Nevada Barr - 13 1/2

“Stay by the window, my darlings. You hear me? Put your mouths up to the crack and breathe this good air. Don’t open it any wider, okay? It will make the fire want to come in faster. You just sit tight. Don’t open the door. I’m going to get you out.”

Breaking this tenuous connection with them hurt so deeply, pain knifed through her chest. Praying she wasn’t having a heart attack, Polly tore free of the holly and ran to the front of the house. Orange light danced in waves of heat. Gouts of flame cut through smoke billowing from the windows. Paint on the front door bubbled. Great heat blisters popped and breathed white vapor.

There was no way in. She wouldn’t live long enough to reach her children. The girls would die alone.

Polly howled and heard Gracie scream. Then white light blindsided her. She fell to her knees, images of the house exploding burning behind her scorched eyeballs.

Engine roaring, a truck pounded over the curb and smashed through the azaleas to lurch to a stop on the lawn. The door flew open and Marshall leapt from behind the wheel.

“Where’s the fire department?” he yelled as he ran across the lawn. “My God, you’re bleeding.”

“They haven’t come.” Polly grabbed his wrist and dragged him toward the side of the house.

“Where are Emma and Gracie?”

“Inside,” Polly cried. “Emma and Gracie are still inside. Marshall, I had security bars put in!” The words tore her throat. “I don’t know how to get them out.” Polly’s fingernails clawed into the flesh of his wrist as she pulled him through the slash of leaves to the window.

“Momma!” Gracie screamed. Polly could scarcely see her for the smoke. It was coming out the window now. Behind the glass Gracie’s pale face shone like a ghost.

Marshall tore free of Polly’s grasp and ran. “No!” Polly shrieked, but he was gone.

Gracie was crying. Polly squeezed her face tightly against the bars trying to see her child. The iron was hot.

“Momma, Emma wouldn’t stay. I tried to make her, but she got away. Momma, she opened the door, and I can’t see her. I can’t see her.”

“Emma!” Polly shouted. Smoke burned her eyes. “Emma, you come back! Come to my voice, baby.”

“I couldn’t stop her, Momma. She pulled away so hard, and she’s so fast.” Tears streaked white as they cut through the grime coating Gracie’s face.

“I know, honey. Emma is as quick as a bunny. Stay at the window, baby. You stay right here.”

Emma was dead, and Gracie was going to die.

“Give me your hand. That’s a girl.” Polly pushed her fingers through the narrow opening, raking the skin from her knuckles. “The fire trucks are on their way. Emma!”

“Don’t move!” came a command, then a crash so loud Polly and Gracie shrieked.

Marshall raised the sledge hammer and drove it into the side of the house a second time. A hole was opening through the siding. Smoke trickled out. He struck again, and the hole was big enough for a small person to crawl through. Two more quick blows, wood shattering inward, plaster dust swirling into the smoke, and a narrow door half the height of a man was made between two upright two-by-four studs. To Polly it was a miracle. She’d not known a hammer could so easily knock a hole in a house.

In a heartbeat, Marshall was through the breach. “Gracie,” she heard him call.

“Go to him, baby. Quick as a wink.” Polly said urgently. She let go of her daughter’s hands. “Go to Marshall, baby.” Gracie’s ghostly face slid into the smoke. Polly fought the need to call her back to the window. Within seconds she was through the hole, coughing. Polly grabbed her and held tight.

“Get away from the house,” Marshall shouted. “I’ll get Emma.”

Knowing there was nothing else she could do, arms wrapped around Gracie, Polly led her to the sidewalk across the street. Even fifty feet away, the heat was palpable. The roof over Polly’s bedroom was intact, but the side of the house up under the eaves was burned away, and flame licked at the shingles.

On her knees on the concrete, Gracie held against her, Polly imagined Emma, small pink feet on floorboards hot as a griddle, ruffled nightie ablaze, her silky hair crackling like lightning. Had Gracie not been between her and the fire, she would have walked into it to stop the pain of the vision.

Smoke ceased to trickle from the hole Marshall had made and began to pour.

Faintly in the distance Polly heard sirens, fire trucks racing from whichever functioning stationhouse had taken them in, the ranks of firefighters depleted by those who’d evacuated and never come back. Gracie’s crying became a slow, steady keen. Polly rocked back and forth trying to soothe them both.

A firefighter came up to them as his fellows rolled out the hose. A second engine arrived, lights and horns blaring.

“Anybody inside?”

“Yes,” Polly heard herself saying as if from a great distance. “My daughter.”

The fireman’s face hardened, and she supposed he was trying not to telegraph his thoughts. Because the loss of Emma was not to be borne, Polly looked away from him.

A gout of black smoke burst from the hole Marshall had knocked in the wall of the girls’ room.

Gracie started to struggle, trying to get free of Polly’s arms. No!” Polly cried and held her more tightly as if Gracie, too, would run into the flames to be with Emma.

“Momma, let go. Look!”

At first Polly saw nothing; it was as if the fire had burned her retinas. Then from the smoke, a shape emerged.

“Momma, it’s them!” Gracie cried.

Black as a chimney sweep, Emma clinging to his neck, Marshall fell through the jagged gap in the side of the house, staggered to his feet, and fell a second time. Polly started to run to them. A fireman stopped her. She fought him until he shook her, yelling, “Ma’am, ma’am, it’s not safe.”

Two others ran to help Marshall. The first took Emma; the second lifted Marshall from the ground. Keeping a firm grip on Polly’s upper arm, her fireman got on his radio, asking for the status of the ambulance.

“Anybody else inside?” he asked Polly.

“No.”

“Just your husband and the kid?”

“My fiancé,” Polly said. Then with a vehemence that surprised her, she repeated, “He is my fiancé.”

The day Marsh met Polly, he had gone mad. Or gone somewhere. Danny had felt him leave-a sucking sensation that left a vacuum behind, a north wind snatching away a coat, the dentist drawing a living tooth. Now, three months later, he and Marsh were standing shoulder to shoulder in the Methodist church on St. Charles waiting for the bride. If Polly had been younger, it would have looked suspiciously like a shotgun affair.

The church’s steeple was missing, smashed by Katrina.

The guests had to enter under scaffolding.

And it was too fucking hot for a wedding.

Though the church was air-conditioned, Danny could see the beads of sweat at his brother’s hairline. Marsh was getting what he wanted, and it scared him.

It should scare him. It should scare everybody, Danny thought.

It was the fire.

Marsh appearing on scene in the nick of time and playing hero. Just as the fire was getting started, Marsh had phoned Polly and awakened her.

Such perfect timing. Danny wondered if Marsh knew more about how the fire started than he should have.

Danny wasn’t worried about trouble with the law. Wind and flooding had damaged electrical wiring. Debris had piled under and around buildings. Police and fire departments were desperately understaffed. The loss of Polly’s house was one of many in the months following the storm.

Whispering at the far end of the room cut into his thoughts. He felt Marsh tense. They were not touching but a connection had been forged between them as kids; Danny knew his brother, felt his brother, as another part of himself. In more ways than most people realized they were the same man.