Soul of the Fire

How was she going to live? How was she going to feed herself and her children without Julian? Julian did the hard stuff. He knew the things she didn't know. He provided for them.

She felt numb, dead, stunned, like she did when she'd just come awake. It didn't seem possible.

Julian couldn't be dead. He was Julian. He couldn't die. Not Julian.

A sound made her spin around. A thump to the air. A howl, like wind on a blizzard night. A wail and a whoosh lifted into the night air.

From then- house up on the hill, Nora could see sparks shooting up out the chimney. Sparks flew up in wild swirls, spiraling high up into the darkness. Thunderstruck, Nora stood in frozen terror.

A scream ripped the quiet night. The awful sound rose, like the sparks, screeching into the night air with horror such as she had never heard. It was such a brutal cry she didn't think it could be human.

But she knew it was. She knew it was Brace's scream. With a wail of wild terror of her own, she suddenly dropped the lamp in the water and ran for the house. Her screams answered his, feeding on his, shattering the silence with his.

Her babies were in the house.

Evil was in the house.

And she had left them to it.

She wailed in feral fright at what she had done, leaving her babies alone. She screamed to the good spirits to help her. She squalled for her children. She choked on her sobbing panic as she stumbled through the brush in the dark.

Huckleberry bushes snagged and tore her clothes. Branches slashed her arms as she ran with wild abandon. A hole in the ground caught arid twisted her foot, but she stayed up and kept running toward her house, toward her babies.

Brace's piercing scream went on without end, lifting the hair at the back of her neck. She didn't hear Bethany, just Brace, little Brace, screaming his lungs out, like he was having his eyes stabbed out.

Nora stumbled. Her face slammed the ground. She scrambled to her feet. Blood gushed from her nose. Stunning pain staggered her. She gagged on blood and dirt as she gasped for breath, crying, screaming, praying, panting, choking all at the same time. With desperate effort, Nora raced to the house, to the screams.

She crashed through the door. Chickens flew out around her. Brace had his back plastered to the wall beside the door. He was in the grip of savage terror, out of his mind, shrieking like the Keeper had him by the toes.

Brace saw her, and made to throw his arm around her, but flung himself back against the wall when he saw her bloody face, saw strings of blood dripping from her chin.

She seized his shoulder. "It's Mama! I just fell and hit my nose, that's all!"

He threw himself at her, his arms clutching her hips, his fingers snatching at her clothes. Nora twisted around, but even with the bright firelight, she didn't see her daughter.

"Brace! Where's Bethany?"

His arm lifted, shaking so much she feared it would come undone. She wheeled to see where he pointed.

Nora screeched. She threw her hands up to cover her face, but couldn't, her fingers quaking violently before her mouth as she screamed with Bruce.

Bethany was standing in the hearth, engulfed in flames.

The fire roared around her, swirling in tumbling eddies as it consumed her little body. Her arms were lifted out into the angry white heat, the way you lifted your arms into the warm spring afternoon sunlight after a swim.

The stink of bubbling burning flesh suddenly wormed into Nora's bleeding nose, gagging her until she choked on the smell and taste and couldn't get another breath. She couldn't seem to look away from Bethany, look away from her daughter being burned up alive. It didn't seem real. She couldn't make her mind understand it.

Nora lunged a step toward the flames, to snatch her daughter out of the fire. Something inside, some last scrap of sense, told her it was far too late. Told her to get away with Bruce before it had them, too.

The tips of Bethany's fingers were all gone. Her face was nothing but yellow-orange whorls of flame. The fire burned with wild, roused, determined fury. The heat sucked Nora's breath from her lungs.

A shrill scream suddenly rose from the girl, as if her soul itself had finally caught fire. It made the very marrow in Nora's bones ache.

Bethany collapsed in a heap. Flames shot up around the crumbled form, tumbling out around the stone, licking briefly up over the mantel. Sparks splashed out into the room, bouncing and rolling across the floor. Several hissed out against the wet hem of Nora's dress.

Nora snatched at Bruce, clutching his nightshirt in a death grip, and ran with him from the house, as evil consumed what was left of her daughter.

CHAPTER 19