Robin McKinley - Fire - Tales of Elemental Spirits

Another awareness: that the old graveyard was now clear and clean. That the things that had been happening for over a century because it was neither clear nor clean would now stop happening.

ʺYou mean cell phones will work here? The next time somebody casts a shoe and we have to walk home I can ring ahead and say we’ll be late? That’ll be brilliant. And totally lost and hopeless walkers from the preserve won’t turn up at the stables and want to know where they are. Well, not as many anyway.ʺ

Jane’s voice, and a cone of flashlight beam: ʺHiding under the table and talking to your dog again, are you?ʺ Miri told herself that Jane wouldn’t be able to see anything that was the wrong kind of revealing by flashlight, but Jane came straight up to her and crouched down to give her another hug. ʺHoney, are you all right? I have the feeling more happened than Leslie or Mal is telling us.ʺ She paused to give Miri a chance to answer, but when Miri said nothing she went on, ʺWe were just getting organized to start looking ourselves. We’ve got cops, firefighters, and an ambulance, and a few guys from the preserve, and Leslie’s mom is probably here by now too. I hated ringing her but . . . And then Flame came prancing into the yard and barked to make us all look at him—you know he never barks—and he gambolled around like a lunatic for a minute or so and then ran straight up to me and threw himself down and waved all his legs in the air, still barking and wagging his tail like he was trying to wag it off. And I said, without even knowing I was going to say it, They’re all right. He’s telling us they’re all right.ʺ

There was another little silence, but this time it was a silence they both wanted to listen to.

ʺFlame knew where to go, of course, but I knew you’d been heading for the old graveyard, so we didn’t have to argue much about coming this way first. Everybody else is kind of on hold. The cops were saying there’s not a lot we can do now it’s dark and the preserve guys were saying they know the ground really well and they’d be happy to do some looking anyway, it’s not high summer any more, exposure, you know, if you’re out all night and you’re hurt. . . .ʺ That wasn’t a silence they wanted to listen to and Jane hurried on: ʺLook, darling, there are some stretcher-bearers just longing for something to do, and Mal and Leslie are refusing to get off Balt.ʺ Miri smiled a little at this. ʺWould you like a lift back?ʺ

ʺNo. Good grief. I’m just a little—shaken. It was—scary, you know?ʺ

Jane said grimly, ʺYes. I know. And it did happen at the graveyard? Mal says the lightning struck almost like it was aiming for him, and he fell off.ʺ

He didn’t fall off. He was pulled off. ʺYes.ʺ

Jane sighed. ʺYou’re as communicative as they are. Never mind. I don’t care, so long as you’re all back safe. Twilight’s come home, by the way. She’s got a very strange—what looks like a burn, on her flank, but it can’t be a burn. If the lightning had actually struck her they’d both be dead, or at least really messed up. She’s a little spooked but I hope she’ll be okay. We’ll turn her out for a week and see how she goes. Come on, child. If you won’t accept a friendly passing stretcher you can at least lean on me.ʺ She pulled Miri’s arm over her shoulder and stood up.

When they got back to the barn the ambulance driver, who’d been listening to the hospital dispatchers, told them there’d been a bad accident on the way out of the city, and the highway was blocked solid. So when he’d heard the message coming in on the barn machine he’d picked up the phone: Leslie’s mother had been two miles from the nearest exit for the last hour and a half. (There were already two messages on the barn answering machine, and when they got indoors they discovered three more on the house machine.) Jane said, ʺOh, poor woman,ʺ and to Leslie, ʺYou aren’t going anywhere tonight, you can sleep here.ʺ Jane rang back, told her to go home as soon as she could, said they’d ring again as soon as everyone else had gone, and put Leslie on the phone.

It was nearly eleven by the time the last of the searchers and rescuers had left. Miri was so exhausted she could hardly walk the hundred yards from the barn to the house. She hadn’t decided what she was going to say about what had happened, and she hadn’t had a chance to talk to Mal and Leslie about what they wanted to say, or not say. Fortunately the cop who tried to talk to her thought she was just tired and shaken—which was only too true as well—and patted her shoulder and told her to come in to the station when she’d had some sleep and fill a form out, please. It wouldn’t be that easy with Jane.

When they got into the house, Leslie rang her mother again, and Jane rescued the salad that had been sitting in the sink for the last five hours. They’d decided to save the steak and the cake till tomorrow; Ned started slicing bread. Miri looked dubiously at the peeled potatoes, and put them in the refrigerator. Mal was saying hello to Dorothy, who was carrying on, Miri thought, as if she knew the truth. The cats had decided that whatever it was, it was over, and supper was late.

Miri dropped her eyes to Flame. Flame was looking at her, but then he often looked at her. She sat down in the nearest chair—she’d leaned harder on Jane on the walk back to the barn than she wanted to admit—and Flame put his head in her lap. He was too tall to do this easily, so Miri slid off the chair and sat on the floor beside him and leaned against him. He put his nose in her hair and whuffled gently. Under the cover of Dorothy’s shrieks and Leslie’s conversation with her mother she said to him, ʺI don’t suppose we’re going to be able to talk to each other after this?ʺ

There was no answer. She didn’t really expect one. But she was having a hard time with what had happened a few hours ago. And she couldn’t explain away the impossible part because she remembered Mal’s lifeless hand in hers too clearly. She whispered, so that only Flame could hear her, ʺIf the only way I get to talk to you is because . . . because something incredibly awful has happened, then I’d rather you were just a . . . dog.ʺ He whuffled a little more. His breath always smelled clean and sweet—a kind of running-water smell, like the stream through the nature preserve. It must be all that charcoal he ate. ʺHow does a . . . a . . . become a dog? I bet Jry and Kro—Kro-something aren’t squirrels or tea-pots. Maybe they’re hellhounds, like you. I wish . . .ʺ But she couldn’t say what she wished, even to Flame.

Jane said, ʺOkay, everyone. This isn’t going to be the best meal you’ve ever eaten, but we all need to eat—you three especially. Leslie, you sit there. Miriam, you may not sit under the table with your dog, even that dog.ʺ

It was hard to think about food at midnight. Flame got Miri’s first sandwich but she managed to eat the second. It did begin to make her feel better, but that only made her thoughts even harder to duck or switch off. Jane disappeared briefly and returned carrying a bottle of wine and a corkscrew. ʺThis feels like a special occasion,ʺ she said. ʺI mean a special occasion that doesn’t have anything to do with Mal’s birthday. I’ve had horses come home riderless before—memorably when you, Miri, took that four-legged maniac Padraic out against my express orders, and he lost you—ʺ

Just as we were passing the turn off to the old graveyard, thought Miri, but she didn’t say it aloud.

ʺBut I’ve never had this sense of having someone snatched back from—from—from—ʺ but she couldn’t say it aloud. ʺAnd the way you all look isn’t helping. You wouldn’t be in shock like this—and I’m not sure Miri isn’t the worst—if all that had happened is that lightning struck a little too close and Twilight took exception and dumped Mal. For one thing, if that’s all that happened, the two of you would have come back on Peggy, instead of sending her home with her stirrups run up as a message that you needed rescuing.ʺ