by Megan Chance
She didn’t move. She looked as if she were in shock, and I understood that, but just now if she didn’t do something we were both going to die. “Mrs. Langley!” I shouted. “Help me!”
She seemed to jerk awake then. She stepped back from the hole, disappearing.
There was a crash; a beam to the left cracked and slammed onto the floor, boards splintered, a settee fell from the stage above, its legs shattering, its upholstery a mass of flame, barely missing me. Two counterweights smashed down, the burlap bags exploded, sand skittered out like water. I could hardly breathe through my coughing. The skirt of the calico I wore began to smoke. I was going to die here. I was going to die, and it was going to be so damned painful, and dear God, save me, save me, save me.…
The metal bar that crashed down missed me only by inches. I stared dumbly at it until I saw the rod coming up from it, the leather belt dangling. It was the hoe, the bar we used to ascend an actor to the heavens.
“Mrs. Wilkes! Mrs. Wilkes!”
The voice of an angel. I looked up and saw Mrs. Langley there at the edge of the hole, and I was so damned relieved and grateful that she hadn’t gone my knees went weak.
“Hurry!” she screamed. “Get on the bar! Get on the bar!”
That was when I realized the bar still had a rope attached to it. A rope that snaked up into the flies, still strong, though it was singed in places. I stepped onto it, grabbing onto the rod, and Mrs. Langley disappeared again, and in a moment the rope went taut, squeaking. I clutched that rod so hard my knuckles went white, even though it was hot as an iron. To my left, the floor went up, a sheet of flame, and I felt its heat like a burst of wind, and thank God the hoe began to rise. Slowly, swinging madly, and I heard myself murmuring words I hardly recognized as she turned that winch and brought me inch by inch out of hell, and then, finally, I was suspended there above the flames already closing in over where I’d been, and she came rushing across what was left of the stage, screaming, “Jump!”
I launched myself to the edge of that hole with every bit of strength I had. I hit the floor flat, on my stomach, jerking hard away from the boards collapsing at my feet. She grabbed my wrists, hauling me from the edge, screaming into my face, “We’ve got to get out!”
I don’t remember getting to my feet. I don’t remember running. All I knew was that suddenly we were at the edge of the apron, and I saw the flames licking up from the orchestra pit and I felt the whole stage shudder and I screamed at her to jump and then we were both on the floor of the parquet, dodging down the aisles as the curtain and the boxes erupted into flame above and there was this terrible crash and scream as the stage collapsed behind us, a scream like it was dying. Flames boiled out, clouds of smoke, and the two of us raced up that aisle with the monster chasing, and it was too much to hope that the door was clear, but it was our only chance. We rushed into the tiny lobby at the bottom of the narrow stairs leading to the boxes, and then suddenly, unbelievably, there was the door. I slammed up against it and she slammed into me, and then we were outside, half falling into the street, falling from one hell into another, into terrible heat and noise: alarm bells, steamship whistles piercing the roar of the fire, great crashes of collapsing buildings, explosions rat-a-tat-tat like gunfire, huge blasts, men shouting as the boardwalk blew up into flame and they scattered like ants. All around us was fire and ash and smoke.
We lurched out, choking and gasping, and a man black with soot grabbed my arm and shouted, “Get out of here!” as if I wasn’t trying to do exactly that, but where the hell to go? It wasn’t just the Regal; the whole city was in flames around us. Nothing but fire wherever I looked, and I started toward the harbor, thinking water, but that man jerked on my arm again and pointed and shouted though I couldn’t hear him through the roar, only that his lips made the word “Run” and he was pointing east, away from the water, toward the hills, and I didn’t question, I just grabbed Mrs. Langley’s hand and ran the way he pointed.
Pyres of salvaged goods burned in the middle of the street; the sky rained flaming brands and sparks, falling signs and bricks and shattered glass. Telegraph and telephone wires snapped and melted. Clouds of smoke purpled in the sunlight. An explosion behind us made me jerk around in fear, but all I saw were flames shooting a hundred feet into the air, and the boiling smoke, and after that I didn’t look behind anymore. I pulled Mrs. Langley with me to Second Street, where the brick building of the Boston block stood steaming and two bucket brigades of filthy men with sooty faces passed water from one to the other, sloshing it over their trousered legs, shouting at us to get out of the way, to get somewhere safe. I didn’t see a single fire engine.
I kept running, my face stinging as if it had been burned. There were other people too, women and children mostly, running in the same direction. We didn’t stop until we were on Third Street, and the fire was behind us, though the smoke was heavy and stinging both my lungs and my eyes and I couldn’t stop coughing.
We stumbled into someone’s yard, which was already crowded with people staring vacant eyed, watching the fire burn below, clinging to whatever they’d managed to save. I let go of Mrs. Langley and fell onto the grass, my lungs burning, and she collapsed beside me in a flurry of charred silk and exhaustion, both of us choking with every breath.
Another explosion, a fusillade of gunfire. There was nothing left of the block the Regal had stood on but fire; we were just in time to see the theater collapse in a big ball of flame. Sparks swirled through the smoky air; flaming brands landed on rooftops, and men beat them out with wet blankets. Someone yelled, “The hotel!” and I turned to see the fire leap toward the Occidental and thought how impossible it was that the hotel should burn. It was brick, and there was an excavation just before it. The fire would stop there.
But the building across on Second went up as if the devil were feeding it, and I saw the smoke come from the fourth floor of the Occidental when everyone else did, and there was an explosion, and suddenly the roof burst into flame.
It was then I realized where the fire was heading.
“My hotel,” I gasped, lurching to my feet, but before I could run, Mrs. Langley grabbed my arm, jerking me back.
“There’s nothing you can do,” she croaked.
I knew she was right. And in any case I could not bring myself to run back into that fire. I could not make myself do it. Everything was gone. Everything I’d saved, everything I’d hoped for. All gone.
She released me as if she felt the same despair I did, and together we sank back again onto the grass, wordlessly watching the world erupt in flame.
I turned to look at her. She was unrecognizable, her hair falling and charred in places, her face so black with ash and soot she looked like she belonged in a minstrel show, and I knew I must look the same. There was a burnt hole in the shoulder of her gown; the fine lace at her throat looked half-melted and filthy. I would never have known her for Geneva Langley—even now, I didn’t quite believe she was.
A burning coal fell to the grass near her booted foot; wearily she kicked it into the street, where it smoldered and died, and I watched numbly as the fire raced up toward the County Courthouse, while down on the waterfront the wind came up and Yesler’s Mill went up like fireworks—flames shooting like geysers and terrible explosions and black clouds swirling to hide the sun. The wharves with their warehouses collapsed into the bay and burned and smoked on the mud as the tide came slowly in—too late to save us or put water in the hoses of the fire engines. Useless now. Only bucket brigades and men shouting orders and then running to catch up as the fire outran them. Then the coal bunkers caught, and those flames lit up the horizon like the biggest hearth I’d ever seen.
Hot air pummeled us so it was hard to breathe. When I rubbed my face, my eyelashes broke off in little stubs of soot. It seemed it would never end, that the fire would burn a swath clear to Tacoma, and Mrs. Langley and I would just sit there, unmoving, forever, while the sky turned this sickly purple and the smoke cloud grew b
igger and bigger into twilight, while the setting sun shone bloodred through it.
As the night came on, it was eerie, a night that wasn’t night. The fire reflected on the underside of the smoke cloud, shifting and playing like the northern lights, and those coal bunkers burned steadily.
The lawn was crowded, stony-eyed men and women holding their frightened children with heaps of their belongings beside them; firemen with scalded faces and burned hands fallen into exhausted sleep. I wondered if anyone I knew had died. I wondered where Lucius was, and Jackson and Brody and Aloysius and all the others. But mostly I wondered why Sebastian had not gone to the theater, and where he was, and it was hard to think it had only been this morning that I’d awakened beside him. It seemed so long ago it might have happened to another person.
Beside me people curled up to sleep on the grass, and I realized that was what I would do too, and I didn’t care. Where else would I go, after all? I’d lost everything. All my costumes. Everything I owned. Little as it was, it had been something.
I turned to Mrs. Langley. “Don’t you want to see if your house survived?”
She looked north. I looked with her. It was impossible to see past the nimbus of the smoke. “The fire came from the north,” she said thoughtfully. “That’s what the boy said. He said it came from the north.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it could possibly have survived this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. Where is it?”
“First Hill,” she said.
Well, yes, of course it was. “Well, there’s no fire here on Third. If it didn’t cross uptown, you’d be all right.”
She nodded and drew up her knees, settling her chin into them.
I glanced south, seeing nothing but smoke. The weight of what I knew I had to say settled hard, nudging, and I cleared my throat and said, “Thank you. You know, for not leaving me in there. For saving my life.”
“You’re welcome,” she said softly. “But I think we’re even. You saved mine as well.”
“All I did was show the way.”
“I would have been hopelessly lost.” She wiped her hands on her skirt as if it mattered that they were dirty when she was so filthy with soot and ash it would probably take three baths to get her clean again.
“I suppose your husband’s probably looking for you.”
She went quiet, too still. “Perhaps he’s dead.”
“Rich men don’t die in fires like this,” I said, meaning to reassure her. “He would have been out the moment anyone smelled smoke.”
She nodded, her expression gone thoughtful. “What if he didn’t get out?”
“Mrs. Langley—”
“Or what if I was the one who died?”
“But you didn’t. You’re right here beside me.”
“It would be so easy now to just … be lost.”
“Did something fall on you back there? Are you all right?”
Impatiently, she said, “I’m perfectly fine.”
We’d been through hell, and I was almost too tired to think. She had to be the same. “I think you should go home,” I said as gently as I could. “We’re both tired. Go home. Sleep in your comfortable bed. Kiss your husband. No doubt he’ll be glad you’re alive.”
Her head jerked up as if I’d hit her. “The very last thing I want is to see Nathan.”
That surprised me.
“I’ll leave him to you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To have him all to yourself?”
I laughed; there was so much smoke in my lungs it turned into a rasping cough that went deep; it was a while before I caught my breath.
She asked harshly, “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? I nearly died in a fire and I’ve lost everything I own, and now you’re telling me you don’t want to see your husband, and by the way, take him if you want. Frankly, Mrs. Langley, the question is: What’s wrong with you?”
Calmly, she said, “Mrs. Wilkes, I would like you to do something for me.”
I frowned at her. “What?”
“I want you to find out if my husband is alive.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier for you to find out? All you have to do is go home and—”
“I don’t want him to know I’ve survived. Not yet. This is why I need you to ask about him. And why I need you to say that you haven’t seen me since before the fire.”
The way she said this … just so flatly, as if she were discussing the weather. It made me shiver. I was growing to hate that I knew the Langley name at all. I knew already that whatever this was, I did not want to be involved in it.
She went on, “I suppose someone from the troupe might know if Nathan survived.”
“If they survived it themselves,” I said—and damn if the smoke in my lungs didn’t catch, so I couldn’t help but choke a little. “I suppose I’ll look for them in the morning.”
“Can I count on your help, then?”
“No, you can’t,” I said sharply. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, I don’t want any part of it.”
Her expression went hard as stone. “Mrs. Wilkes, I am in a position to reward you quite handsomely for your cooperation.”
You know, there were times when I hated that I cared so much about money, and this was one of them, because suddenly I was all attention, and I knew better. “How much?”
Oh, that look of haughty distaste! So perfect—I memorized it for the future, for the next time I played an arrogant, bossy, supercilious character. “Would two hundred dollars be sufficient?”
Would it be sufficient? I would have walked naked through the streets for that kind of money, and she must have known it. “Two hundred dollars? And all I have to do is find out if Nathan is alive and pretend I haven’t seen you?”
“That’s all. Does it meet your mercenary standards, Mrs. Wilkes?”
“I prefer to call it pragmatic. And yes, it does.”
She took a deep, obviously relieved breath. “Do you think you can find the company?”
I lay back on the grass, jerking a little in pain when my elbow hit the ground. I thought of my fellow actors. I thought of Sebastian. I stared up at the eerie northern lights. “If they’re still alive, I’ll find them. In the morning.”
“Perfect,” she said.
Around me I heard the mutterings of other people, someone sobbing, a dog barking. Her sigh. “No stars tonight,” I said softly, more to myself than anything.
“But it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she answered.
In the morning, I was stiff all over, my lungs tight from smoke, tasting ash on my lips. It was barely dawn, and hot, what was left of the city hazy through a lingering fog of smoke. Charred telegraph poles sheared of their stanchions poked through the haze like long black fingers. Beside me, Mrs. Langley was curled on her side, her face buried in her arms. Her bustle poked into my hip.
I peered at two uniformed figures who emerged through the haze, the Washington National Guard, their rifles over their shoulders, brass buttons glinting in the filtered sunlight. They crossed the street and came up to me as I sat, and the young and handsome one said, “Good morning, miss. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Hungry and thirsty, but all right.”
Mrs. Langley stirred beside me. The militiaman nodded to her and said, “She a friend of yours? Is she all right?”
“We’re both fine,” I said.
“You got somewhere to go?”
“I don’t know. Is there any part of the city left?”
The young man frowned. “Nothing to the south, and most of the piers are gone or damaged. To the north it got to University. Most of the business area looks like this.” He gestured vaguely. “Most of the houses are all right.”
“And … did anyone die?”
The militiaman glanced at his partner, who shrugged and said, “We don’t know. A few people missing, but other than that, it’s too early to tell. They’re planning to
open relief tents in the next day or so.” And then hesitantly, as if he felt guilty for having to leave us unprotected, “They should be able to help you and your friend out then.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said.
When they left, I looked down at Mrs. Langley. “They’re gone.”
She groaned and sat up, pushing at her bustle. It was riding lopsided and bent, and I said, “I think your bustle’s ruined.”
She rubbed her face, streaking the soot on her skin. Her dark hair was mostly fallen from its pins, tangled in a mass over her shoulder. She peered into the fog, frowning. “I don’t recognize anything.”
“The Regal was there.” I pointed to a block of nothing but ash piles and the charred and leaning telegraph poles, and—very strange—a streetlamp that looked untouched except that its glass globes were gone. Yesterday morning if I’d been sitting here, I wouldn’t have been able to see past the buildings across the street. Today, I could see clear to the harbor. I rose. “I’m going to see if I can find Lucius and the others.”
She sat there like a statue.
I found myself offering, “You still want me to see about Nathan?”
“I would like nothing better.” She was almost violent when she said it. Something else to wonder about, if I wanted to wonder, which I didn’t.
I nodded shortly. “Very well. I’ll see what I can find. I’ll be back in … I don’t know. However long it takes me to find someone in this mess.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wilkes.” She was stiff as a dowager, as if she wasn’t used to thanking anyone for anything, and I admit I liked her discomfort. Or maybe it was only that she disliked being grateful to me. If so, that was even better.
But best of all, I liked leaving her.
I walked away from her and that yard, into the city, and it was worse than I’d thought, worse than I could ever have imagined. The city I knew, nearly every building, was gone. Just … gone. The streets were lined with ash and piles of brick, smoldering ruins; here and there a wall looking ready to tumble down, and militia everywhere, and I didn’t know how anyone could have survived it. Someone I knew had to be dead; I was certain of it, and that certainty grew with every step I took until my dread choked me along with the smoke that burned my eyes and made it impossible to breathe, and all I could think was please not Sebastian. Please not him.
