The three of them agreed to park up on the road and walk the rest of the way. Lil was on edge, torn between not wanting to leave the safety of the car and her urge to get to the Sisterhood, to find Mella as quickly as possible.
After leaving the car on a nearby bank, they headed back to the gates. Seven walked a little ahead. There was a determination in her now: A strength Lil hadn’t imagined existed in her tiny frame. “The Light wants me to save our sisters,” she said.
“You all right?” Kiran asked Lil.
She wasn’t. Who could be? But she nodded anyway and gave a small smile. She touched him fleetingly on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He nodded and said softly, “Always.”
Seven called, and the two of them hurried to catch up.
The uneven path was overshadowed with trees. It was hard to keep a firm footing, and one or another of them kept stumbling. Lil tripped over a pothole and landed heavily, scraping both her knees. The other two helped her up and she gave a hiss of pain. Both her knees hurt, and she was sure she could feel blood dripping down her leg. “I’m all right. Let’s keep going.” She was eager to get to the house, to find Mella, and to get off this path. The wind picked up and was blowing through the trees and making the branches hum. Every now and then there was a rustle in the undergrowth nearby: an animal, obviously, but Lil couldn’t get rid of the sense that someone was following them, edging closer and closer.
There was another noise, right behind them now, and Lil increased her pace, wincing at the pain in her knees. They kept going for what felt like a long time, barely talking, and anything they did say was so quiet it wasn’t even a whisper, just a breath. After a while they turned a corner on the drive and the way ahead was brighter. The trees were less dense, and through them Lil could see a lighter patch in the dark. The moon, she thought at first, although that made no sense because it was too early.
Then they took a final twist in the road and came out into the open. The house stood before them. It was enormous and old, and beautiful. Ivy ran like veins over its Welsh stone walls and around its many paned windows. It had three arched gables, each one topped with some sort of stone sculpture. The building looked like something out of a Jane Austen novel. No, from Jane Eyre. They’d studied that in school, and Lil could imagine Bertha Mason peering out from a small attic window.
“How did you get this place?” Lil breathed. She’d imagined a run-down old farmhouse, or just outbuildings. Nothing as grand as this.
“It was gifted to the Light by one of the sisters. It had been in her family for generations.”
“It’s immense,” Kiran said, and whistled.
“And very cold in winter,” Seven said. “Come. We must hurry—”
A scream shredded the early-evening sky. Shrill and sharp and terrified. For a second Lil thought her imagination was now a reality. This was Rochester’s house, on the night of the fire. Then with a horror that turned her insides to water, she realized this was much worse than that. This was real. The sky turned a livid red. There was another cry.
“Fire!” Seven shouted.
Lil broke into a run, with Kiran and Seven tearing after her.
“If you follow me,” saith the Light,
“I must consume all that you are.”
—THE BOOK
At last Moon stood and turned to face the women gathered silently in front of her. A smile slithered across her face, malevolent as a snake; her teeth glittered unnaturally in the firelight. “I have made my peace with the Light. She is ready to accept our sacrifice. Come, my sisters! The flames await us.”
As she spoke, one of the sisters began to sing: “I dance with the fire in my heart, in my soul, in my veins. I dance until it rises up for me. I dance into the Brightness. Into the Light.” Evanescence and some of the others joined in, their voices mingling to become a wail.
“Please,” Mella said, hating herself for begging but not able to help it. Her mind was whirring with ways to stop this. “Please don’t do this!”
“You’re afraid, sister,” Moon said. “I understand. You have doubts and so you fear the fire. If you are a true sister, the flames will embrace you tenderly, lulling you to sleep. Otherwise, I cannot vouch for the Light’s gentleness. As you saw with our sister Dazzle, the Light only cleanses those pure of soul; in others the Darkness must be burned out.” Her voice rose to a shriek, like that of an owl before it swoops on its prey.
“High Priestess,” cried one of the other women, “please! We don’t want to die.”
Another woman—Mella thought she was called Luminescence—nodded. “The Light loves us. Surely, there’s another way.”
“No other way,” Moon screamed. “I will bring my sisters from Darkness into Light for eternity. We will enter the Brightness.” With that, she picked up the Light’s orb and flung it against the wall. The glass smashed in a shriek of fire. There was a second’s pause and then the flames shot up the curtains and ate up the wooden floorboards. Stretching, stretching, stretching until all was fire and heat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Lil moved more quickly than ever before. She was close enough to the house now to see the fire. Flames peeped over the crescent of the roof, and smoke rose like tarred feathers. She ran on, faster and faster, until the other two fell back behind her. Her stomach was solid with fear. She was dimly aware that running headlong toward a burning building was idiotic, but she didn’t care.
She could feel the heat now, a slow, steady burn that was getting stronger, as was the smoke. It caught in her throat, making her cough. She tried to quell her panic. Where was her sister? Had she escaped? Was this fire an accident?
No!
This was no accident.
“Moon,” Seven said breathlessly, drawing up alongside Lil, as if reading her mind. “Moon did this!”
They were at the back of the house and could see the fire pulsing inside like a red heart. It was mainly concentrated on the ground floor, in what looked like one long room that ran most of the length of the back of the house. Behind the tall, narrow windows the fire burned in shades of orange, flickering and dancing with its own heat.
“Do you think anyone is trapped in there?” Lil asked.
Seven’s silence said it all.
Mella? Lil screamed in her mind. Mella! Are you there?
Silence.
I’m coming for you. Hold on. Hold on. Lil sent the thought out into the burning house, and in her mind it flew through the smoke-filled corridors, a flash of white, like the wings of a bird.
She stared at the building, trying to work out how to get in. Perhaps if they could break a window . . . Then: “Oh my God,” she said. “There are bars on the windows! How will they get out?”
“They’ll try to come out the other way,” Kiran said. “Through the house, to the front.” He was standing a little farther back, his dark eyes glittering and scared, caught in the firelight. “The rest of the house isn’t on fire yet.”
“They won’t be able to,” Seven said. “Moon will have locked them in. It’s the Illumination ceremony. Everyone must pass through the Sun’s fire. She must have found another path, a way to reach the Brightness without me.”
“We have to do something!” Lil said.
“We can’t go any closer,” Kiran said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“So we just stand here and watch?” Lil screamed. They had been so stupid coming here like this, with no plan as to how they were actually going to help, just a vague notion to check it out. No one even knew where they were. Idiot, idiot, idiot. “What are we going to do?” she asked desperately.
Seven shook her head, the flames reflected in her wide, unblinking eyes.
“I’ll get help,” Kiran said.
“How?” Lil asked. “We’ve got no phones!”
“I’ll run back to the car, drive to the nearest village.”
“There’s no time!”
“We have to try, Lil,” Kiran said calmly.
He
was right. Panicking wasn’t helping anyone. They may have been foolish coming here, but they were here now and they were the only hope for those women trapped inside that building. They were Mella’s only hope. “Yes,” she said, reluctant to see him leave but knowing it was their best chance at getting help. “Go. Go.”
“I’ll be as quick as I can. Don’t do anything brave when I’m gone. Okay?” His eyes held Lil’s for less than a second, but it was enough. I love you.
Lil met his stare. I love you, too.
Then he was gone, hurtling over the grass.
Lil turned back to the house. The fire was vast. Even in the time they’d been standing there, it had spread across much of the ground floor in this part of the house. Perhaps by going around the building, they might find a window without bars, a place the fire hadn’t hit yet. Maybe they could get inside. Then they could try to find something to break down the door of the room at the back, and start trying to get people out.
Lil shouted to Seven, telling her what she was going to do. Seven nodded, and the two of them edged around the house, looking for a way in. The smoke was thicker now, dropping over everything like a veil and making it hard to see and harder still to breathe. It scorched Lil’s eyes and coated her throat, making her hack, and each time she did, she dragged more of it down into her lungs. She pulled her sleeve over her hand and put it to her mouth.
The flames were hotter too; they were a good ten meters away, and it was like standing in front of an open oven. It seemed impossible that they were going to get close enough to break a window.
Everyone inside will be dead before Kiran even makes it to the car.
The thought made Lil want to drop to the ground and cry, but she couldn’t. She had to find a way in. She had to do something. As she passed around the side of the building, miraculously the smoke cleared a bit. Up ahead, near the front, she could see a part of the house that the fire didn’t seem to have reached. She ran for it, and when she got there, she realized that it was an annex, with a tall, narrow window in it. Peering in, she could see what looked like a storeroom, with sacks, boxes, and bags on the floor. There was no fire.
Getting through the window would be a squeeze, but Lil reckoned she could just about manage it. She ignored the part of her brain that was screaming at her not to go into a building that was on fire, and she tried to open the window. It was a sash one and the wood was rotting. After a couple of attempts she was able to shove the lower part up, the lock splintering and then giving way. Seven stood behind her, watching silently. “Is it safe?” she asked.
“Probably not. But I don’t know what else to do.”
“I will fit better.”
“No,” Lil said. “I’ll do it.” This was her stupid idea; no one else should put themselves in danger.
She was scared, though. It could be an hour before Kiran managed to raise the alarm, and what if Lil got trapped in there? The thought of the fire made her legs weak, but Mella was already in there, and Lil couldn’t just leave her.
“What will you do when you get inside?” Seven asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I can get the door to that room open. Get them out . . .” Lil trailed off. If she thought about this too rationally, she wouldn’t do anything at all.
She pulled herself up onto the window ledge and then eased herself through sideways, before dropping down onto the other side. The room beyond was hot, small, and smoky, but nothing like the density of smoke at the other side of the house. She moved toward the wooden door.
She should have known what was waiting for her when she touched the handle. It was burning hot. Still, her brain didn’t register and she pushed the door open, saying to Seven over her shoulder, “I’ll check if it’s safe and then you can fo—”
She got no further. As she opened the door, the heat was immense, taking her breath away and blasting her skin. She fell back as the fire that had been raging down the corridor beyond gave a giant roar and ducked into the room, licking the paint off the walls and surging up to the ceiling.
Lil screamed and scrambled back toward the window. Feet scrabbling up the wall, she tried to get out, but the window seemed to have shrunk in size, and she couldn’t work out how she’d ever made it through. Seven was shouting her name, and Lil turned to watch the flames rush toward her: the red, the purple, the blue. A kaleidoscope of color. It was almost beautiful if you didn’t think about what was burning. If you didn’t think what it meant.
I’m going to die here.
Above the sound of crackling flames came voices, and running feet, and sirens. Seven was crying out, yelling for someone to come and help. Suddenly hands grabbed Lil, tearing her through the window, ripping her sweater on the rotten wood, but dragging her out of the pall of smoke and into the clear evening air. Lil gulped down mouthful after mouthful like she was drowning.
“Can you hear me? Are you hurt?” a voice said.
Lil looked up. A female firefighter was standing over her. Lil had no idea how Kiran had raised the alarm so quickly, but she didn’t care. “You’re here!” she said.
The woman gave a serious smile. “Just in time, by the looks of it. Can you tell me what’s happened here? Are there more people trapped inside?”
“Yes! At the back of the house. In that long room. It was started on purpose—the fire. You have to help them. My sister’s in there!”
“Okay,” the woman said. “Okay. I’m Stacey Curby, the watch manager here. Can you tell me your name?”
“Lil.” Her voice shook with adrenaline and fear. She could hear the fire roaring at her back.
“Okay, Lil.” Stacey gestured for one of the other firefighters to join them. There were four of them on this side of the building, working to rig up a hose from the fire engine. “There are people inside,” she told him when he came over. “You okay to get on sorting the breathing apparatus? Look for a route in. The front, probably. Ask Rob to get on the radio to the station. We’re going to need all the reserves we can get, and tell him to see what he can do about the water supply. We’ve only got what’s in the engine at the moment.”
The man nodded. “There’s a lot of floodwater down the valley. Might be able to set up a pump. I’m on it.” He ran off, shouting for two men to follow him as he headed back to the fire engine.
Stacey turned back to Lil. “I need as much detail as you can give me. Anything, however small, could save lives. What was the situation inside? Were you able to determine the source and location of the fire? How many people are in there? Where are they?”
“I don’t know much. I was trying to get in, not out.”
“You were trying to get in?” Stacey sounded incredulous. “In there?”
“I was scared no one was coming. I couldn’t leave my sister.”
Stacey’s eyes darkened with compassion. “I understand how worried you must be, but going into a building without proper equipment is very dangerous. Where is your sister located? How many people are with her?”
Lil explained as quickly as she could about the Sisterhood, how Moon had started the fire. “She locked them in that room at the back,” she said. “The one with the bars. Seven will know more.”
Seven was standing quietly beside Lil, but she stepped forward at her name and answered Stacey’s questions about layout with more detail than Lil would have believed possible. She was obviously scared and worried for her sisters, but a calmness, a sense of purpose, seemed to have taken her over. As Stacey’s questions came more rapidly, Seven’s answers grew more fluid and even more direct.
As they were talking, there was the sound of an engine behind them and a police car drew up. A moment or two later Sabrina got out. “Diolch i Dduw . . . ,” she said, clutching Lil to her.
Stacey and Sabrina exchanged introductions. “We reckon there’s up to fifteen women trapped inside,” Sabrina said. “One definitely escaped. Some others might have too, but we can’t say for sure.”
Stacey nodded. “We’re getting ready to go in.�
� Her radio crackled, and she held up a hand to say Excuse me as she turned away to answer it.
Lil held Sabrina tightly. “Mella,” she breathed. “Mella’s in there.”
Sabrina said nothing but held her closely. She put her arm out to pull Seven into her other side. Now that Stacey was no longer quizzing her, the full horror of the situation seemed to crash over her again. Seven was pale as a cloud and shaking. Lil took her hand.
“I shouldn’t have left them. By the Light, what have I done?” Seven said.
Lil squeezed her hand. “They’ll get them. The firefighters, won’t they, Sabrina, they’ll rescue them all?”
Sabrina didn’t answer. She was staring at the flames lashing at the building. Lil turned to look too, and she felt sick.
The fire was a monster. It looked absolutely unstoppable. The hoses of water were barely penetrating it, despite the pressure, which was so great that it was rising up like steam. But the flames devoured it thirstily in moments and then leaped on, dancing across more and more of the building. If anything, the heat was even stronger. How much longer could someone survive in there? Seven, clearly asking herself the same, let out a little wail, like a cornered animal. Sabrina’s arms tightened around Lil’s shoulders.
Mella, Lil whispered. Mella.
She lost all track of time. It could have been minutes or hours. Another police car arrived, with three officers inside. Eventually Stacey came back over. “We’re going in,” she said. “Two ambulances are on their way, and hopefully another fire engine.” She didn’t add, I hope it’ll be enough. She didn’t need to. Her uniform was streaked with soot, her face pale and sweaty.
Lil’s insides turned to water.
Sabrina gave Lil a squeeze and the three of them stumbled after Stacey, half blind with the smoke, to the front of the building.
“You’ll need to stand far back,” Sabrina said. “The fire’s not out.”
“But they’re going in!” Lil was incredulous.
Sabrina avoided her gaze. “They can’t risk waiting any longer. They’re sending a team in with breathing apparatus and infrared cameras. It’ll be too smoky in there to see much. And hot.”
The Sisterhood Page 20
