All Clear

We’ll never make it in time, Polly thought, stepping quickly onto a rafter. It broke, and she lurched forward, hands out, and her other foot plunged through the stacked, splintered wood. And caught.

No. Not now.

She leaned against the dying Faulknor, grabbed on to Honour’s arm, and twisted her ankle, trying to free her foot. Her shoe was stuck fast. It’s the Phoenix all over again, she thought.

Colin had leapt lightly down off a chunk of broken stone and had helped Mr. Dunworthy—who looked like he might not make it—down off the pile of rubble, and was leading him over to the brightness in front of the door. He glanced back at Polly, saw her, and started back toward her.

“Go with him!” Polly called softly across the rubble. “I’ll come next time. Go!”

He shook his head, said something to Mr. Dunworthy, and stepped back away from the shimmer, out of its reach.

“Colin, go—”

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” he said, and the shimmer brightened to a white-hot flame.

It looks exactly like an incendiary, Polly thought. It lit Mr. Dunworthy’s face and then hid it, obliterating it, and the light began to fade, to shrink. Mr. Dunworthy was no longer there.

He made it, Polly thought. He’s safely home. A weight seemed to lift off her. But Mike didn’t make it. Eileen didn’t. They both sacrificed themselves for you. And so did Colin.

He was already clambering back over the wreckage to her. “Stay there,” he whispered.

“I haven’t any choice,” she said. “My foot’s stuck.”

“And you’d have let me go through and leave you here?” he said angrily. “Is your foot injured?”

“No, it’s only my shoe. It’s caught. Careful,” she warned as he hurried to her.

He knelt beside her and began shifting timbers aside. “Take care you don’t get stuck,” Polly said.

“You’re a fine one to talk.” He broke off the end of a wooden slat, pried another rafter up with it, reached down into the hole, and took hold of her ankle. “Do you care about your shoe, Cinderella?”

“No.”

“Good.” She could feel him yanking on her foot and then pulling up on whatever was holding it down, and her bare foot came suddenly free.

He straightened. “All right now, let’s go before anything else—” he said, and the rafter he’d pushed aside went clattering suddenly down the pile of rubble with an unholy crash and into the crater.

“Oh, Christ! Hurry! No, not that way.” He pushed her back across the rubble in the direction of the transept’s entrance. “If someone comes, there’s nowhere to hide in the transept.”

They clambered quickly across the wood and broken stone. And please don’t let one of us get caught again, she thought.

The shimmer was fading rapidly. By the time they were safely back down on the floor—which, thankfully, wasn’t as strewn with glass on this side—and over the barricade, the light was nearly gone.

“What’s the best place to hide?” Colin whispered. “The choir?”

“No,” she said. “There’s no way out.” She grabbed his hand, and they darted across the nave and down the south aisle. They could hide in the Chapel of St.

Michael and St. George, behind the prayer stalls—

Colin grabbed her around the waist and thrust her behind a pillar. “Shh,” he whispered against her ear. “I hear footsteps.”

She listened. “I don’t—” she began, and then did hear them. Footsteps from inside the main stairway. And a flash from a pocket torch.

They ducked farther behind the pillar and pressed against it, listening. The sound of footsteps came out onto the floor, into the north transept, and then there was another flash of light.

He’s looking at the wreckage, Polly thought.

More footsteps and a wide sweep of light as he shone the torch slowly around the transept.

“How much longer till the drop opens again?” Polly whispered to Colin.

“Twelve or thirteen minutes.” It wouldn’t open if the firewatcher was still there, of course, but they were running out of time. When the all clear went, the men would come down from the roofs, and from then on there’d be men in the Crypt and going off duty. She remembered the firewatchers on the morning after the twenty-ninth walking out through the nave, standing on the steps talking. And Mr. Dunworthy had said they made morning rounds, checking for incendiaries and damage.

Now the firewatcher was shining the torch up at the ceiling to see if something had fallen.

Leave, Polly said silently, but it was forever before the torch finally switched off and the footsteps went back upstairs.

They faded away, but Colin still didn’t move. He went on standing there, pressing her against the stone, his arm still around her, waiting. She could feel his breath against her cheek, feel his heart beating.

“I think he’s gone,” he whispered finally, his mouth against her hair. “More’s the pity.” And she felt her heart lift.

But how could even love repay him for the years, the youth he’d sacrificed for her?