Hiders

by Meg Collett

  She turned back around, the breeze blowing her hair across her back. She smiled at the round man. “Yes?”

  “My wife and I, well, ah . . . You remember Deidre, right? Anyway, she and I wanted to invite you out for Thanksgiving dinner this year. I know you don’t like big groups or anything, but our youngest daughter is busy with college and our oldest is taking off to the in-laws’, so it’s just going to be the two of us. Well, we would love to have you over. If you want.”

  Her heart tugged a little for her father’s old friend. “Tell Deidre I can bring a pumpkin roll. It was my mother’s recipe.”

  “She would like that. She would like that very much.”

  19

  When she was younger, Violet used to spend hours playing with a porcelain Russian nesting doll set her mother had given her. The way each doll could hide away inside the previous one had fascinated her. If even one doll was placed out of order, nothing would fit right. The smallest doll in the very center was solid porcelain, so small that her features were barely more than faint dots and squiggles.

  The house around her was similar to those nesting dolls, and she was the smallest one tucked away deep inside.

  The movers had loaded the last of the furniture into the U-Haul, and Gregory had driven it over to her new house for the movers to unload. They’d packed up one more load for the donation center, and he wasn’t due to return from town to pick her up for a few more minutes. She had a bit of time to say goodbye.

  She walked down the hall to the little side table. She lit a candle next to the record player in case Gregory came back and she didn’t hear him. She didn’t want him to think she’d left without him.

  With the single flickering light behind her, she took the stairs to the top level. The worn tread squeaked beneath her shoes, the smooth grain of the banister gliding like cool water beneath her hand. She took the steps by memory and closed her eyes, a hint of a smile on her lips. The house shifted and sighed around her, beams and walls creaking from the brisk wind outside. It whistled through the drafty seams and created a sweet sort of music that Violet savored as if the house were talking to her.

  On the third floor, she went straight to her parents’ room. It was the one room where she hadn’t let herself pack any of their things. Not the pens and papers scattered across her father’s secretary desk or any of her mother’s dusty perfume bottles resting along the top of the dresser. Even the closet, where Violet had spent so much time running her fingers across the familiar threads of the dresses her mother had worn, remained filled to the brim with her parents’ belongings. In the end, she’d decided not to pack up any of their clothes, aside from the few dresses she’d taken for herself. They should stay in the house, even after she was gone.

  The clothes had been the hardest, because over the years, they’d become part of Violet’s identity. But they should be here, in this room, with all the things her parents had left behind. Violet didn’t need to wear her mother’s dresses to feel closer to her. She’d closed the door to the closet, and she didn’t allow herself to take one last look inside. If she did, she might crumble in her resolve.

  Instead, she walked to the balcony doors. The brass handles squealed as she pushed them down and pulled the doors open. Instantly, the cool breeze rushed in, rustling those papers on her father’s desk and making the chandelier’s crystals chime.

  The stone floor of the balcony had a swell in it, the joints collapsing in on themselves. The railing was wrought iron and the sturdiest part of the structure. It wasn’t a large balcony, just a few feet wide and a handful longer. Some of her mother’s old flowerpots sat out here, a few overturned, the dirt long since blown or washed away. Some of the clay pieces were scattered across the floor, joining the jagged, broken bits of stone.

  Violet stepped outside, careful to avoid the larger cracks in the stone floor. When she crossed to the railing, she wrapped her fingers around it tightly and then looked out at the ocean.

  It was in front of her and right beneath her. It swelled and crashed and beat against the rocks far below. The wind carried the spray higher into the air than normal. It felt as if it were raining, a special storm just for her.

  Her heart pumped a little faster from the thrill of it.

  Looking down into the waves and the craggy rocks and the bluffs along either side of the house, pride surged through her. The house had stood for over a hundred years this close to the edge as the ocean chipped and whittled away at its foundation.

  Violet gripped the railing a little tighter, until the flaking grit of the metal bit into her palms and the sting brought tears to her eyes.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  The wind picked up, buffeting around her and the house, almost in answer. Her cheeks prickled against the cold, and the French doors rattled behind her. Beneath the balcony, something scraped and fell free. Violet watched the piece of rock fall until it hit the ocean, too far down for her to hear the answering splash. The gust died down, and she thought she could feel the house rock back into place, but it could have been her imagination.

  From downstairs, she caught the strains of music.

  The record player had turned on again. The big gust of wind must have knocked the tonearm onto the vinyl, and The Temptations sang about the night coming and the moon being the only light and not being afraid. The notes were scratchy and missing a few beats due to the damaged needle, but Violet smiled anyway.

  It felt like saying goodbye.

  Spiders, her mother whispered in her ear, are terrifying creatures. Monsters, some say. Millions of people all over the world are terrified of them. But a spider’s silk is stronger than steel. You, Violet, are stronger than steel. That’s why you’re my beautiful, wonderful little spider.

  Violet pulled the piece of paper from her pocket and looked over her list of impossible things. There was only one item left. She took the pen attached to the top of the page and clicked it open to draw a heavy black line across the last task.

  Leave this house.

  She stared down at the paper. When she looked up, she became a new woman. She folded the paper, precise with each fold, and then she held her hand out over the balcony and let it go.

  The paper fluttered down and down until it was out of sight and gone forever.

  The last impossible task on her list, all finished. She was ready to write a new list. Maybe it would contain only one task. Only one word.

  Live.

  “Promise,” she whispered to the ocean. “Promise. Promise.”

  Feeling the closure she’d needed, she turned and tiptoed her way across the cracks, thinking off that old nursery rhyme about stepping on a crack and breaking your mother’s back.

  Halfway back to the door, she put her weight down on her left leg and the floor sagged beneath her. She hopped the rest of the distance back into the bedroom. Behind her, a new hole had opened in the balcony, the stone having completely fallen away.

  “Close,” she whispered, “but no cigar, house. I’m not staying.”

  She closed the doors and twisted the lock, knowing the key was lost somewhere in the deep, forgotten shadows of the house. When she was gone, if someone wanted out onto the balcony, they would have to break the glass.

  Swaying along to the music, she walked a slow circuit around the room before sitting on the bed. The canopy above her head shifted, raining a bit of dust onto her shoulders. She spread her hands over the satin duvet with frayed threads and ripped holes.

  One last time, she drew in the scent of her parents’ room, the one that had comforted her over the years and held her close when the outside world had been too harsh that particular day, when people only saw the Ghost when they looked at her. When she couldn’t—

  Her eyes popped open.

  She inhaled an uncertain breath, thinking she must have been mistaken. But her stomach twisted. She caught the scent again. She hadn’t been wrong.

  Smoke.

  She sprang off the bed and hurri
ed to the door leading back into the hall. The smell was so strong she tasted it on her tongue. By the stairs, a blurry plume of smoke was churning and building and rolling down the hall toward her.

  She was frozen, her heart slamming against her sternum. A choked whimper fell from her lips. She clapped a shaking hand over her mouth. Her spine was ice and her knees were melting beneath her.

  Fear reached up and throttled her.

  How had the fire started? What had happened? Her thoughts tumbled through her frightened mind. It took her precious seconds to remember the candle she’d lit downstairs next to the record player. The gust of wind that had turned on the record player could have knocked over the candlestick.

  She strained her eyes to see the stairs and gauge how bad the fire was by the smoke, but it was no use. She forced herself to move forward. Maybe her faulty vision was making it look worse than it really was. She picked up her speed, nearly sprinting straight for the smoke until it was thick in her throat and burning her eyes. She blinked and rubbed her eyelids as tears streamed down her cheeks.

  At the edge of the smoke, she could see how quickly it was growing. Behind her, it was already halfway to the bedroom, but at the stairs, it was so thick she couldn’t see her hands in front of her or spot her feet along the floor. She couldn’t even find the banister.

  She groped forward, hands reaching, eyes closed. She coughed, and one cough bled into the next, and suddenly, it was as though she was choking down more smoke than she was clearing from her lungs, and she couldn’t stop hacking and gagging.

  Her foot found the stairs too late. She fell forward, slipping off the rounded edge, and her ankle rolled beneath her when it connected with the step below.

  She caught the banister right as she was about to topple over. The wood stopped her fall, and she pulled herself back upright, still holding on to the railing.

  But it was hot beneath her hands. Actually, the air all around her was hot—hot enough to spread sweat across her brow and turn her panicked breaths into frightened panting. Her tongue was dry and swollen in her mouth, and her throat was closing on her.

  She couldn’t go down. The stairs were impossible. She’d get lost in the smoke and die. If she was right about the candlestick, then it meant the fire had originated right at the base of the stairs—stairs that had termite damage. The wood, reduced to crumbled rot, would go up as fast as actual kindling.

  The fire was coming straight up toward her. She’d never make it down and out to safety. She had to find another way.

  She spun around and fought her way out of the smoke. It had reached the bedroom and was so thick she almost passed the door. Inside, the air was better, though hazy. She scrubbed her eyes until she could see through her half-closed lids.

  Her eyes landed on the balcony doors she’d locked. She could break the glass and force them open. Obviously jumping down into the ocean wasn’t an option. Her body would get dashed across the rocks from a fall that far up. She could never land it right, not with the wind and the waves obscuring her view. If she somehow managed to miss the rocks, the waves would crush her.

  She stumbled toward the doors and jerked on the handles. She had to get outside. If she could climb over the railing on the side of the house, she could use the stonework to navigate her way around the outside.

  She had to get out of here, where the air was too hot and the smoke was pressing into her room. The handles in her grip blurred from her tears. She struggled to keep twisting them in her hands.

  She rammed her shoulder against the seam of the doors, desperation blinding her as much as the smoke and her weak eyes.

  A sob lodged in her throat.

  What was she thinking? She would never be able to see the stone edges outside well enough to navigate her way around the house by finding the right footholds and handholds that would hold her weight. She would fall within a few feet.

  She abandoned the doors and looked around, her head whipping back and forth as she struggled to think straight and stop her fear from clogging up her mind.

  But the smoke was too bad in here. Her breathing was ragged and thick, and she had to keep moving. She rushed back to the hall. The smoke was a wall around her, boxing her in. She stumbled toward the window at the opposite end of the hallway from the stairs. It was bright enough from the moonlight outside to guide her.

  Her hand on the wall kept her upright as she struggled through another coughing fit. It threatened to leave her on the floor, her head swimming. Bright bursts of light sprang across her vision. She blinked them away and rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes.

  She reached the window and fell against its cool press. Her skin felt tight and cracked from the heat of the smoke. With her fingers spread against the window glass, she glanced over her shoulder.

  Down the hall, through the smoke, she saw the fire. It was bright and brilliant, the way the flames licking toward the ceiling, devouring the house and surging toward open air to fuel itself like a cannibalistic monster. She was right in its path.

  Getoutgetoutgetoutget

  The desperate words spun together into one long scream that tore from her throat. She fisted her hand and pounded against the glass as if it would do any good.

  She leaned against it and looked down. Over by the front of the house, she found the treetops along the house and her stack of firewood. If she could get outside through the glass, she could get over to the trees—and fall three stories to the ground below.

  She’d have to jump, but she could get closer.

  She didn’t want to leave the window and its coolness but she had to move. She backtracked down the hall a few feet and opened the last door on the right: her father’s study. As if it would do any good, she closed the door behind her. The smoke would have to fight through the gap below the door.

  Her attention narrowed on the side window behind her father’s desk. She raced to it and flipped the lock. Her fingers dug into the lip and she threw her weight into lifting it.

  It didn’t budge.

  Daring a glance back at the door, she spotted the smoke slipping inside. On the other side of the wall, the fire crackled and spat. The house shuddered. Violet grabbed the windowsill and looked up.

  The ceiling buckled. The wall connecting to the hall sagged and crumbled. Out there, by the stairs, the ceiling must have fallen in.

  She felt the house give in, one falling piece leading to another. The house wasn’t strong enough to hold on any longer. A great bellow boomed on the other side of the house as things crashed and tore and wood splintered.

  Violet grabbed one of her father’s paperweights from his desk—an old, cracked hunk of amber with a mosquito caught inside. She reared back and slammed it into the glass.

  The window was old and not tempered. It broke easily beneath the blow, and cracks spiderwebbed out from the point of impact. She bashed until the glass gave away, and she cleared out the shards so she could crawl through the window without cutting herself.

  Overhead, the ceiling groaned—a warning. She wouldn’t get another.

  She threw a leg over the windowsill, and her foot found nothing but open air. Her pants snagged on a shard of glass she’d missed. It sliced into her thigh. She bit her lip and kept going, sitting on the ledge to get her other leg through.

  She sat in the window, both legs on the outside of the house, her hands the only things keeping her from falling three stories straight down. She looked toward the front of the house and the cluster of trees. They were short and their limbs were bare, the trunks barely as big as her torso, but it would serve to break her fall and hopefully keep her from breaking her legs.

  But to get there, she would have to traverse over one of the house’s outer walls. She scanned the rocks. She had ten feet or more. If she could traverse that distance, she could jump for the trees and hopefully make up the last few feet in free fall.

  The ironwork above the window was a good place to get upright.

  She leaned out, her
fingers gripping the window frame, and looked up. She wiggled her leg up beneath her so she could partially stand.

  Right as she started moving, the ceiling in the study caved in.

  Smoke and fire billowed straight for her in the window. The flames struck her like a physical blow. She screamed. The window frame sagged with the ceiling, folding in around her.

  She fell.

  Her hand caught the lip of the window, and her shoulder wrenched in its socket from catching her weight. She dangled for a minute, her eyes on her yard and the main road down below.

  Sirens. She heard sirens and saw the flashing blue and red lights.

  Above her, the fire pressed out of the window, seeking fresh, clean oxygen. The flames licked across the tops of her fingers, searing the skin and boiling it. She fought back another scream.

  She spun her body around and threw her other hand up, reaching for the ledge with her fingertips. It almost took too much strength for her to pull herself up enough with one arm to get a grip with her other hand, but once she managed it, she found a tiny foothold beneath the window for the toe of her shoe. It was just enough to help support her weight and rest her arms.

  But the fire was a problem. It was burning both her hands, and her fingers felt swollen and tight, the heat stretching the skin back.

  “Violet!”

  She craned her neck and looked toward the ground. Arie stood below her, his hands cupped around his mouth as he yelled her name again.

  “Don’t jump!” he shouted.

  But her hands were losing their grip. The fire, already too hot, was building above her.

  The wall she hung from leaned in, toward the flames, the ceiling no longer there to keep it from collapsing inward. She had to move or the stone wall she needed to reach the trees would start falling around her and raining down from above her.

  She moved her hands to the corner of the windowsill so her body was at an angle. Holding on for dear life, she removed one foot from the foothold and reached for another, her shoes scraping along the wall until she found a decent-sized ledge. She tested it a few times and then stepped on it.