For a small, pretty creature, my Aunt Birdie could be terrifying. I didn't dare say anything but "No, ma'am."
Birdie made a satisfied sound. "All right, then. Zora, you go on about your chores. Marshal, I would invite you in, but my baby girl's napping right now, and I don't have any coffee anyway."
"That's quite all right," he said. Then, as if he had to do something to reestablish his authority, he said to me, "I'll be pulling down those notices of yours. Between Larsen dying and Polley up in arms, well..."
Picking up the pail, I nodded, as if he hadn't just very manfully decided what Birdie had already told him—that I was out of business and planned to stay that way. I did hope my sarcasm wasn't entirely evident when I said, "I'm ever in your debt, Marshal."
I fled before anyone could call me back.
***
High, dry heat beat on my shoulders, and when I reached the creek, I longed to strip off and lie in its cool waters. The current would pull the knots from my hair and the weight from my soul. I wanted to plunge deep, to bathe in haunting silence—to emerge entirely new. I would be Ophelia triumphant, floating, not drowning.
Instead, I peeled off my boots and stockings, leaving them in a heap on the shore. My spirit was disturbed, my head too full with no release. I was angry, hungry, tired—I grieved and I yearned. I hesitated.
Splashing through the creek, I soaked my skirts, though I held them high. Nimble minnows fled my path. And when thunder rolled beneath my feet, the distant trembling that announced Emerson's arrival, I turned to call to him. "You're late!"
"You're crazy," he called back. Leaving Epona to graze, he cut through the cattails and stopped, just to gape at me. "The racket you were making, I thought you were wrestling with the only gator in Oklahoma."
"Don't bait me. I haven't got the temper for it today."
Running his thumbs beneath his suspenders, Emerson took a long, appraising look at me. When his gaze rose to meet mine, he said, "What's the matter?"
"Everything!"
Holding his arms out wide, almost taunting, he said, "Well, start at the beginning."
I kicked at the water. "I don't want to! I keep going back to the beginning, but what's the beginning? I don't know how to count myself anymore. I'm uncertain, and I hate it! I was always certain before!"
Emerson rolled his shoulders. "So pick something and go with it."
"It's hardly that simple," I declared.
With infuriating calm, he asked, "Why isn't it?"
"You said yourself, you had no idea where you'd go from here," I said. "You stand there mouthing simplicity at me, and you don't know! No better than I do!"
"It's not the end of the world to guess and get it wrong."
"What a convenient philosophy," I snapped. But then I deflated, ashamed of myself. I knew I looked foolish-—I was much too old for tantrums.
Hitching my skirts up a little more, I stalked back toward my boots. I would dress, I would settle myself—by force of will, I would sort myself out—such was my intention.
But an oily musk filled the air. A pungent violation, it barely registered before I understood it was a warning. That I realized too late. Uncoiling like a whip, a thick black snake struck at me. Unfurled, it struck again.
Too startled to scream, I staggered ashore. All my reason fled; panic commanded me to run, so I did. Cattails and tall grasses whipped my skin, setting off new panics. Then, suddenly, strong arms caught me, branding me with a hot impression of Emerson's body against mine.
"Stop. Stop!" He turned me around, pushing me to sit on the ground. On his knees in an instant, he pushed my skirts aside.
My chest burned, my heart pounding too hard to be contained, it seemed. My trembling lips parted to babble as I tugged my hems higher. I couldn't see, and I felt so queer—lightheaded and parched. "Am I bleeding? Am I going to die?"
Emerson's hands smoothed over my ankles, along the curve of my calf. At first they searched, their urgency evident, but then ... they stilled. He stilled. His voice low, he said, "I don't see a thing. You feel all right?"
"I'm not sure; I can't tell," I said, pulling my knees to my chest.
He searched again, fingers whispering across my bare ankles. His breath fell on my skin, heat that thawed the gripping cold within me. Bowing his head, he rested his brow against my knee; his lashes skimmed a subtle touch—and then, his lips. "I think you'll survive."
Something turned—some transient gear, a second's passing that defied time and stretched on—and I slipped my hand into his hair. Twisting his waves around my fingers, I still felt odd, but decidedly more effervescent.
And this switch rendered itself in my voice, rubbing it low and throaty. "I don't think I will."
His hand tightened around my ankle; he surrendered to me a kiss—the tenderest caress against the curve of my knee. And then another, more deliberate.
He lingered there, lips parted, breath hot, before pressing his head against my hand. My blood thundered, and surely, so did his. I felt it, in the trembling of the earth; I saw it in flowers that suddenly blossomed around us. Clean white light spilled over us, a dancing waver of sunbeams reflected off the water.
Raising his eyes to mine, he said nothing. He was wrecked; he was beautiful. And he'd spoken a perfect truth: it wouldn't be the end of the world to guess and get it wrong. There was always the glorious possibility I would get it right. So I leaned over, my thumb trailing the rise of his cheek, and I kissed him.
I claimed him. He was mine.
***
We lay in the green grass as daylight faded around us.
Perhaps we had been there too long, but it was hard to imagine shaking myself off and heading back to chores just yet. The restive wind had finally settled, the sky clean of clouds and haze.
Comfortable in the crook of Emerson's arm, I chained hyacinth and indigo into a circlet. It was a silly thing, a childish frippery, but it made me smile to crown him with delicate blue flowers.
He rose, pulling me up to sit with him. Arching a brow, he took the circlet from his head and dropped it onto mine."Prettier on you," he murmured. Then he framed my face with his broad, strong hands and tipped it up for a kiss. He still tasted sweet, of the sand plums he'd coaxed into ripening.
"I don't know; you're terribly pretty," I said, laughing against his lips before melting into them again.
I could have lain there a hundred hours, a hundred days, endlessly mapping his face and his hands. We had not time enough to memorize each other, but we could linger only so much. We both knew it and reluctantly pulled away.
Smoothing my hair, I said, "Where are you going from here, Em?"
"I don't know," he said. He ran his thumbs beneath his suspenders, more, I thought, to soothe himself than to straighten them. Squinting into the distance, he said, "Ireland, maybe."
My throat knotted. Another country? Another world entirely? I managed to say, "Is that so?"
"California," he continued. He reached for me, catching my hand and kissing it roughly. "Paris, France—actually, not Paris, sorry. I don't think we'd mix, me and Paris, do you?"
In spite of myself, I managed to laugh. "If we're being frank with each other, then I'd have to say no. You and the City of Lights seem very ill-suited to one another."
Emerson slid closer to me, wrapping arms around me. He brushed his nose against my temple. "What could you live with?"
"What makes you think I'm coming?"
I meant it only to tease, but my voice broke when I said it, and hot tears stung my eyes. Though I tried to wipe them, he managed first, whispering some nonsense sound meant to comfort me. I composed myself with a breath, so he kissed my brow, then stretched away. His face impossible to read, he thrust a hand into his pocket.
"I lost the chain a while back," he said, taking my hand and pressing something cool into the palm. "It's not a ring, but it's a promise."
Opening my fingers, I gazed at the pendant that lay in my hand. Blue glass glinted in the
sunlight, carved into the shape of a teardrop and bound with silver wire. Twisting the delicate lid, I lifted it to my nose. The faintest hint of rose-water wafted up.
"Where did you get this?" I asked, already possessive of it.
"It was my mother's. Like I said, it's a promise." He waited for me to say something, impatiently—I wasn't sure he had patience in him. He closed my fingers around the pendant and said, "Sleep on it."
I took account of myself, and then I kissed the back of his hand. "I came out here ruined. Leaving with you can't possibly ruin me more."
Incredulous, Emerson pressed a finger into my lower lip. "You really are some kind of romantic, you know that?" He hauled himself to his feet, then offered me his hand. "Come on, I'll take you home."
Fat and happy on a day's grazing, Epona barely moved when Emerson mounted her. She gave a careless toss of her head when he pulled me up to sit in front of him. My skirts were filthy, hitched high over my knees—I looked exactly a shameless, ruined thing, and I didn't care.
His strong arms around me, the sweetness of his kiss still on my lips, gold and green streaked by, the prairie turned to an antique sea. My hair whipped around us, our own dark halo as he roughed his cheek against mine.
It seemed like we could ride anywhere-—that oceans couldn't keep us from Irish cliffs or Italian shores, from the bells of San Francisco or the revels of New Orleans. In that moment, everything was light.
In the next, it was fire.
Eighteen
At first, the orange light and graying haze seemed like sunset, but it came from the east. An eerie calm accompanied it, winds still, the sky clear. Smoke—not a single point but a wall of it—veiled the horizon. Its sharp scent was a suggestion—like a tickling of the senses, motion caught from the corner of the eye.
Emerson realized it the same time I did. He tightened his arm around my waist as he slowed Epona to a walk. He paced her back and forth, peering into the distance. "Might be they're burning off some brush."
"Wishful thinking," I said. I had no proof of imaginary intentions, but I did have my gift. And there was little water that way, only a few faint points of silver. I looked over my shoulder to tell him that, but the wind kicked up.
It carried fire on it—stoking the one in the distance so that flames, not just smoke, climbed the sky. Delicate ash fluttered around us, dove-gray motes against the unearthly sky.
We took off fast toward Birdie's soddy. Scored by waves of heat, I had the awful luxury of watching the prairie devoured. It was as if someone had traced a thick, soot line in the distance and pushed it ever faster toward us with an infernal breath.
Birdie's voice rent the air. Her voice was ragged with screaming, and as we approached, I realized she was screaming for me. I threw a leg over the saddle, trusting Emerson to drop me safely to my feet. Stumbling when I hit the ground, I found my balance and ran to the front of the yard.
"Birdie! Birdie, I'm here," I said, all but crashing into her.
Furious and relieved, Birdie grabbed my shoulder and shook it. "Where have you been?" Louella clung to her like a little monkey, twisting a loose lock of Birdie's hair in her hand.
"I was with Mr. Birch," I admitted. I said it, and he came around the house, commanding Epona with a firm hand. She stamped at the ground, throwing her head—perhaps realizing better than any of us the danger.
Eyes narrowing, Birdie cut through me with a look. Letting go, she pushed past me and stalked over to Emerson. It surprised me when she untangled Louella's hand from her hair, and thrust her into his arms.
"Take her to Mrs. Herrington at the general."
Louella started to cry. She strained over Emerson's arms, struggling mightily to escape him and return to a familiar embrace. It couldn't have been easy to keep a grip on her, especially with Epona so unsettled, but he managed. He stole but a single look in my direction, a tangling gaze full of fear and reassurance. I pressed my hand to my heart, urging him on with a nod. And with that, he was off, cradling the baby to his chest as he rode hard toward town.
"Get the yoke," Birdie said. She disappeared inside, emerging with her two cook pots. I did as she told me, hanging pails on either end of the yoke, and we hurried to the well, filling all we could before turning back.
Birdie held the pots out wide, trying to keep from spilling even a drop. "Start with the roof."
"What about the chickens?" I asked.
Shaking her head, Birdie stopped and considered the straw slant of the soddy. "If they want to carry a bucket to their coop, they're welcome." Heaving back, Birdie flung the first pot full of water at the house. It splashed low, darkening the soddy walls.
I threw the yoke off, plucking up one of the pails. My aim was little better. It was only because I had more water to throw that more water landed where we wanted it.
Heat swirled around us. Ash fluttered down, a pale rain that bittered each breath. Birdie's second cast actually splashed across the roof, and the third, which she dipped from my buckets, did as well. I threw the last of that pail after it. Then, in perfect time, we hurried back to the well.
The fire was no longer a distant threat. It was ravenous, swallowing miles of prairie by the minute. It belched blue smoke into the heavens, turning the setting sun into a blood-red disk.
I had no time to wonder what apocalyptic futures might be found in a sunset like that. I had to draw water; I had to burn my hands on rough rope; I had to run.
Tripping on her skirts, Birdie lost her pots to the parched ground. I shucked the yoke off, shoving a pail into her hands. Taking mine up, we threw at once. The roof was parched too—an unrelenting summer had stolen every drop of water it could. The whole world was tinder, and we stood helpless within it.
Again and again, we ran for the well. The fire swept closer, a terrible clock marking time. Now every breath burned. It seared going in and came out on violent coughs. We staggered more; the water hit its mark less.
Emptying her pot, Birdie scrubbed her face with her sleeve, then started for the well again. "Come on!"
"No, no, Birdie, wait." I grabbed her wrist, pulling her back. I felt disconnected, my thoughts swirling in a lightheaded distance. But even I could see that the flames had come too close to risk another run to the well. "It's too close. It's too close. What do we do?"
Birdie's breath whistled. She looked behind us, then back at the fire. "I don't know. Let's go lie down. It's cooler inside."
Both our senses had fled, it seemed. The soddy was nothing more than an earth-brick oven. Even if the roof held-—especially if it held—we would die in it. Trying to stay my aunt and reason through an inferno, I suddenly laughed.
It was a bitter, ridiculous sound, more a bark than anything else. After the year I spent in crêpe and gauze, courting Death and praying for his coming-—he had finally arrived, and I wanted nothing to do with him.
Then, in the swirling heat, a chill crossed my skin. As the blaze swept toward us, I realized I drowned in fire here. I drowned in it, and the sky was wide as the sea.
"Don't move," I ordered Birdie.
I stepped away from her, isolating myself in the smoky yard. No more did I feel the heat the wind carried from the fire. The fire had come; it threw furious sparks at the sky. Embers fell on me now, ashes to be.
So I reached down, toward the heartbeat beneath earth and stone. And I reached up, drawn by the faint pulse in darkening clouds. There was no one to dig, no intermediary to bring the water forth. I would do it, or we would die.
The whole of my life was supposed to show itself to me, but it didn't. I felt no looming calm. What kind of end was this? How dare God or the fates or the elements abandon us like this? The last of my breath twisted into a scream. It was a furious sound—no mourning banshee, I screamed until I tasted iron in my mouth.
Something struck me; it was like a hammer to the head. I collapsed to my knees, falling into the dirt. None of my thoughts would order themselves. I saw a ship in the clouds; I tasted roasted
meat. And I burned from the inside—burned as if I'd swallowed coals.
It was a feast day, I thought, and something ran over me. Little birds or spiders, everywhere, plucking at my skin. Twitching there, I reached for the fairy lights that crossed my gaze. They flickered and flickered; my fingers spasmed of their own accord—they caught nothing.
It began to rain.
***
I flew, through a sandstorm, on a long gold ribbon. An eerie chorus played around me, disconnected voices that sounded miles away or right inside my head: birch rode the baby's safe house on fire was lightning. The odd hymn leapt and jumped; I couldn't catch its melody or meaning.
My head was too heavy for my neck, it seemed. Uncoordinated, my eyes opened independently, one, then the other, the world swimming around me in strange, hazy shapes. A flash of green eye, a spark of rose-patterned blue—
Then, suddenly, some band within me snapped. It jolted me into my skin again. In one moment, I had floated unaware—now I felt every jounce of the road. A needlefall of raindrops stung my face, and I raised a hand to fend them off.
"Be still," Birdie said. She curled her arms around me, and I realized my head lay in her lap, as if I were a babe. Tugging a quilt around me, she shielded most of me from the storm. "We're almost to town."
"A few minutes at best," Theo said.
I lifted my head when I heard his voice. My thoughts ordered and disordered themselves, but I managed to piece together my surroundings. Red velvet, blue calico—Theo's phaeton, Birdie's nine-patch quilt. We rode into town; the sky cracked with lightning, warned with thunder.
I had to find my mouth with my fingers; once I had, I asked, "Did the house burn?"
Exhaling a weary laugh, Birdie pulled the quilt tighter around me. "No, duck."
"But the house didn't burn?" I asked. I had a feeling I'd already asked it, but I couldn't remember the answer.
Face pinched, Birdie said, "The house is fine; now, be still. You can talk your head off after Doc Julian looks you over." And then, to effect the stillness she commanded, she pulled a corner of the quilt over my face. My lashes fluttered against the patches, but the darkness invited me down so pleasantly, I couldn't resist it.
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