Or I just sent my dragon into the woods to fetch rodents for you because I’m the wicked witch your grandmother warned you about.
Bella just smiled. “Like you said, in the forest anything seems possible. Maybe he ran away from the circus when he was young.”
Sam shook his head. “Uh-huh. Well, thank you, Koshka. I appreciate it.”
Koshka licked one paw, looking as smug as a dragon could while still in cat form.
Bella and Koshka watched Sam walk away, Bella feeling strangely wistful in a way she couldn’t explain.
“Thanks, Koshka,” she said. “I owe you.”
“Damn straight. Do you have any idea how terrible mice taste?”
“Not from personal experience, no,” she said. “I don’t suppose a can of tuna would help take away the taste?”
“We can only try,” said the dragon-cat in a martyred tone, and he stalked up the stairs into the caravan with his bushy tail held high.
* * *
SAM STOOD FOR a few minutes at the entrance to the clearing where Bella’s caravan was parked. He was hidden behind a thick stand of bushes, but he wasn’t spying, he told himself; just watching to see if she did anything suspicious. The resinous fronds tickled his nose, and a bead of sweat ran down the back of his shirt. He should give this up, climb on his four-wheeler, and go back to the fire tower.
Yet for some reason, his legs didn’t move and his eyes stayed focused on the woman as she sat by a small fire pit, roasting a marshmallow and talking nonsense to her gigantic cat. Not exactly criminal behavior, although she’d somehow gotten the little bonfire started amazingly quickly, between the time he’d walked away and when he’d stopped and turned around to watch her. She must have had it primed and ready to go. It looked safe enough, anyway, the pit deep and surrounded by rocks, with no wind to blow an errant spark outside the depths of the hole.
Her red hair was muted in the glow of the fire and the one dim light that hung above the caravan door, but it still brought back memories. Good ones, mostly, although these days good memories brought as much pain as bad ones. But he didn’t think his fascination with Bella had anything to do with her hair, despite the fact that his lost love had also been a redhead.
They were nothing alike, outside of their shared hair color. Heather had been stocky and strong, her round face and sturdy arms covered with the freckles he’d loved to tease her about, pretending they were a road map that could lead to his heart. As placid as an Irish lake in the sunlight, Heather had been calm and straightforward whether fighting fire or making love.
This Bella, on the other hand, was mysterious and exotic—the only thing straightforward about her was her steady green gaze. Taller and more willowy than Heather, her face was a creamy white touched with peach on her high cheekbones, and her hair was longer, curly and wild as it tumbled down her back. If she had any freckles, they were in places he couldn’t see. No, the two women couldn’t have been more different.
And yet there was something about her that tugged at him, like a compass pointing north. He didn’t understand it and he didn’t like it. So it was easier to call it suspicion, if that would allow him to stand there for a few more minutes, listening to the sound of her tenor voice echo through the clearing like birdsong on the first warm day of spring.
* * *
DUSKY WATER RIPPLED then stilled, until the scrying bowl was as dark and silent as the grave. Brenna bent over the water and peered into the surface as an image slowly appeared. These days, she tried not to use such magics; they were tricky to hold and drained what power she had left all too quickly. But she needed to see the man from the fire tower, and it was hard to watch him any other way.
She’d figured out days ago that since her plan required the forest to burn, the fire watcher—Sam, his name was—would have to go. And the sooner the better.
It was tempting to just kill him. Unlike this new, soft, younger generation of Baba Yagas, Brenna had no qualms about an occasional death here or there. After all, they were supposed to be keeping the balance of nature; she supposed the planet would be grateful to have a few less Humans running about making a mess of things. But his death or disappearance would attract attention, and that was the one thing she was trying to avoid at all costs.
So she’d done a little research instead; put on her harmless elderly hippie guise and wandered about town asking seemingly aimless questions of the locals, puttering around in a rusty brown truck she’d liberated from behind a nearby barn.
Brenna missed her old hut, transformed many years ago into a brightly painted school bus, and the mortar and pestle that had become a little blue Karmann Ghia. But they were long gone, passed on to her replacement, along with her Chudo-Yudo and her share of the Water of Life and Death. For now. Until she got them back, and more with them.
Small towns were all the same in her experience; lots of people who knew way too much about everything that went on, all too eager to share what they knew with anyone who asked. She’d gathered all sorts of information that way, in the diner and the grocery store, at the one gas station and the tiny post office. Then she’d taken what she’d learned and gone to the library (open three days a week from nine until noon, for a wonder) and used the Internet to fill in the blanks. Brenna wasn’t fond of the modern world, for the most part, but even she had to admit that computers could be quite handy at times.
A curious man, this fire watcher; dedicated to his job, from what people said, but oh, such a tragic past. Brenna laughed quietly to herself, careful not to let her breath stir the water. It didn’t seem as though it would take much effort to make him leave. He was barely holding on as it was, from the sound of it. Post-traumatic something or other. The name didn’t matter to her, as long as it got her what she wanted.
The picture in the scrying bowl was clear, albeit miniature, as though seen from far away. Brenna watched as the man walked down the many steps of the tower and mounted his mechanical steed. Four-wheelers. Another Human abomination. Loud and disruptive in the otherwise peaceful forest. Still, she supposed he had to get around somehow, and at least it made him easy to track.
He stopped periodically, laying down odd contraptions whose purpose she couldn’t discern. Eventually he parked the machine and walked off the path until he came across a woman.
Brenna gripped the edges of the silver bowl so hard they cut into her hands, but she managed to keep the gasp from slipping past her lips. What was she doing here?
Gah. That was all Brenna needed, a Baba Yaga running around, getting in her way. Still, at least it wasn’t Barbara. That one was a terror. But the redhead, Bella, well, she could be handled. Or avoided, even better. But handled if necessary.
Was her presence here a coincidence, or had she been Called to deal with the fires? Either one was a possibility. One was more of a problem than the other, but nothing Brenna couldn’t deal with.
Brenna looked on as the fire watcher and the Baba Yaga talked, deep in the forest. Redhead. Redhead. Why did that remind her of something she’d seen or heard about recently?
Brenna scowled fretfully at the dim reflection of her own wrinkled face, overlaid on the images in the bowl. She could feel her true age creeping up on her now that she no longer had the Water of Life and Death to stave it off. The whitening of her hair was annoying, the aches in her bones even more so. But worst of all was this fog in her mind.
Sometimes it seemed as though her thoughts were squirrels, dashing here and there, chasing shadows, flitting from place to place. It took more and more effort to focus, but focus she must if her plan was to succeed and the power that was rightfully hers was to be returned, along with her youth.
Nothing would stop her. Certainly not some damaged former firefighter and a Baba Yaga who spent most of her adult life hiding from Humans and her own lack of control. Brenna chuckled to herself. At least she didn’t need to worry about them teaming up
to work against her; neither one would spend any more time in the company of others than could be helped.
Ah yes! A redhead! Brenna laughed out loud as she remembered where she’d come across another whose hair was as bright as Bella’s long locks, and a brilliant idea popped into her head. The movement jarred the bowl, causing the water to slosh and the images to disappear. But no matter. She had what she needed anyway. The poor fire watcher was as good as gone already. As for Bella, well, hopefully she was just passing through. If not, Brenna thought, chuckling again, there was always that temper. Worse came to worst, she could probably get Bella to burn the forest down for her.
EIGHT
THE FLAMES ROARED like wild beasts as they surrounded the fire shelter, creating violent winds that tugged and pulled at the fragile layers of aluminum, silica, and fiberglass. Inside the shelter, Sam hugged the ground, breathing through the bandana he’d pulled up over his face right before deploying the “shake and bake” in a last-ditch effort to survive a raging forest fire that had suddenly changed direction and surrounded him and his Hotshots team.
He knew that his friends were all huddled beneath their own shelters, facedown, feet pointed toward the oncoming flames. Some of the team were within touching distance, but inside the belly of the inferno, all he could hear was the sound of his own rough, labored breathing and the pounding of his heart.
But in the dream, he could hear them screaming as they died.
Wake up! Wake up! Like all the times before, Sam knew he was dreaming, knew the worst had already happened, that there was nothing he could do, nothing he could have done. Still his heart raced and sweat poured down his body, just as it had on that terrible day. The memory of heat seared the inside of his nostrils and dried his mouth, and still the dream unwound like a horror movie with no plot other than death and destruction. And fire. Always the fire.
Sam could feel the ravenous flames as they passed directly over him, clawing and prying at the shelter, looking for any opening to slide through and steal his precious remaining oxygen. Could sense when the beast finally moved off, seeking trees to devour and brush to feed its insatiable hunger. Listened frantically for any signs of life outside of his own tiny bubble of safety. Heard nothing but his own ragged breathing, echoing in his ears.
“Ryan!” he called to his best friend. “You okay out there?” No answer.
“Heather! Heather! You okay?” His fiancée, so proud to be one of the few female Hotshots in the country—the last time he’d seen her she’d been deploying her own shelter, no more than two feet away, grinning that maniac grin as she waved to him one last time.
In the dream, there was screaming. Sobbing. Cries for help. In real life, there had been only silence. Even the wind had vanished.
Sam reached a hand up to touch the side of the shelter. Too hot. The rule was to wait until it cooled. And he tried. Tried to wait until he was sure it was safe. But he knew they were out there. His friends. His lover. Nineteen other wilderness firefighters who’d fought side by side with him. And in the end, he’d gotten out too soon.
Air that was still superheated had seared his lungs. He’d tripped and fallen on his way to Heather’s shake and bake, barely noticing the agonizing pain on the left side of his face where it hit the smoldering ground. Frantically, he’d called her name, all their names. But he was the only one left. All the others had died, curled up in their shelters, victims of a fire that burned like a demon on a piece of land too slanted and tangled to protect them.
And in a fluke of unreasonable luck, the main force of the fire had veered around his shelter, leaving him alive. Alive, alone, and filled with grief that burned hotter than any fire.
Gasping for oxygen, Sam shot upright in his narrow bed, sheets tangled around his legs, torso dripping with sweat as if he’d truly been back in the shelter. Muscles cramped and burned. The scar tissue on his face itched as if freshly healed. But nothing about Sam was truly healed. The nightmares proved that, forcing him to relive the worst day of his life, over and over again.
Sam swung his legs over the side of the bed and staggered over to the sink to get a glass of water. He drank it down fast and cold, wishing it were whiskey. But he’d tried that route the first few months after he left the hospital, and it didn’t help. The oblivion was only temporary, and his fireman’s soul was too used to needing to be ready to jump up at any moment, prepared to do battle with the fire. So he stayed sober. And suffered through every minute of every day.
All Sam had ever wanted to be was a firefighter. As a boy, he’d been obsessed with the wailing red trucks, the helmeted men and their gear. As he got older, he was drawn to the wilderness with its majestic beauty and fragile ecosystem. Joining the Hotshots felt like a natural progression of that dream. Being part of an elite team of firefighters, even when it meant spending days facing unimaginable danger, coming home covered with minor burns, exhausted and filthy, was all he could have asked for. When Heather joined the team and they fell in love, life was perfect.
Until the fire turned his life into an unbearable tumult of never-ending pain and guilt. The shrink they’d made him see—after—had talked to him about survivor’s guilt. How hard it was to be the one who lived. But the man had no idea. No idea what it was like to go on without his friends, without the woman whose laughter used to rise up like sparks from a bonfire into the night. No idea what it was like to ache to fight fires, but be unable to do the one thing that had given his life purpose.
Sam had tried, once, to join another team. He’d broken down on the first day and had to admit to himself that he’d never be able to face the flames again. In the end, he’d retreated to the fire tower. It was at once a place for him to hide and the best compromise he could find; a way to fight the fires without having to be near them. It didn’t feel like enough, but it was the best he could do.
Most days, it was almost an acceptable existence. Nights like this, it felt like the third circle of hell. The only thing that kept him going was the knowledge that it would shame the memory of his lost comrades if he threw away the life he’d somehow been gifted with when all those who mattered to him had lost theirs.
A faint glow from behind him made him turn around. The glass slid unnoticed out of his grasp and hit the floor, bounced on the braided blue rag rug in front of the sink, and rolled under the table.
She stood in the middle of the room—Heather, looking much as she had the last time he’d seen her alive, her fire gear draped over one shoulder, helmet tucked under the other arm.
Sam reached out one hand, and then pulled it back, clenched into a fist. It wasn’t her. He knew that. It wasn’t as though he didn’t believe in ghosts; of course he did, with the grandmother he’d had and all of her tales. In fact, he’d waited after the disaster, waited night after night for Heather’s ghost to appear. First in the hospital, then, figuring its antiseptic stink and hissing machines had kept her away, back at home. Waited, but she never came.
So why would Heather be here now? She wouldn’t, would she?
“Sam,” she whispered, her voice almost as rough as his, almost too low to hear. The sound was as unfamiliar as her face was dear. But maybe that was how the dead sounded. How would he know?
“Sam,” she said again. “I saw you with her. In the woods. With that woman. Have you forgotten me so soon, my love?”
He took an involuntary step backward, his bare skin shocked by the chill metal of the sink. “What?” he asked. “What woman? Forgotten you? No, never.” Part of his brain thought, Crazy man, talking to an empty room, and the other part just thought, Heather, and drowned in rippling waves of pain and sorrow.
“The woman in the forest. Red hair, like mine. Not me. Not for you. Stay away.”
The figure seemed as solid as the chair, the floor, the lump in his throat. She looked just like Heather. But why would Heather care if he talked to a passing stranger? She’d never been th
e jealous type, in life. Of course, who knew what the dead felt?
“I could never forget you,” he said again. “I think of you every day.” A single hot tear ran down over scarred tissue and was ignored. “Are you really here?”
“Leave the woman alone. Leave this place. You do not belong here. You should not be here. Leave. Leave. Leave.” The eerie whisper rose to a strangled shriek that made the hair stand up on the back of Sam’s neck.
Out of nowhere there came a crashing clap of thunder, and Sam spun around to see a jagged bolt of lightning split the sky. When he turned back, there was nothing there. No one there. Just the screen door of the tower swinging open and then closed in a sudden gust of wind.
Sam staggered over to latch it shut on numb feet, flicking on the small light by his desk. Nothing. No one. Just an empty room with an unmade bed and a splash of water on the floor where his glass had landed. Unbroken, thankfully, unlike his heart. And maybe his mind.
Had she really been there? Had Heather’s ghost finally come to see him, only to tell him to give up the fire tower that was his last refuge? Or was it just his own guilt, caused by his momentary attraction to a woman other than the one he’d lost? Because he’d seen a woman with red hair like hers?
Or maybe it was the option he dreaded most, that the PTSD was getting worse, and this was either hallucinations or his subconscious warning him that he wasn’t competent to do the job others depended on him to do. Or both. His shaking hands made that as likely an answer as any, although maybe it was normal for anyone to tremble after being visited by the dead. He’d been so far from normal for so long, he couldn’t even hazard a guess.
Sam knew from experience that he’d never get back to sleep, so instead he grabbed some of the mice that had appeared on his doorstep right before he’d gone to bed. His doorstep that was sixty-nine feet and seventy-five stairs above the ground. Which either meant that Bella had climbed all that way to drop off food for the owl and not even knocked on the door to say hi, or her huge cat had somehow known to leave the mice at his door. Sam wasn’t sure which idea he found more disconcerting.
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