Diane Setterfield - The Thirteenth Tale

She tore out pages by the fistful. She scattered them all over the desk; some slid off, onto the floor. When she had done with the ripping, she grabbed handfuls of them and screwed them into loose balls. Fast! She was a whirlwind! My neat little volumes, suddenly a paper mountain. To think a book could have so much paper in it! I wanted to cry out, but what? All the words, the beautiful words, pulled apart and crumpled up, and I, in the shadows, speechless.

She gathered an armful and released it onto the top of the white blanket in the fireplace. Three times I watched her turn from the desk to the fireplace, her arms full of pages, until the hearth was heaped high with torn-up books. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Woman in White … Balls of paper toppled from the height of the pyre, some rolled as far as the carpet, joining those that she had dropped en route.

One came to a stop at my feet, and silently I dropped down to retrieve it. Oh! The outrageous sensation of crumpled paper; words gone wild, flying in all directions, senseless. My heart broke.

Anger swept me up; it carried me like a piece of flotsam, unable to see or breathe; it roared like an ocean in my head. I might have cried out, leaped like a mad thing from my hiding place and struck her, but I had Emmeline's treasure in my arms, and so I stood by and watched, trembling, weeping in silence, as her sister desecrated the treasure that was mine.

At last she was satisfied with her pyre. Yet whichever way you looked at it, the mountain in the hearth was madness itself. It's all upside down, the Missus would have said; it'll never light-you want the paper at the bottom. But even if she had built it properly, it would make no difference. She couldn't light it: She had no matches. And even if she had been able to obtain matches, still she would not achieve her purpose, for the boy, her intended victim, was in my arms. And the greatest madness of all: Supposing I hadn't been there to stop her? Supposing I hadn't rescued the infant and she had burned him alive? How could she ever imagine that burning her sister's child would restore her sister to her?

It was the fire of a madwoman.

In my arms the baby stirred and opened his mouth to mewl. What to do? Behind Adeline's back I softly retreated, then fled to the kitchen.

I must get the baby to a place of safety, then deal with Adeline later. My mind was working furiously, proposing plan after plan. Emmeline will have no love left for her sister when she realizes what she tried to do. It will be she and I now. We will tell the police that Adeline killed John-the-dig, and they will take her away. No! We will tell Adeline that unless she leaves Angelfield we will tell the police… No! And then suddenly I have it! We will leave Angelfield. Yes! Emmeline and I will leave, with the baby, and we will start a new life, without Adeline, without Angelfield, but together.

And it all seems so simple I wonder I never thought of it before.

With the future glowing so brightly it seems realer than the present, I put the page irom Jane Eyre in the game bag as well, for safekeeping, and a spoon that is on the kitchen table. We will need that, en route to our new life.

Now where? Somewhere not far from the house, where there is nothing to hurt him, where he will be warm enough for the few minutes it will take me to come back to the house and fetch Emmeline and persuade her to follow…

Not the coach house. Adeline sometimes goes there. The church. That is a place she never goes.

I run down the drive, through the lych-gate and into the church. In the front rows are small tapestry cushions for kneeling. I arrange them into a bed and lay the baby on them in his canvas papoose.

Now, back to the house.

I am almost there when my future shatters. Shards of glass flying through the air, one breaking window then another, and a sinister, living light prowling in the library. The empty window frame shows me liquid fire spraying the room, petrol cans bursting in the heat. And two figures.

Emmeline!

I run. The odor of fire catches my nostrils even in the entrance hall, though the stone floor and walls are cool-the fire has no hold here. But at the door of the library I stop. Flames chase each other up the curtains; bookshelves are ablaze; the fireplace itself is an inferno. In the center of the room, the twins. For a moment, in all the noise and heat of the fire, I stop dead. Amazed. For Emmeline, the passive, docile Emme-line, is returning blow for blow, kick for kick, bite for bite. She has never retaliated against her sister before, but now she is doing it. For her child.

Around them, above their heads, one burst of light after another as the petrol cans explode and fire rains down upon the room. I open my mouth to call to Emmeline that the baby is safe, but the first breath I draw in is nothing but heat, and I choke.

I hop over fire, step around it, dodge the fire that falls on me from above, brush fire away with my hands, beat out the fire that grows in my clothes. When I reach the sisters I cannot see them, but reach blindly through the smoke. My touch startles them and they draw apart instantly. There is a moment when I see Emmeline, see her clearly, and she sees me. I grip her hand and pull her, through the flames, through the fire, and we reach the door. But when she realizes what I am doing-leading her away from the fire to safety-she stops. I tug at her.

"He's safe." My words come in a croak, but they are clear enough.

Why doesn't she understand?

I try again. "The baby. I have saved him."

Surely she has heard me? Inexplicably she resists my tug, and her hand slips from mine. Where is she? I can see only blackness.

I stumble forward into the flames, collide with her form, grasp her and pull. Still she won't stay with me, turns once more into the room. Why? She is bound to her sister. She is bound. Blind and with my lungs burning, I follow her into the smoke. I will break the bond. Eyes closed against the heat, I plunge into the library, arms ahead of me, searching. When my hands reach her in the smoke, I do not let her go. I will not have her die. I will save her. And though she resists, I drag her ferociously to the door and out of it.

The door is made of oak. It is heavy. It doesn't burn easily. I push it shut behind us, and the latch engages. Beside me, she steps forward, about to open it again. It is something stronger than fire that pulls her into that room.

The key that sits in the lock, unused since the days of Hester, is hot. It burns my palm as I turn it. Nothing else hurts me that night, but the key sears my palm and I smell my flesh as it chars. Emmeline puts out a hand to clutch the key and open it again. The metal burns her, and as she feels the shock of it, I pull her hand away.

A great cry fills my head. Is it human? Or is it the sound of the fire itself? I don't even know whether it is coming from inside the room or outside with me. From a guttural start it gathers strength as it rises, reaches a shrill peak of intensity, and when I think it must be at the end of its breath, it continues, impossibly low, impossibly long, a boundless sound that fills the world and engulfs it and contains it.

And then the sound is gone and there is only the roar of the fire.

Outdoors. Rain. The grass is soaked. We sink to the ground; we roll on the wet grass to damp our smoldering clothes and hair, feel the cool wet on our scorched flesh. On our backs we rest there, flat against the earth. I open my mouth and drink the rain. It falls on my face, cools my eyes, and I can see again. Never has there been a sky like it, deep indigo with fast-moving slate-black clouds, the rain coming down in blade edges of silver, and every so often a plume, a spray of bright orange from the house, a fountain of fire. A bolt of lightning cracks the sky in two, then again, and again.