Speak Through the Wind

by Allison K. Pittman

  Fire.

  en was out of bed and at the door in an instant, throwing it open, allowing Kassandra just a glimpse of the pandemonium before slamming it shut again. What she saw terrified her—the opposite wall with a blaze snaking up from the carpeted floor, consuming the pattern of the papered wall. All of this subdued behind a thick haze of black smoke that billowed through her door even as Ben slammed it shut.

  The sounds from the hallway proved just as frightening as the sight of those flames: screaming women and shrieking men; shouts to get out of the way; pleas to come back and rescue; footsteps pounding over wooden floorboards and—from the sounds of the cries—over fallen bodies. There was a pounding on doors—“Get out! Fire! Get out!”—and Kassandra could think of nothing else than to obey those voices. She got up from her bed and ran to the door, but Ben caught her round the waist and flung her away before her hand reached the latch.

  “You can’t go out there!” he shouted, though she could barely hear him over the screaming crowd outside. “Open your window!”

  She went to the window and raised it up. The air outside was crisp and cold, and she took in great gulps of it. She knew she should cry out for help, but nothing would come out of the tightness of her throat.

  Ben pushed her aside, leaned out over the edge, and called to the street below, “Oy! We’ve got fire here! Send for a truck!” He managed to deliver this directive while putting on his shoes, balancing on one foot at a time.

  Kassandra stood numbly in the center of the room watching the smoke creep in through the crack above the door.

  I am going to die.

  It was just a matter of time before the smoke would be followed by flames, eating a path across her wall, jumping to her bed, making it a blazing testament to the sin committed there. She shouldn’t be here. She should never have been here.

  I am going to die here. I am going to die tonight.

  She felt the smoke lodge in the back of her throat. The fire didn’t seem as dangerous now, not nearly as dangerous as this solid suffocation

  I am going to die.

  She was brought to her senses by a stinging slap across her face.

  “Get down!” Ben was screaming, only inches away. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her to her knees. “Stay there.”

  He grabbed the towel she’d been washing up with earlier and tore it in two, placing one scrap of it over her mouth and nose and the other over his own. She felt a bit of relief from the choking smoke, but her eyes still stung. A solid band of orange lined the space under her door, and the fire roared on the other side. She was never going to get out of this room. She had landed herself in hell, and God was watching her burn.

  “You have to get out of here.” He had taken one of the thin blankets off her bed and was plunging it into the water in her washbasin.

  “I am never getting out of here,” she said, feeling her words trapped inside the cloth she held to her mouth.

  “Come on.” He crouched down to grab her arm and help her to her feet, but Kassandra wrenched herself out of his grip, shaking her head violently.

  “I will die out there!” she screamed, taking the cloth away from her mouth.

  “Don’t be silly.” He moved her hand to cover her mouth again. “The window. C’mon.”

  He dragged her to her feet and hauled her over to the open window. The street below teemed with activity—people poured from the tavern, shoving each other aside, knocking one another down and scrambling over the sprawled bodies. Faces appeared in the doorways and windows of neighboring buildings, casting worried glances towards the roofs lest the flames leap from Ben’s building to their own. Children ran around in manic glee. Nothing was quite so exciting as a fire—the breaking glass, the clanging bells, the chance to go in for treasure once the smoke was cleared.

  “Go on,” Ben said, giving Kassandra a little nudge. She whirled to face him. “What do you mean, go on?”

  “Jump.”

  “I will break my neck!”

  “It’s only the second floor, Kassie. And thank the Lord you got so fat. You’ll have something to cushion the fall.”

  He spoke from behind the rag held to his mouth, but she could tell that he was smiling. She could tell, too, that this was one of the smiles that didn’t reach his eyes, because they were too red and full of tears to hold any humor.

  “What about you?”

  He put his hands on her waist and guided her two steps back until she sat on the windowsill facing him.

  “I’ve seen worse than this, love.” He leaned forward to place a kiss on her forehead. “Let’s go.”

  The bulk of her skirts did little to ease the process of turning her body within the confines of the narrow window, but Ben held her steady whispering bits of encouragement in her ear. Kassandra numbly resigned herself to his manipulations until she was balanced on the sill, her legs dangling over the side of the building, and a crowd gathered below shouting for her to jump.

  She braced her hands on the inside wall on both sides of the window. “I cannot do this,” she said.

  “Be sure to tuck up your legs on the way down. Try to roll once you hit the ground.”

  “My boots?”

  “I’ll toss ’em down to ya. Wait right here.” He was gone for just an instant, and when he returned he draped Imogene’s shawl over her shoulders. “Ready?”

  “No.”

  “It’s got to be now, Kassie girl.”

  She took in a deep breath of snow-filled air and nodded her head.

  “One more thing. The minute you have your boots, go back home.”

  “What?”

  “Go back to Reverend Joseph.” He held her close, his words warm on the back of her neck. “There’s goin’ to be nothin’ left for you here.”

  Then she was lifted up and off, and before she had even enough time to turn her head and call his name, she was on the ground, rolling on her shoulder just as he’d said, covered in the slush of snow and mud and dung. The gathered crowd cheered her safe landing, but it was Ben’s voice that she heard above them all.

  “Kassie!”

  She looked up to see him leaning out the window, dangling her boots over its side. One by one she watched as they dropped to the ground beside her.

  “Now, go!” he shouted.

  When she looked up again, he was gone. Her window, which had been a solid mass of black smoke, turned bright red with heat and flame.

  She stood, watching and waiting, as the first fire engine arrived. Fewer and fewer people were streaming out of the first floor of the building, and still no one emerged at her window, which was now bordered with licking flames.

  Firefighters shoved her aside, running toward the building with their leather hose from which, at some shouted command, a steady stream of water burst forth. It seemed little match for the ever-growing conflagration that seemed to engulf the entire street in its heat, burning Kassandra’s face.

  She sat down in the muck, right in the midst of the evergrowing crowd, to put on her boots. When she attempted to put the right one on, her foot collided with something hard inside. She reached her hand in and ran her fingers along a familiar surface. She gripped the porcelain wing and carefully pulled her sparrow figurine from her boot.

  Thank you, Ben.

  Bathed in the flickering orange glow, just next to where the firemen’s engine pumped water through the hose, Stymie had two whiskey barrels set up on chairs dragged out of the tavern and was offering a drink from the spigot for just a penny a piece. “We’ll save some for you boys when you’re done!” he said, clapping each passing fireman on the back.

  Ousted prostitutes languished on the arms of would-be heroes. Violence erupted as the Branagans formed a line around the parameter of the crowd, keeping everybody at bay and protecting the property while the firemen fought the flames.

  Kassandra walked through the crowd, hearing snatches of conversation about how it all started. About the scuffle in the hallway that knocke
d the lantern off the wall, the flame spreading to the room with the little kerosene stove. Probably Bridget’s. She hated the cold.

  Nobody mentioned Ben’s name.

  Nobody called out to her.

  Having shouldered her way through the worst of the drunks side. Out of the crowd. She took a deep breath, felt a light, stinging sleet on her face. The tiny sparrow was tucked in her pocket, Imogene’s shawl tucked around her shoulders. She could still hear the roar of the flames behind her, could see the shadows cast by its tremendous light.

  But she also heard Ben’s voice in her head. Go.

  And go she did, never once looking back.

  he stood outside the iron gate just as the sun was peeking up over the roof of Reverend Joseph’s house. The day of Clara’s funeral she had stood here with Reverend Joseph and the disapproving Austine sisters with their baked beans. She wondered what they would think of her now—her skirt caked with mud, her face streaked with soot and snow. No coat, no hat, disheveled hair clinging to her skin. She was, indeed, what Ben had called the walking poor—two blouses, three skirts, four socks, one small bird. How they would hate her.

  Her hands were numb as she fumbled with the icy latch. The gate’s scraping against the cobbled sidewalk echoed in the empty street, and Kassandra looked over one shoulder to be sure that she hadn’t roused the entire neighborhood. She never heard this kind of silence in the Points.

  She walked up to the house and paused at the front door. Clara had always been adamant about people knowing their place and which door they belonged at; there was nothing about Kassandra this morning that merited acceptance through the front door. Besides, all the windows were dark, and Reverend Joseph had never been an early riser: She turned and made her way round to the back of the house.

  Not surprisingly, the kitchen windows were all aglow, and Kassandra saw a small, dark woman puttering around in Clara’s kitchen. She stepped as close as she dared, peeping over the window box filled with iced-over soil. In the spring there would be gardenias here, assuming this woman in the kitchen cared for such things.

  Nothing else, it seemed, had changed. The table was laid with two places for breakfast; jars of marmalade and a mold of butter sat square in the middle of it. The kettle was steaming on the back burner. The only real change was the woman in charge. She wasn’t nearly as round, but she was short, like Clara, and black, like Clara. Right now she was slicing a loaf of bread to make Reverend Joseph’s toast, but she lacked the irate sawing motion of Clara, who always took to the task like a victor in battle taking the head of a fallen enemy. Kassandra hoped she had a kind heart, both for the reverend’s sake and for her own.

  She stepped away from the window, walked over to the back door, and poised her hand to knock. Once she did, nothing would be the same again. She could, of course, just turn and leave. Never let anyone know she was even here. But that option was torn away as the woman in the kitchen turned around, saw Kassandra’s face through the pane, and furrowed her brow in a glare of suspicion and concern.

  Knife still in hand, she walked calmly to the door and opened it. “Who are you?”

  Her voice was high, yet not shrill, and it took a moment before Kassandra realized that the knife was no real threat.

  “Please,” Kassandra said, her own voice still a bit hoarse from the smoke, “I have come to see Reverend Joseph.”

  “Like this? Sneakin’ up the back porch at the crack of dawn?”

  “I … I did not think—”

  “I’ll say you didn’t think. What kind of civilized person—” She looked Kassandra up and down. “Well, I’m freezin’ standin’ here talkin’ to you like this, so you may’s well come in and set while I figure out what to do with you.”

  “I do not think I should—”

  “Now, ain’t no puddle that a mop can’t clean. Come on.” Kassandra barely got across the threshold before her legs melted beneath her and she grabbed the woman’s arm for support.

  “Lord help us,” she said, helping Kassandra to a waiting chair. “You’re chilled clear through. Let’s get you some tea.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kassandra was barely able to get the words out through her chattering teeth. When she tried to still them, her whole body responded in tiny convulsions. She closed her eyes tight, willing her body to stop, knowing she couldn’t even attempt to pick up the delicate china cup until she’d regained some measure of control, no matter how enticing the steaming tea in front of her seemed. Then, a warm, dark hand enveloped her own.

  “You’re her, ain’t ya?”

  Kassandra opened her eyes and saw the woman sitting across the table from her.

  “You the girl. His girl. He pray for you every night, pray that you’ll come home.”

  “He prays?”

  “Like I say. Every night. I feel like I know you already.”

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “I’m Jenny. You remember Miss Clara?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m her cousin. Now you drink this, and I go tell the reverend you’re here.” Jenny gave her hand a little squeeze. “He’ll be so happy!”

  “And his wife?”

  A slow shadow passed over Jenny’s face. “She know how the reverend feels about you.”

  “Wait,” Kassandra said as Jenny rose from her chair. “Please, do not say anything yet. Just give him this.” She reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out the sparrow figurine.

  “All right,” Jenny said, turning it slowly in her hand. “You drink your tea.”

  Soon after the chattering and shaking had stopped, her hands curled gratefully around the steaming hot cup. Just yesterday morning she’d been deep in drunken sleep—-just as cold as she was now—hours away from waking in her small, dark room. She would never get used to how drastically the world could change with just one setting and rising of the sun.

  She brought the cup to her lips and took one small sip, savoring the bittersweet flavor. A slight sound to her left caught her attention, and she turned toward the door leading to the parlor.

  He hadn’t changed. Not a bit. Neither Jenny’s cooking nor the contentment of marriage had put a single pound on his thin frame. His hair still hung—straight and blond—to his jaw. His skin still pale, his arms and legs endless in his black suit. He held the door open with one hand and nestled the tiny bird in the other. When he spoke, she heard the same voice that had come to her in the darkness so many years ago.

  “Well,” he said, his quivering lip hiding the gap between his front teeth, “what have I done to deserve such a present?”

  In an instant, the cup crashed to the table, Kassandra was in his arms, and he held her up as the years melted beneath them.

  “Mein kleinen Spatz” he said.

  The sound of that special name brought fresh tears to her eyes, and she sniffled loudly against his shoulder. Reverend Joseph gently kissed the top of her head.

  “Fire?” he whispered.

  Kassandra nodded and sniffed again. He pulled away to look down into her face, and brought one long thumb up to wipe the streaming tears. To Kassandra’s embarrassment, she saw that his thumb was nearly black with soot. She started to apologize, but was interrupted by a most ladylike cough just behind the reverend’s shoulder.

  “Am I to be introduced?”

  “Darling.”

  Reverend Joseph stepped away from Kassandra, who was further chagrined to see the damp grime all along the front of his suit.

  “Kassandra, I’d like you to meet my wife.”

  She was small and slight, barely reaching past Reverend Joseph’s elbows, not quite meeting Kassandra’s shoulder. Her features seemed all to be pinched in the middle of her face—eyes, nose, and mouth surrounded by vast planes of white, white skin. Her deep brown hair was parted straight down the center, with two perfect wings swooped over each ear. The high ridge of her collar was rimmed with stiff ivory lace, and the wide bell of her sleeves ended in the same, nearly hi
ding the tiny hands clutched at her waist.

  “We have met before,” Kassandra said, trying to remember the rules of social decorum. “It is Miss Weathersby isn’t it?”

  “Not for quite some time, actually,” she said. “It’s Mrs. Hartmann now.”

  “Of course. How stupid of me.”

  “This is a rather unusual hour for a social call, isn’t it?” Mrs. Hartmann asked, tilting her head up toward her husband.

  “Kassandra’s come home, Dianne,” Reverend Joseph said. “At last.”

  “Well, she does seem to be the worse for wear,” Mrs. Hartmann said, alternating a pointed glance between Kassandra and the stain on Reverend Joseph’s suit.

  “Dianne, can’t you tell what the child’s been through?”

  Kassandra found herself becoming less and less with each word. The melting sensation that was so warm when she was in Reverent Joseph’s welcoming embrace seemed to be dissolving her now, and she wished she could become one of those puddles that Jenny could just mop away.

  “I should not have come here,” she muttered, already wondering if she had the strength to make it back to the steaming rubble on Mott Street.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Reverend Joseph said, though it was unclear for which of the women the remark was intended.

  “Indeed.” Mrs. Hartmann laid a comforting finger on Kassandra’s arm. “We don’t need to make any decisions right now. Jenny?”

  The woman couldn’t have been far, because she was in through the door almost before the second syllable of her name. “Yes, Mrs. Hartmann?”

  “The reverend and I will take an early breakfast in the dining room. Please see to it that our guest is served in here.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Hartmann.”

  “Then the reverend and I will leave together to make his morning calls. Will you please help our guest clean up a bit?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Hart—”

  “And take her clothes to the laundress at Woodbridge. You simply won’t have the time to wash them here today.”