by Shirley Wine
The woman was quite mad.
“How would you like that little mother hen?”
They reached the top of the stairs and another door.
“Open it Winsome,” Gaelen crooned. “I have a surprise for you up here. A lovely surprise.”
Lacey looked at her and Winsome saw terror in her darling little girl’s eyes.
I won’t fail you honey, she vowed silently. I failed Matthew but I won’t fail you. I’ll save you or die trying.
As she opened the door into the attic, a soft relieved sigh escaped. It was the same as when she and Jared had cleared it of years of accumulated junk.
“It’s a fire hazard.” Jared had exclaimed horrified when Lacey had taken him to see the secret room she’d discovered while exploring. “In a house as old as ours, its lunacy leaving all this junk here.”
It had taken them the better part of a day.
She and Lacey had grumbled, but Jared had been adamant.
He refused to stop until it was clear. The worthless junk ended up on a bonfire. Anything he wanted salvaged, stored downstairs.
Winsome risked a look at Gaelen. And saw her shake her head. She’d expected it to be as she’d left it. It was then Winsome knew. Cold terror filled into her heart.
Fire.
Gaelen planned to roast her and Lacey alive.
Jared. Jared come home. I love you. I need you. Lacey needs you.
“It’s gone.” For one moment Gaelen looked bewildered, and then she fixed her victims with a terrible look. “Get inside.”
Winsome went on reluctant feet, her eyes looking around the cramped space with its one dusty little window.
Gaelen waved them towards the cupboard that Jared had looked at and then decided he’d come back to another day to remove the door in case a child accidentally locked itself inside up in the hot attic roof space.
As if the other woman was an open book, Winsome read her intentions.
She was going to lock them in that space and then—
“Get in,” Gaelen said holding the door open.
Winsome hesitated and Gaelen whacked her face with the butt of the pistol.
She couldn’t prevent the muffled cry of pain. Gaelen’s eyes flared with triumph.
“Get in there.”
Terrified the woman would lose it completely and shoot her, leaving Lacey at her mercy, Winsome obeyed the guttural order.
Pushing the shaking child ahead of her, she crawled after her into the narrow roof cavity.
“Give my love to Harvey when you all meet up.” Gaelen laughed as she slammed the door.
Winsome let out a long pent up breath. The outer door slammed shut and they were alone in the dark. Even on a cold day like today it was too hot in here under the tile roof.
“Mummy,” Lacey’s arms were limpet-tight around Winsome’s neck, “I’m so scared.”
“I know, honey. But we’ll soon be out of here, okay?” Winsome rocked the trembling child. I’m scared too, Lacey.
“‘Kay,” the little girl muttered against her neck.
For one long minute Winsome hugged the child against her breast and then put her aside. She was not going to sit around and be fried alive like a rat in a hole.
“We have to look for something to open that door Lacey.” Winsome tried to inject a note of normality into a situation that was far from normal.
She felt for the door, running her fingers over it until she located the protruding handle stub, minus its handle.
Oh Jared, she wailed silently. Why didn’t we fix it the other day?
Then she might have shot you both and there’d truly be no hope.
“We need a nail or something like that, Lacey. Feel on the floor.” Winsome refused to dwell on how slender their chance of escape was.
Or that they were alone with a deranged woman bent on destruction and revenge.
They felt around on the level area at their feet.
“Mummy what’s this?” Lacey thrust something small, round and rough in her hand.
Winsome felt it all over. Her heart leapt in her chest. She resisted the urge to dance and yell with relief. “It’s the door knob. It must have fallen off.”
Well that made sense.
“Will it fit? Can we get out of here?”
Winsome fiddled but her efforts were hampered by the dark. For long endless minutes she struggled to fit the old knob on the interior mechanism.
Swearing under her breath as it fell out of her hand Winsome bent and felt for the doorknob. That’s when she smelled it.
A whiff of smoke.
Fear drove a stake through her heart.
The homestead was over a hundred years old and made of heart kauri, aged and dry. It would burn like tinder.
Panic welled in Winsome but she forced it down. With desperate calm she tried to fit the knob in place. It slid home like a hot knife through butter. Holding her breath, she twisted it. The knob stuck a moment and then the door was open.
A sob of relief escaped. She raced over to the door but Gaelen had locked it. No escape there. The smell of smoke was stronger.
“Are we going to burn?” Lacey’s face was as pale as paper, the freckles on her nose standing out in stark relief.
“No we are not. We’re going out the window, Lacey.”
With grim desperation, she pushed and shoved on the old frame. It gave an inch and then swung open.
“Take your shoes and socks off. I’m going to lift you out onto the roof,” Winsome said grimly holding the child’s shoulders. “When you get out there I want you to be very quiet, we don’t want Gaelen to hear, okay?”
“ ‘kay.” Lacey trembled as Winsome helped her out onto the roof. “Get on your hands and knees and sort of lie on the roof while I get out. Move along a little.”
Winsome stripped off her own shoes and socks and prayed the rain would hold off. Wet tiles were slicker than ice. It was a tight fit but driven by desperation Winsome wriggled out the tiny window and plopped on the roof beside Lacey.
Fear left her. She was a little girl again, climbing across the roof to look at the stars.
Undoing the top button of her jeans, she loosened the waistband giving Lacey something to hang onto.
“Let’s climb up to the top first and then we’ll look for a big tree.” Winsome looked at the terrified child. She leaned down and kissed her, giving her a swift hug. “Ready for an adventure? You hang on tight to the waist of my jeans and follow me. We can do it. Okay?”
“ ‘kay.”
From the attic window it was only a few feet to the apex. Winsome breathed heavily as her hands closed over it. Lacey clinging like a limpet to the band of her jeans, was one step behind.
“I used to do this when I was growing up,” Winsome said, drawing Lacey’s attention from their precarious situation. “We’ll go along this line here and see that big tree over by the back door, we’ll climb down that.”
Winsome, thankful that Jared hadn’t yet gotten around to trimming the huge oak growing over the roof and hoped the child didn’t realise how far away the tree was. It was safer than the magnolia near the front door. The oak shaded the back of the house and Gaelen always used the main front entrance, snob that she was.
“At night me and some of the other kids would crawl out onto the roof and watch the stars. Once we climbed out and watched fireworks.” She tried to distract the little girl’s attention from their precarious situation as she inched her way across the roof. Lacey’s weight made it slow going. The stench of smoke was stronger.
Jared, we need you. Where are you?
“Mummy I’m scared,” Lacey whimpered as they reached the break in the roof.
“Not much further now. Come on, kiddo. We can do it. We just get down here.”
She heard the break in Lacey’s voice and prayed the little girl wouldn’t panic. Below and to the side of them a huge plume of smoke belched out of a window.
“Oh God, oh God, help us both,” Winsome muttered. “Cl
imb on my back and hang on.”
Lacey shimmied up Winsome’s back like a monkey, her arms tight around her throat. “Don’t choke me I need to breathe.”
Not worrying about making noise or keeping out of sight, Winsome slip-slid down onto the wide apex of the West wing of the house in a desperate race against time and the swift moving fire. Leaving the safety of the apex, she slid facedown towards the tree, finding desperate toeholds on the tiles as she moved as fast as she dared toward the old gnarled oak.
She was a metre from the oak, when she saw a jet of fire belch skywards.
Winsome launched herself at the tree clinging to a huge limb. “Hang on Lacey. Hide your face against my back.”
Instinct took over.
In the desperate race, half-remembered techniques surfaced. Her limbs burned with fatigue. The fearsome heat intensified. Foot over foot she found toeholds on the huge limb. She scrambled past protruding branches and thick burls obstructing her way, ever downwards in desperate descent.
Orange tongues of fire and thick black smoke belched skywards.
Lacey, clinging like a limpet to her back, sobbed.
Jared, I love you, Winsome sobbed the words over and over, a mantra in this nightmare of heat, noise and the belching orange monster.
“Mummy, Mummy, I’m burning.”
Winsome heard Lacey’s scream, but had no breath for her own. Her hands lost their grip and she was tumbling head first into the fiery, black heat.
So this is what it feels like to die.
Chapter Eighteen
Someone was holding something over her face.
Winsome blinked and tried to open her eyes. Her abused limbs screamed and she moaned.
“She’s coming round.”
“Thank God.”
She struggled to breathe, every breath hurt beyond description.
“You’re okay,” someone murmured, “try to breathe naturally, Winsome. Let the oxygen in. It will help.”
She tried to obey but a coughing fit wracked her whole body. “That’s it breathe slowly.”
Her eyes opened and blinked, looking up into Clinton Perry’s face. Her thoughts were jumbled the desperate struggle to breathe commanding her whole attention.
“Breathe slowly. We have you safe.”
She closed her eyes before insistent worry tugged her back to awareness.
Lacey.
Frantic, she tore at the mask on her face as she tried to look about her.
Clinton lifted the mask.
“Lacey?” she croaked, heart filled with terror. Her last clear memory was the girl screaming.
“She’s okay.” Clinton soothed her panic. “She’s already on her way to hospital.”
“Burnt?” Winsome forced the harsh word from a raw throat.
“No, just scared.” Jared was beside her, his hand gentle on her shoulder.
Desperate, she searched his face for the truth.
He understood. “Her hair’s singed, her face will probably peel and she inhaled smoke. She’ll recover.”
Relief overwhelmed her and she gave into the lassitude. Jared wouldn’t lie.
Something was happening to her arm, but she was beyond caring.
“Get her in the ambulance.”
She thought she heard Jared protesting but everything faded.
When she next stirred, Winsome wrinkled her nose.
The smell was familiar, not pleasantly so. She lay still, trying to remember. Something on her face itched. She lifted her hand and a groan escaped.
In an instant someone was at her side. “Would you like water or some pain relief?”
She opened her eyes and saw Jared’s familiar face. Her mouth was so dry. Her chest no longer hurt so much with every breath.
“Water,” she croaked.
He lifted a glass with a straw and held it to her lips. She drank in thirsty gulps. Jared put the tumbler on the locker and stroked the hair from her face with a tender hand.
“How are you doing? Are you in pain?” The soft words held the echo of torment.
She needed to think about that. “Just sore.”
His smile was strained and he was clearly exhausted.
His tawny hair was rumpled; his eyes like scorched holes in parchment. He wore his farm clothes. Very rumpled and dirty farm clothes.
And that brought her wide-awake. Jared was fastidious, and while he often got dirty, he never stayed that way very long. He had the look of a man who hadn’t seen sleep in far too long.
Then it hit her. Hospital, she was in hospital and the smell was the lingering acridness of smoke.
Gaelen.
The homestead.
The fire.
“Lacey?” Fear ripped her heart open. She struggled to sit up, grabbing at Jared’s arm ignoring the searing agony of her bandaged hands.
“Lacey’s fine.” His arm, warm and strong, was around her in an instant. The hand caressing her shoulder had a fine tremble. “Her hair’s singed, she inhaled some smoke and has a few scrapes, that’s all. You weren’t so lucky.”
Eyes wide with alarm, she struggled to breathe through the sorrow that tore at her heart.
“Not our baby, Jared?” she whispered stricken.
“No, baby’s fine. The doctors say it’s okay. Your hands are cut and scraped raw from the tiles and your hair is badly singed.” He splayed his hand across her belly as if he were protecting the tiny embryo lying deep in the secret recesses of her body, a gesture as tender as it was reassuring.
“The house?” she asked tentatively even though she knew the answer.
“It’s gone. But you and Lacey are safe,” he said fiercely. “A house is replaceable.”
Maybe, but she saw anguish and despair in his amber eyes. That old house held so much Grainger history. He ran a hand through his hair. “I died a thousand deaths when I saw you on that roof, Lacey clinging to your back like an overgrown joey. Where did you learn to climb like that?”
“At the orphanage we often climbed out and sat on the roof at night, looking at the stars.” She managed a shaky smile. “It was an adventure, an escape from the regimentation.”
That escalated the tension. They looked at each other, eyes filled with the hideous knowledge that she and Lacey were lucky to be alive.
“Gaelen?”
Something ugly flashed in his eyes, and then his expression became impassive. “She was killed.”
Relief surged through Winsome, pure energising relief. Gaelen was dead. She was no longer a threat to any one of them. “In the fire?”
“No.” Jared gripped her shoulder. “She drove away like maniac, lost control, overturned the car and crashed into a tree. They cut her out of the car but she died at the scene.”
A shudder rippled through her. “She was quite, quite crazy, Jared. She had a gun and caught me by surprise.”
“Lacey told me.” He buried his face against her shoulder, his arm tightening in a convulsive movement. “How did you escape?”
Memories crowded back, thick and fast. “She locked us in under the roof. Thank God we’d cleared out that attic. It gave us a chance. Lacey found the knob and we opened the door.”
A shudder wracked him and he laid a trembling hand against her face. “I was terrified the roof would collapse.”
Remembering the horror of that frantic race, she began to shake. Fire was an appalling way to die and she’d looked it in the eye, too close for comfort. Jared held her in his arms.
“It’s over, sweetheart,” he crooned into her hair. “It’s over. You’re safe.”
“I was so scared,” she said in a choked whisper. “So scared.”
“You and me both,” His hand splayed across her shoulder and back. A knock at the door had them breaking apart as Caroline came in holding Lacey’s hand.
“Mummy.” Lacey pulled away from Caroline and raced across the room.
Jared caught her and lifted her on the bed. “Careful of Winsome’s hands, Lacey.”
“Hi p
umpkin.” Winsome devoured her child with hungry eyes, needing to see for herself, that she was okay. “That’s a neat hairdo.”
Lacey’s long hair had been trimmed back very short, but it would grow again, her face was pink but there were no blisters. The spectre that the girl was burned finally faded.
Lacey snuggled into Winsome’s neck. “I was so frightened.”
“So was I kiddo.” Winsome hugged her close, and then held her away and looked into her child’s eyes. “But we worked together and we got out.” She laid a bandaged hand on a tear-streaked cheek. “You did good finding that door handle.”
“I thought you were stuck in that window.” Lacey’s grin wobbled but Winsome saw a glimpse of the exuberant child emerge. “Then you plopped out like a cork out of a bottle.”
Winsome gave a shaky chuckle. It had been a very tight fit.
“You both did good.” Jared’s voice was husky as he looked at them, his heart in his eyes.
“You saved us, Daddy.” Lacey threw herself at Jared, clinging to his neck. “You got us out of that tree.”
Winsome looked at Jared and saw the agony in his eyes.
“Daddy climbed up and got us. He carried you over his shoulder and got us away from the fire.” Lacey put her other arm around Winsome’s neck. “You were so still.”
The three of them held each other and Winsome felt tears wet her cheeks. The ache around her heart intensified. It could have been so very different.
“What about our house? Where will we live?” Lacey pulled away a little and looked from one parent to the other.
“The house is gone, Lacey.” Jared didn’t gloss over the gravity of the destruction. “But we’ll build a new one. In the meantime Nana Caroline has asked us to stay with her, but first we’re going to spend a week with Quentin.”
A house might be replaceable but that homestead had witnessed the lives of so many Graingers until one woman’s spiteful revenge had destroyed a piece of their history. Would Jared ever recover from the loss?
“Thank God you managed to get out of that house.” Caroline gripped Winsome’s shoulder her eyes damp as she put an overnight bag on the end of the bed. “I’ve put together a change of clothes for you.”
