Jane Was Here

by Sarah Kernochan

  She shivers as he dresses her wound and administers pills.

  Casually he says, “You do know there are people who are looking for you.”

  She goes rigid, her eyes mistrustful.

  “It’s not my business, okay?” he adds quickly. “I just want you to get better so I don’t feel like such a shit. Then you can run off to Bora Bora for all I care. But right now you’re coming home with me.” He stands, shouldering his knapsack, and retrieves her lantern.

  She accepts his proffered hand. He turns her to face downhill. “Here we go. Take your time.”

  After a few obedient steps, she abruptly reverses direction. “Please, I cannot go. Not yet.”

  “Why?” He’s exasperated. “Honey, you’re out of juice. For Christ’s sake, you just fainted.”

  “I feel stronger now, and it’s only a little way from here.”

  “Jane—hey!”

  She’s already moving off.

  “Where are you heading?”

  She points toward a stand of pines silhouetted on the rim of the hill.

  He understands now. “Is this about your damned stone? If I move it, then will you go back with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s underneath?”

  Her solemn gray eyes are fixed on the grove ahead. “Truly, I do not know. The rest of my memory, I think.”

  “I DON’T SEE THE TRAIL anymore.” Carrying the tiki torch, Gita hangs back, dragging her feet. They haven’t been climbing more than twenty minutes. “We’re gonna get lost.”

  “No, we won’t. I know where I’m going.” Collin can tell that Gita’s never been hiking. Now he is the teacher. He takes the lead, whacking branches and vines with great sweeps of his dad’s machete.

  “Shit! Is that poison ivy?”

  “Yeah, don’t touch it.”

  “Oh, snap. Like I didn’t know that, foo.”

  To entertain her, Collin tells her the story of the kid in camp who got poison ivy on his hands and then got it on his pecker when he held it to pee. He had to show it to the nurse so she could put pink medicine all over it. He was so embarrassed he cried like a little baby.

  But Gita doesn’t laugh. He can feel her cranky mind-waves as she climbs silently behind him. She hates the woods, tripped up by hidden logs, startled by birds in the underbrush, her long braid snagging in holly bushes.

  Stretching up to slice some foliage high overhead, Collin arcs the blade downward, neatly bisecting the swag of vines. The handle suddenly flies out of his grasp.

  The machete sails end over end into a dense thicket of poison ivy.

  “Whoa,” he says, mortified by his blunder.

  She puts down the torch, breathing heavily. “You gonna get it?”

  “No way.” He’s wearing only shorts and a T-shirt; he’d get a rash all over his arms and legs if he went after the knife.

  Sweat is pouring off Gita’s brow. “Then we gotta go back. Mission aborted.”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t have the right weapons.”

  He sees relief flickering across her face. She’s scared. Not of the woods, realizes Collin: of the mission itself. The great battle ahead.

  “Gana didn’t say to kill him by blade and fire,” he says, “She said blade or fire. We still have fire.”

  Leaning the torch on his shoulder like a rifle, he points to a vague hump of rubble further on. “There’s the wall. Let’s go.”

  He doesn’t look back as he climbs, hoping she’ll find her courage again. He can’t fight Shaarinen alone.

  In a minute he hears her feet shuffle in the dry leaves as she follows.

  CROUCHING, THEY CIRCLE the hunting blind, careful not to rustle leaves or crack twigs. Collin points out Jane’s pink duffel wedged in the tree. They creep close to the hinged lookout.

  There is movement inside the shack. A strong rotten-egg smell reaches their nostrils.

  They nod to each other: the demon is in there, stinking of the underworld.

  Gita has said that when Shaarinen drops his human shape, thinking he’s alone, he looks like hardened smoke. But he’s still Jane, Collin thinks bitterly. He remembers how she sucked his dad’s heart out. Then it was like his father shut the door in Collin’s face. Like in his nightmare: pounding on a door that won’t open, and the flood sweeping him away, and then he drowns. Because of Jane.

  His hatred stoked, Collin readies the torch. Gita takes the butane lighter from her pocket. She flicks the wheel once, twice, her hand trembling.

  She shakes her head beseechingly: can’t do it.

  Collin starts to recite the Valor Prayer silently, moving his lips: Gita taught him to do that if he gets scared before an important battle. She joins him shaping the soundless words: O great Gana, I consecrate my sword to Thee. I destroy the destroyer, in Thy name…

  Collin kisses the tiki torch. Gita kisses the butane lighter, her hand no longer trembling. She flicks the lighter again, this time kindling the spark. Collin leans the torch to it.

  The instant before wick touches flame, Collin feels the real world flare to life with an immediacy he has never known. A ray of sun bursts through the branches to vibrate on the shack’s weathered wall. The metal stem of the torch seems icy cold in his hands. The cicadas’ volume abruptly rises. Inside the cabin a floorboard crackles; the strange brimstone smell intensifies.

  Gita’s eyes signal him. Collin rises quietly from his crouch, taking his warrior stance, the flaming torch readied like a javelin.

  HIS BACK TO the window, Seth tips the Mason jar into the separating funnel; gloves and surgical mask protect him from the corrosive gases. He doesn’t see the tiki torch sail through the lookout.

  Before it can hit the floor, flame meets hydrogen chloride gas with a thunderclap. The explosion blows out the walls of the shack, hurling the roof into the trees and driving fiery sparks into the dry brush.

  Within seconds, the dead grass comes to life, reveling in flames.

  The demon is released.

  HEARING THE DISTANT thump of the explosion, Jane lifts her head. Birds desert the white pines for the sky, swirling raucously in alarm.

  “What was that?” Hoyt stands waist-deep in the pit, digging around the edges of the long flat stone. He leans on the rusty shovel. “Did you hear something?”

  “No. Hurry, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He smiles wryly, taking up the spade again. “It’s your show.”

  Watching him bent over his labor in the hole, Jane feels a strange dread creep over her.

  How have I seen this before? A man, in this very pit.

  The memory hovers somewhere close, gathering.

  Her ominous feeling grows as Hoyt levers the long end of the stone up from its bed in the ground. She watches him kneel, sliding his hands beneath the edge, groaning as he lifts. Now he puts his shoulder underneath, straining the stone up, but for all his exertion he can’t tip it past the vertical. Instead, bracing it upright with his whole body, he grunts, “I can’t hold it here for long. So take a quick look at whatever you came to see.”

  On her hands and knees, Jane peers over the rim to gaze into the shallow trough left by the stone.

  Tears of recognition film her eyes. The past rushes over her, and the voice that will not be still: the voice of poor, reckless, passionate Jane Pettigrew.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The sun is gone and my tears blur the way. Beloved, for your sake I force my feet to move, as I stagger over roots and stones to Eden. I hold my fire inside, the burning pain he put in me.

  I push away the memory of him grinding me into the earth, his shirt buttons scraping a livid path on my breast. His hands bathed in my blood.

  I come at last to the glade—I’m parting the pine branches—

  Yes, you are here.

  How the sight of you kindles my spirit—your noble face and halo of fair hair—like a holy revenant. You rise from the grass, putting aside your Bible, and your beautiful blue eyes attach to m
ine.

  I expected it—your horror. How could you not stare aghast? I’ve no cape, no bonnet, my blouse in tatters, my bosom as naked as Eve’s. My skirt with his red victory splashed upon it.

  “Ellis.” I choke on his name. “He forced me—”

  Then my words fall to pieces, and I come to lay my head on Lysander’s breast, to cover it with tears, and mourn my dead innocence.

  How can you thrust me away?

  Your eyes are ice, your anger unconcealed. “You are defiled.”

  “Defiled?!” I cannot hold back my protest. Violated, mutilated— wronged!—but “defiled”? “Am I a thing of filth? I was attacked, sir! Where is your charity?”

  (Ah Jane—impulsive, hot-headed girl. If you had not provoked him, you might have lived.)

  I see your fury rising. It frightens me, and I beg you to forgive me, but you will not. I petition your goodness, saying Ellis may have riven my body but he did not breach my heart. It is all I have left to offer, but it is whole and loving and red with my blood—

  You glare above me like a judge, holding no mercy. “You schemed to make two men go mad with lust. I fought against it. But Ellis was weak, and you lured him on, and now you cry for a loss you don’t feel. You ask my pardon? God Himself abominates you!”

  Where has my Lysander gone? Who is here, with fists clenched and eyes inflamed with hate? Does God hate? Can angels be cruel?

  “I don’t care what God thinks of me. Only—do you hate me, Lysander?”

  “You threw away the only thing that mattered! You have ruined everything—everything!”

  I understand at last. Because I am no longer pure, you will not have me.

  Suddenly I cannot drink air: your hand strikes like a snake, gripping my throat, tightening—my hair tangled in your fingers. Then you bring both hands to the task.

  You have no need of two. My neck is slender; a man may easily break it with one hand alone.

  The twilight deepens; your face is fading.

  Life ends with a snap of small bones, a head cracked from its stem, and a spirit unmoored.

  SHE WATCHED HIM then. Lingering in the glade, she saw him pull branches over her body. The next day he came back on a horse, and a spade to dig the grave. The night creatures had already begun their business in her poor flesh. Turning his eyes away, he dragged her to the pit.

  She witnessed all of it: herself flung in the grave, the horse hauling the stone from Farmer Quirk’s wall, Lysander toppling the stone over the edge, to be the lid of her tomb. He threw his satchel on top, burying all her letters.

  He wept when he had finished smoothing the earth over the spot. God help me. Forgive me, he prayed.

  Then she was called to the Realm.

  Still she continued to visit the burial place, and watched as the small, delicate body fed ravenous maggots and beetles. Only a jumble of bones remained, shattered apart by the great stone.

  Over time she watched Lysander’s soul eaten away by his secret, his hollow prayers mounting to heaven, as he trudged with the stubborn little band of Gabriel Nation toward their fate. She saw them leave Hovey Pond for the western territory, their covered wagons creaking across the plains.

  She came again at the end, to the snowy mountain pass, when there wasn’t much left of him but breath and bones, and he was long past hunger.

  A burst of wind brought the sound of wood creaking: the ribs of the covered wagons groaning, forsaken in deep drifts. A clatter of wings nearby. Though he could not turn his head, he knew a dark bird had come down to peck a crumple of rags in the snow. Many like him lay about in the limitless white. It had been a long time since he heard their prayers.

  All of Gabriel Nation were dead now, except him.

  His eyes beheld the canopy of heaven as he stared fixedly upward. The sky seemed to sink lower; its burden of snow would be his shroud.

  Flakes big as thistles came down, no warmth left in his cheeks to melt them. The snow fell straight into his eyes. A curved film of ice prevented his eyelids closing; a white mask formed on his face, snowflakes meshing over his sight.

  She knew his last thought: Jane.

  And then she visited no more.

  When it came her turn again, to quit the Realm for the Colony, she begged her teachers: Do not make me forget. I want to remember, when I see him again.

  JANE LOOKS DOWN into her uncovered grave. Among the scattered bones pricking through the soil are small vertebrae, which alone have maintained their fragile row for more than one hundred and fifty years.

  “Hope you’re done now,” Hoyt calls over his shoulder as he strains against the stone. “‘Cause I can’t hold it anymore, kid.”

  Jane gets to her feet. Something troubles the air. Black smoke billows across the sky overhead. The atmosphere has grown suddenly very hot, hazy; it smells strongly of wood ash.

  But there is something that disquiets her much more. She moves around the perimeter of the hole to stand over Hoyt.

  His chest pressed against the rock, he glances up.

  She stares into his blue eyes.

  I want to remember, when I see him again.

  “I remember you.” She chokes on the memory, as it bears down like a thunderhead. “You put me in this grave.” Backing away in horror from the rim of the pit, she cries, “It was you! You!”

  “What—?” In his surprise, Hoyt relents his pressure on the rock for a brief moment. A moment is all that is needed for the stone to fall.

  He tries to scramble out of the way, managing to move his upper body clear; but not in time to drag his legs out of the way. The stone crashes down; he hears both thighs snap.

  He hollers in agony, “God damn! Fuck!” He tries to push the stone off, to no avail. “Holy Christ! Jane, get help!”

  Jane is already running away, lantern in hand, vanishing into the woods.

  “Jane!”

  Hoyt’s cries follow her, but she holds no mercy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Down at the St. Paul’s Fair, Bern D’Annunzio is the first to see the thin furl of smoke from Rowell Hill. He pulls Thom Sayre away from the firemen’s grill to come look.

  “Oh, shit,” says Thom.

  “Maybe it’s somebody’s camp.”

  “I’ve never heard of any hikers going up Rowell,” Thom says. “There’s no trails, no access, not even a fire road.” The land belongs to Elsa Graynier, not the state.

  “Let’s hope nobody’s up there,” says Bern. “That’s a lot of dry timber.”

  “Uh-huh. All it needs is wind.” As Thom says it, a sudden gust flutters the bunting above the Dog ‘N’ Patty stand. The cold front is coming in.

  The breeze picks up; the smoke on Rowell Hill blooms. As the first orange ribbons of flame erupt above the treetops, Thom calls the firehouse.

  FIRE TRUCKS FROM FOUR surrounding counties arrive, sirens weaving through the air.

  People rush to buy tickets for the Ferris wheel: an excellent vantage point to watch Rowell Hill burn. Others simply stand with their mouths open, never having seen a wildfire up close, as their children slip away unnoticed and run about in overexcited packs. Country-western songs play over the PA, warring with the carousel’s recorded calliope music. As the drifting smoke from the forest blaze dries people’s throats and eyes, the concession stands run out of soda.

  Someone thinks to console Elsa Graynier, whose hill is burning.

  “I’m only happy no one lives there,” she says, blinking back tears. “The forest will grow back. Though maybe I won’t be around to see it.” She manages a philosophical smile. “When you get old you know that everything comes and goes and then comes along again.”

  Smoke floods the sky with the darkness of night, as the north wind builds to twenty miles per hour. Driven by its force, the flames are boiling down Rowell so fast there is no time for the fire teams’ bulldozers to cut breaks on the hill.

  To protect the surrounding property and houses, they decide to contain the fire at the base. Crews
string out along Upper Old Spruce to meet the advancing fire, using the road as a natural firebreak.

  Then Thom Sayre remembers Hoyt Eddy’s isolated bungalow at the foot of the hill. He sets off with a small team on foot.

  When they arrive, the house is alight, its flames too intense to approach without hoses.

  By the time they return with trucks, it has burned almost to the ground. Hoyt’s pickup is in the driveway, as well as someone’s beat-up Cavalier. Then his dog appears out of nowhere. Eyes scared, tail wagging incongruously, he attaches himself to the crew, following them everywhere.

  Thom assigns two volunteers to search the house for bodies. The others set spot fires to keep the runaway blaze from sweeping into the town.

  At sundown, the wind abruptly reverses, propelling the flames back uphill. More trucks and dozers arrive on the opposite side of Rowell to light a backfire.

  With any luck, the two blazes will meet at the top and burn each other out.

  HERE HE IS IN A PIT again, unable to climb out. Sinkhole redux. It’s almost funny.

  Hoyt knows Jane isn’t coming back. The look on her face told him, when she cried, “It was you!”—what did she mean? Why was she so angry?

  That’s what you get when you finally care about somebody. When you finally give a shit. She runs out on you, no reason.

  He slides in and out of lucidity, his trapped legs alternating between numbness, pins and needles, and searing pain.

  All he can do is wait, lying in a mess of someone’s old bones, his own broken bones mingled with the shards of a stranger. Sacrum, femur, patella, tibia, he recites. Absurd to know a lot of nothing, for nothing.

  He stares up into darkness. How can it be night so soon?

  He smells smoke. Hears distant sirens, shouts.

  The wind changes abruptly, now seething up the hill. It scoops into the pit, buffeting Hoyt’s face and driving thick smoke down his throat into his lungs. The sky fills with an eerie apricot glow, soon spinning into a glory of scarlet, orange, and rose.