The Glass Flame

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  The boy tried to squirm away when David grasped him by the collar of his yellow coat, but he was helpless in his uncle’s hands as he was marched across the room. I could see David’s paranoia clearly now. It had always been there, I suppose, though I’d never wanted to admit it. Now it had increased to a dangerous state where the things he himself had done were making fantasy real.

  In desperation I looked about the room for some means of escape. We had to get away—Chris and I. We had to get away—somehow!

  The huge fourposter bed, where Vinnie must once have slept with his Cecily, dominated the room. There was nothing there to assist me. The rest of the furniture was large and dark, and nowhere offered me a weapon. There was not even a poker standing beside the fireplace. Nevertheless, I mustn’t panic. I had to fight David—for both Chris’s life and mine. Only once did I glance at Gwen Bruen, to see her huddled and pale—and of no use to me.

  “What are you going to do with us?” I demanded.

  “This way, please.” He gestured rather grandly and went ahead across the room.

  When he flung open a door on the far side and beckoned, I saw again the turn-of-the-century bathroom that Lori had shown me the day she’d brought me here. As David had said, his plans had been carefully laid. I could smell the fumes at once—probably of kerosene—and icy terror ran through me. David’s madness had to do with fire—always with fire.

  “Don’t go into that bathroom,” I warned Chris.

  But the boy had no choice. Held as he was in his uncle’s grasp, he couldn’t free himself, though he fought all the way. In the end, David cuffed him roughly and then picked him up under one arm and carried him into the bathroom. Quite calmly, as I watched through the door, he took a length of nylon cord from a pocket and started to bind the boy’s wrists together behind his back, ignoring Chris’s kicking and struggling.

  When I saw what he intended, I rushed at David where he knelt on the floor, pushing him, beating at him with my fists, trying anything I could to keep him from tying Chris up. It was useless. He struck me a blow that sent me reeling against the wall.

  I stumbled back into Vinnie’s bedroom, searching frantically for any sort of weapon. There was nothing. Not even something I could improvise with. I couldn’t lift one of those heavy chairs to fling at him. Futilely I threw myself against the stout hall door, as I had done in Cecily’s room, and it scarcely rattled.

  Gwen had dissolved into utter terror and when I went to stand before her I knew it would do no good to plead for her help. All her earlier cheekiness was gone, and she had her own fears to deal with.

  “I don’t like fire!” she wailed. “I never wanted him to use fire!”

  I turned away, and when David came for me, I too fought him as Chris had done, and it did as little good. He was even stronger than I remembered.

  What was it Nona had said? That when one was weak, one used brains instead of brawn? But I lacked even a tiny rock with which to improvise against Goliath.

  From then on everything began to happen as though I moved in a terrible dream. I scarcely felt the pain of being brutally handled, the cutting of the cord he knotted about my wrists and ankles. I existed only in my mind, seeking, searching. In the end, thoroughly bound, I gave up the physical struggle and went limp.

  Once we were both bound he carried us in turn to the huge tub of rose-garnet marble that was almost as deep and wide as a swimming pool, and dumped us bruisingly into it. A marble tomb brought here from far away to hold us, I thought in anguish. This was a purpose that old Vinnie Fromberg had never envisioned.

  Beside me, Chris lay facedown on cold, rosy marble, and I spoke to him softly.

  “We’ll get out. We have to get out.”

  He managed to roll on his side and I saw that courage had at last forsaken him. He was a small and frightened boy, with tears rolling down his cheeks.

  Making an effort, I got to my knees so that I could look about the room. David had crossed my feet when he bound my ankles, so I couldn’t stand. Kneeling, I could see a second door to the hall, but I was sure that it too would be locked. Above it an open transom offered air, cutting the dreadful fumes a little. High in one corner was a single window, closed, with rain streaming down the pane.

  David stood watching us speculatively, his expression one of eerie pleasure. He noted my roving eyes. “That door is locked and there’s no way for you to reach the window or transom. Anyway, I’ll close the transom now. Kerosene fumes don’t explode as gasoline fumes will. That’s not what I want.” He was using a stick to close the high panel of the transom. “This time that’s not what I want. Don’t worry—the gases in the smoke will put you out before the fire reaches you. Perhaps in all that marble you’ll never be burned at all.”

  He spoke with a dreadful enthusiasm, as though the only thought he held in his mind was of fire itself. A monstrous thing had happened to him—something that had sent him across the line of sane reasoning. That he was talking about our lives seemed to impress him only in the sense that it gave him power. Yet all the while he looked entirely normal—excited, perhaps, but quite pleasant and happy. I again thought derisively of my wish to discover whether evil might be photographed in a face. I knew better now.

  Desperately, I tried to think, to find a way to stop the horror that he intended. What little light shone into the room came from that high-placed window, against which the rain was beating, and the room was dim and dusky. The walls were of old-fashioned wood paneling. The toilet bowl was covered by a four-legged wooden chair with a wicker back and hinged seat. The washstand was a marble pedestal, again of rose-garnet, and there were gold faucets for the running water that must have been a luxury when the house was built. The floor had once been tile, but much of the surface was missing or broken, to show rotting wood beneath. It was a room made for burning.

  However, it was the large hamper of woven basket strips placed in the center of the floor that held my attention. It was over this that he had poured the accelerant. On thin wooden strips of the lid had been placed a nest of soaked rags, and as I watched he took three small candles from his pocket. Innocent pink candles that should have graced a birthday cake—and held them up for me to see. There was something quite terrible about the delight in his eyes.

  “I found these in the pantry downstairs. They’re more suitable than bigger candles that would burn too long. You’ll have about twelve minutes after I light them. Time enough for me to get to Joe’s car down behind the house. My car now. I’ll take Gwen along, so you needn’t look to her for help. It’s a shame that it’s raining, since I’d like to see the whole house burn. But at least the interior will go. It’s old, dry tinder.”

  I heard Chris moan as he wriggled closer to me, where I knelt staring over the high rim of marble. If only my arms were free, so I could hold and comfort him—comfort myself.

  How delicately David pinched the tiny candles in his fingers, smiling as he pressed them one by one into the bits of rag on top of the hamper, coaxing them to stand. The candles would burn down quickly, the rags would catch and the entire soaked hamper would go up in a whoosh of flame. And after that the rotting wood of the floor, the walls.…

  Beside me in the tub Chris was very still, staring up at David as though hypnotized by his own terror. The most dreadful sound I had ever heard was the striking of a match from the book David held in his hands. And the most dreadful sight was David’s face at that moment when he lighted the first candle. He was mad—completely fire-mad. The little pink candles, with their flames burning to a height almost as great as their length, might have been the face of a loved woman—the way he studied them. But this was a terrible, unholy love.

  He spoke without moving his eyes from the flames. “It’s too bad, Karen, that it all has to end this way. But you had your choice. And perhaps this is best after all. It will hurt Trevor more this way—losing both you and the boy. Perhaps I’ll stay down there under that window until I can see the flames at the glass.”
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  The door shut gently after him, so as not to disturb the candles with a rush of air, and the key turned in its lock from the outside. In the other room I heard him speak to Gwen, heard her cry out in panic as he must have grasped her arm. Then they both went away and a second door closed and was locked.

  Still I knelt on hard marble, searching the room in my desperate need. Vinnie—or Cecily—had liked mirrors. I had noticed how many there were the first time I’d seen this room. Now in every reflecting depth glass flames burned. A flicker of memory returned to me. Lori murmuring about a glass flame. So she too had seen a candle in a mirror in that dressing room before everything turned to fire.

  I stared at the real candles. Already the wicks were long and black, the pink wax growing shorter. Chris stirred at my side and I bent to nudge him with my shoulder.

  “Try to think, Chris. If I could just find a way to get out of this tub—”

  The sides were straight and steep and slippery, and there was no way for me to get to my feet with my ankles crossed. The rim was too high for me to sit on and swing my legs over anyway, and the steps, the handholds, were of no use in my bound condition. Yet I must get over the edge—somehow.

  “Help me,” I said to Chris. “See if you can boost me up.”

  “How?” he wailed. “How can I with my hands tied behind me?”

  My head ached from the smell of kerosene. Gray light that fell through the single high window had been brightened by myriad flames burning in every mirror. And above the hamper the three little flames that were not made of glass burned on. The wax had only a little way to go. Perhaps two or three minutes. And perhaps the rags would catch even sooner.

  Fifteen

  “Help me!” I cried again to Chris. “Try to wriggle up on your knees and get under me. Boost me up.”

  But terror had stupefied him. He wasn’t even crying now.

  I bent toward him. “Chris, remember the kudzu. Remember how you helped me then. You didn’t run off and leave me, even though you were scared of the man on the island. Now you’ve got to help me again.”

  My words seemed to reach through his frozen state and intelligence returned to his eyes. He began to get the idea. Struggling, squirming, he used his shoulders, his body, his knees to fight the slippery tub and wriggled under me. Once on his knees, he could lift with his haunches, even with his arms that were bound behind him. He was a sturdy boy, and strong, for all his slight build, and with his help I managed to hold to the edge of the tub with my chin, fighting for some sort of purchase.

  The flames still burned brightly, but the three black wicks had begun to bend a tiny fraction. And all their counterparts in the mirrors were bending too—as though in some ghastly ballet. I saw what would happen. In the final seconds they would lean gently over into the kerosene—and that would be the end of everything.

  Then somehow I was on the wide ledge of the tub’s rim, wriggling like a fish on dry land, rolling myself into the air. I missed the steps and landed facedown on the floor beside the tub. All the flames in the mirrors danced with the shock of my fall. Most of my bones must be broken, I was sure, but I began to fight myself to my knees. Once there I could move painfully over the broken floor.

  I mustn’t strike the hamper. I mustn’t knock over what was left of the burning wicks. The fumes in my face made me sick and dizzy, but my chin rested on the hamper’s edge. I must blow gently, or I might tip the flames right into the rags below. I lifted my head, puffed my cheeks and blew. The three tiny flames trembled and went out with a puff, leaving trails of gray smoke rising from blackened wicks. My birthday wish was granted!

  “Chris, it’s all right!” I cried and fell over on the floor on my side and lay there, weak and entirely drained. How we were to get out of our prison and what David might do when no flames appeared at the window still remained unanswerable problems. But for this little moment we were safe from immediate threat.

  Chris called out to me excitedly. “Karen, someone’s coming!”

  I listened intently, and far away in the house there were sounds. Was David already returning?

  We held our breath, listening. There was the sound of feet running on bare floors, pounding up the stairs. I heard fists banging on the door of Vinnie’s room, and a voice calling. Trevor’s voice. I screamed to him in response, and so did Chris, shouting at the top of healthy young lungs.

  “We’re locked in the bathroom,” I called. “But we’re all right. Break in the hall door!” And Chris shouted, “Break it in, Dad!”

  “I’ll be back!” he called to us, and again I heard him running on the stairs.

  Then Maggie’s voice reached us from the hall. “He’s gone to get some sort of tool, Karen. We’ll get to you soon. It’s all right now, Chris.”

  In moments Trevor was back with a small ax from the kitchen and he attacked the locked door furiously. The moment he could break through he came in to us, and saw at a glance the death trap David had set.

  “Chris first,” I told him.

  He picked up his son in his arms and carried him into the hall, where I could hear Maggie crooning over the boy. Then he came back for me, bore me out to where the air was fresher and knelt beside me, working at my bonds, as Maggie loosened Chris’s.

  “David’s alive,” I told Trevor when I found I could speak. “He’s out there now—getting away.”

  “I know he’s alive,” Trevor said. “I saw him here on the island two days ago. I had my binoculars and I saw his face, but I couldn’t get near him. I couldn’t tell you right away, knowing what might lie ahead for you. That’s why your story about Gwen didn’t impress me. I knew it wasn’t Joe Bruen on the island. And this time David had to be stopped.”

  “How did you get here to the house?”

  “Nona sent me. She told me you were coming over here with Maggie to meet Gwen Bruen and I must go after you. She had a time finding me, or I’d have been here sooner. She knew I would never have let you come, but that I’d follow once I knew. How did you get here, Chris?”

  Chris told his father, while I pondered. So that had been what Nona was promising—that I wouldn’t be hurt, because she meant to send Trevor after us.

  He went on. “I met Maggie driving your car and she flagged me down.”

  “I’ve been a fool,” Maggie said. “I failed you hopelessly, Karen. I ran away because I thought—”

  “I know,” I said. “You’ve been afraid all along that Eric was mixed up in this.”

  When my ankles were free, Trevor held me for a moment, and then I went to work rubbing my wrists and ankles, getting the circulation started again, painfully.

  “David may still be out there,” I told Trevor. “He’s got Gwen with him. He said he was going to watch for flames from where he could see the bathroom window. So he’ll be on this side of the house and he probably never heard you come up the drive in the storm.”

  “Then I don’t think he’ll get far,” Trevor said. “The causeway is flooded. We barely got across in my heavy car. But I’ll go and look for him. Stay right here.”

  Maggie and I looked at each other for an instant, and then she tore after Trevor. I had difficulty moving because of the shooting pains in my legs as the numbness went away. Nevertheless I stumbled after them, and Chris came with me. In moments we stood at the rear veranda rail beside Trevor, while wind and rain slashed over us.

  David was there—as he had said he would be. He sat in his car—Joe’s car—with the windshield wipers going. Gwen crouched fearfully beside him and they were both looking up through the glass toward the window high above, waiting for flames that would never come. I sagged against the rail, feeling sick with reaction.

  He saw us then—saw Chris and me, alive and free, and Trevor and Maggie with us. Rage twisted his face, but now he knew his own safety was at stake. He opened the far door and pushed Gwen out into the rain, where she fell to her knees, splattered with mud as David stepped on the gas and swung the wheel mightily. The car jerked its w
ay onto the weed-grown driveway that circled the house, its wheels squealing and the engine roaring as he headed for the road off the island.

  Maggie and Chris and I ran with Trevor to where he had parked his car near the front steps. He knew it was useless to try to leave us behind. We went bumping over the same road, though not at the same wild speed David was attempting. Here and there we glimpsed his car ahead, the space between us growing.

  He had rolled down his windows in spite of the storm, the better to see out and watch the edge of the causeway. He was already halfway onto it by the time we reached its approach, and Trevor braked his car. Under water that poured over it, the road across was invisible, except for white rapids where the causeway had been. Arcs of water curved up behind David’s car as he plowed ahead—full into the center of raging currents.

  We couldn’t see him through his rain-swept rear window, but we saw the smaller car hesitate, buffeted by wind and water, until it tilted a little to one side. Then, almost as if in slow motion, it slid sideways, hovered for a second—and tipped gently over into the lake. Water poured in the windows and it sank slowly from view, tumbling over on its side. We sat in silent shock, watching.

  “Stay here,” Trevor ordered. This time we obeyed. He got out, leaning into the wet slash of the wind as he walked to the edge of the swollen lake.

  Out there in the water nothing happened. There was only a gray mass of tossing waves to be seen, with no car top visible, nothing human breaking the surface.

  “Why doesn’t he get out?” Maggie murmured. “The windows were open.”

  I spoke the words softly. “He can’t swim.”