
This parade of visitors continued for quite some time, marching in and out of the church to stand by the beds upon which the Davies family lay. The beds had been brought in from a nearby cottage and sat in a room off to the side of the main hall.
After a full morning and afternoon of streaming visits, Father Peter eventually closed the doors to the vast church, sealing Emily and Maddie and Johnathan safely inside, knowing they needed peace and quiet and rest.
It was perhaps only an hour or so after that when Emily and her daughter began to stir, wheezing and coughing and spluttering as they awoke.
The sky was a gradually darkening purple above the tall spire of Riverbrook’s church, and thin wisps of cloud spread long and wide in dark billowed rows across its vast expansive face. A chill breeze wound its way over the hills and through the trees and across the icy cold river that cut through the very beating heart of the village, striking its biting chill at the very centre of the place Emily had for a long time called home.
She awoke with a start, jerking up to sit with a gasp. But that immediately turned into a coughing fit that tore painfully at her damaged throat and lungs. She groaned and clutched at her chest, clenching her fists as if to fight away the pain. But it did not cease.
The sound woke Maddie also, and she went through an identical ritual before managing to eventually catch her breath too.
; Emily hissed then as she twisted on the bedsheets and her legs burned with fresh pain. She clenched her teeth and made an automatic growling noise at the back of her throat, only to be rewarded with a fresh coughing fit, pulling at her chest once again.
“How are you feeling?” A voice asked gently, and between splutters Emily and Maddie saw Father Peter enter the room across from their beds, having heard them struggling presumably.
The room was dim and Emily could only just about make out the Vicar’s face by the lantern he carried.
“Awful.” Emily managed between fits. Then she looked across at Maddie.
“Y…Yeah…” Her daughter managed between fits also. “Awful.”
“Johnathan!?” Emily suddenly cried, spying that her son was still asleep, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light. She scrambled to her feet, but cried out in pain as she tried to stand. Nonetheless though, pushing through it with gritted teeth once again, she staggered over to her son’s bedside.
Her whole body hurt, and as the old man joined her at Johnathan’s side, she could only imagine how he felt as the light from Father Peter’s lantern revealed the extent of her son’s wounds.
Emily’s breath caught in her throat, and she felt Maddie shudder in horror at her side. She quickly, and painfully, lifted her daughter into her arms, pressing her head gently against her chest.
Maddie began to cry immediately, for she knew Johnathan was very badly hurt, and no matter how much her mother shielded her or tried to quiet her, her brother had endured this of his own free will, all to save them from the fire.
The little girl choked as she cried, for her throat and chest burned too, and she remembered exactly how it had felt not being able to breathe in her bedroom, and how terrified she had been watching the smoke billow in.
She shuddered again.
“He’s very weak.” Father Peter explained in a hushed voice, the sound of it penetrating the gloomy darkness. “His wounds are very bad.”
He told them the truth, because he knew they would not believe anything else, and the last thing they needed now was lies, after all these years.
Emily nodded, knowing this also, and she reached out tentatively with one hand, still holding Maddie with the other arm.
Johnathan’s legs and arms and hands and even parts of his face and shoulders were badly burned, but there was one side of his left hand that seemed to have escaped the flames, and so Emily instinctively reached for that, wanting just to be there for her son in any way that she could. In any way that she knew how.
Anything would be better than nothing.
Or so she surmised at least.
The evening drew on and the purple in the sky turned slowly richer and deeper until eventually it faded completely to black, sprinkled all over with glittering stars and a moon seemingly so close and so bright that it appeared to glow amidst the darkness.
It was a perfectly round midnight sun, fighting desperately against the endless night.
It was as that same moonlight strayed hopelessly into the path of the never ending night, many hours later, when Johnathan slowly and silently stirred from his deep slumber.
He did not awake with a start or a jump as his mother and sister had done, but rather his racing mind slowly brought him back to consciousness.
His dreams were wild and filled with fire and smoke and pain, and he saw himself running endlessly through corridors and up and down stairways trying desperately to reach mother and his sister.
No matter how fast he ran though, or how high he climbed, his search seemed to be never ending, and the flames closed in around him, encircling him.
Finally, having run until he was exhausted, and climbed until his legs would drive him on no further, Johnathan came to a defeated halt.
It was then that he awoke.
His eyes slowly opened and the dreadful realisation that had dawned upon him in his dream carried through and rang true in reality too.
Even though he recalled the events of the fire, as he lay there silently in the dark, and he knew that he had managed to get them out, it wasn’t over.
It wasn’t the fire that wanted to harm them.
It was Richard.
Of course, there would be no proof. Johnathan didn’t even need to ask that. He knew it. But at the same time, equally, he knew that Richard was responsible.
Things had gotten way out of control.
Years of distrust and hatred and anger that he hadn’t even known about, were coming suddenly boiling and bubbling to the surface, and they were threatening and unchecked, running rampant through his family like a charging bull.
He had to stop it.
But what could he do?
He didn’t really know.
All he knew was that he had to do something.
Chapter Fourteen
Raising slowly up off the bed and into a sitting position was an excruciating endeavour, and all the while Johnathan tried desperately not to make a sound, for he did not wish to wake his mother and sister. Though the room was too dark to see them, for the door was closed and no light crept in through the darkened window, he could hear their quiet, slow, paced breathing.
He swivelled his legs around to hang off the bed and took a few slow, deep breaths. He could feel the dressings pulling at his arms and shoulders and back and legs, and he shuddered at the thought of his injuries.
Trying not to think about it, he pushed himself off the bed and staggered slightly to keep his feet. His head spun terribly and for a moment Johnathan thought he was going to be sick. The nausea passed after a minute or two however, and he stumbled as quietly as he could across the room to where he could see the faintly flickering light of a candle from underneath the door.
Luckily the door opened without making too much noise, and the faint creaking did not stir Emily or Maddie.
Johnathan pulled the door inaudibly closed behind him and leant heavily on the wall for a moment, catching his breath.
“They’ll be upset you didn’t wake them, you know.” Father Peter’s voice sounded quietly from over on one of the pews. Johnathan looked up to see him sat very still with his hands in his lap, staring forwards in an oddly pensive manner.
His mood seemed to be a most thoughtful one.
“They need to rest.” Johnathan replied by way of explanation, wincing as he hobbled over from the door to the pew where Father Peter sat.
“And you don’t?” The old man questioned.
Johnathan didn’t reply at first, but instead lowered himself onto the wooden bench next to the old Vicar and sighed deeply, relaxing his legs.
“I had no idea things would ever go this far…” Father Peter spoke again then, still gazing wistfully forward, as if looking for something that had eluded him for a very long time.
“It isn’t your fault…” Johnathan replied automatically.
“It could have been an accident…” The old man suggested, but Johnathan gave him a withering look and he sighed deeply. “No, you’re right.” He agreed. “Things have gotten completely out of hand. Richard is out of his mind.”
“What can we do?” The young boy asked.
“I’m not sure.” Father Peter admitted honestly. “We must be careful.” He warned. “Clearly all three of you are in terrible danger. Perhaps even more so now that you’ve escaped the fire. He won’t be happy about that at all. It was a very risky thing to do anyway. If none of you had made it out, it may have been passed off as an accident, but now, he knows you’ll find out the truth.”
“So he’ll try again?” Johnathan asked, his voice serious and dripping with undisguised malice for the man he had for so long called father.
“I fear he won’t cease until either it’s finished, or until someone stops him…” Father Peter replied in a voice that betrayed quite fatally his own despair at the situation.
Silence fell over the two of them then for some time, and yet still it was too early for the sun to creep its head over the horizon. The only light came fro
m the dancing candles. So relaxing to watch, Johnathan mused, but then, as he tried to shift his weight slightly and grimaced, he was reminded of exactly how much pain such a beautiful thing can cause.
“Father Peter…” Johnathan started then, his voice hesitant, and the old Vicar looked over at the young boy Johnathan with tired, yet curious, eyes.
“Yes…?” He asked, sensing the shift in Johnathan’s tone, wondering what was on his mind.
As of late the troubled Vicar had come to miss the old days when Emily had brought Johnathan and Maddie to see him simply out of care. She had often come by way of thanks too, he had always thought.
That seemed wildly inappropriate now though, considering the circumstances. Recently the old Vicar had begun to think that perhaps he had made a mistake by not intervening.
But then, what choice had he had.
Everybody is entitled to live their own lives.
Everybody must live their own lives, and make their own choices, and indeed mistakes, regardless of what happens.
“What was my father like?” He asked then. “I know you’ve told the stories about Riverbrook…” Johnathan added then. “But what was he really like? As a person?”
“What was Arthur really like?” The old man repeated, musing aloud, his hand coming to his silvery whiskered chin automatically.
Johnathan watched the old man as he recalled memories of Arthur, and wished suddenly that he too could remember his father. He didn’t want second hand accounts of him, really, he wanted to be able to remember him for himself.
“He was a very good man, Johnathan.” The old man began slowly. “He was a great man in fact.”
“Why?” The young boy asked.
“There are two main things that I remember about your father, above all else…” The Vicar mused aloud then, in response to Johnathan’s query. “I remember that he loved your mother. He loved her very much.”
Johnathan nodded, smiling faintly, pleased by that, but equally reminded of Richard and all the pain he had brought Johnathan’s family, even without them knowing.
