BEFORE THE TRUCK HAD EVEN STOPPED, I HAD FUMBLED my way out of my safety belt and was running toward the house. The heat hit me like a brick wall and slowed me down, threatening to steal my breath away. When the wind shifted, driving the smoke away momentarily, I could see the paint bubbling and peeling near the windows, flecks of soot and ash sticking to it. The flames were huge, unaffected by the powerful stream of water that the fireman aimed at it. Even before a fireman intercepted me, I had stopped, fascinated by the horrible conflagration.
“You can’t go in there!” he shouted. “Get those vehicles out of here! We need room.”
“This is my friend’s house,” I said. “What’s—?”
He asked quickly, “Are they at home?”
“No, she’s away, in Boston.”
“Anyone else in there?”
I shook my head.
“Good, now get those trucks away, down the road, past that telephone pole.”
I ran back and told Neal and Alan, in the other truck, to pull away, not interfere. I know Neal said something, but I couldn’t make myself focus on it. I barely recognized him.
The fireman spoke into his walkie-talkie, then gestured at me again.
“Who are you?”
“Emma Fielding. I’m…I’m a friend of Pauline’s.”
“Can you tell me what is going on down on the lawn? Is there anything we need to know about? Pipelines or anything in those holes in the ground?”
I looked where he was pointing, down at the tarps, and realized that the site was just sitting there, waiting for attention while the house burned. A momentary panic seized me, as I tried to imagine whether the fire could affect it in any way. “No, they’re…just holes in the ground. I’ve been conducting archaeological research here.”
“No kidding?” For a moment he was impressed, then the radio crackled again and he began shouting a response into it. I couldn’t make anything out over the monstrous noise of the house burning. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before, so huge and destructive, and yet almost fiendishly reminiscent of a campfire.
It was unreal. All of it was unreal.
I watched as the firefighters worked feverishly, a sort of modern dance, where there seemed to be nothing but chaos at first glance, but after a moment of study, deeper logic was revealed. They dragged a hose across the lawn toward the front of the house to attack the fire from another direction.
“Oh! Be careful—” I cried, then caught myself and cursed.
The fireman grabbed my wrist. “What? What’s wrong?”
“No, no I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “There’s nothing. I just wanted them to be careful of the flowers. Pauline’s worked so hard—” I began to cry uncontrollably. “I’m sorry, my God, I’m so sorry, this is so stupid, worrying about the stupid goddamned flowers…”
“Don’t worry about it. I see it all the time. Just sit down over here, stay out of the way, and when things calm down, we’ll figure out how to reach your friend.”
So I sat there on the bumper of the chief’s truck and watched the house burn down. I knew I was still crying because I could feel how puffy my face was growing. I had to blink every so often, but I couldn’t for the life of me feel the tears running down my cheeks. The air was just too hot. I tried not to think about all the memories I had here. I tried not to think about telling Pauline. She was rooted in this place; it was a part of her and I couldn’t imagine her anywhere else.
I was so busy trying not to think about so many things that time seemed to evaporate around me, swirled away and scattered over the river with the smoke. After what seemed like a long time, I realized that I no longer saw flames shooting out through the broken windows and out a ragged hole that left the rafters exposed in the remaining roof. The next thing I noticed was the relative quiet: The roaring had died away and all that remained was the sound of running water dripping and hissing as it hit hot surfaces, the shouts of the firefighters, and the noise of equipment being deployed or stowed away.
I looked up and saw Dave Stannard standing next to me, his eyes glued to the wreck of the house. He looked down. “You okay?”
“No.” I sniffed loudly and wiped my eyes on my shirtsleeves; my handkerchief had been rendered useless long ago. “But I’m okay.” I thought about how stupid that was and almost grinned.
“A hell of a hot fire,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “With all that rain we got? Even with most of the exterior shell still standing, Ms. Westlake’s going to have to rebuild.”
“She’s going to be devastated,” I said. “She’ll be heartbroken. But she’ll rebuild, all right, she’s like that.” A sudden thought seized me. “Oh damn, the students!” I whipped my head around, trying to see if they were still waiting. “I completely forgot about them!”
I started to head back up the driveway when the sheriff stopped me. “They’re fine, I sent them home a while ago. Told them I’d get you a ride back.”
“Thanks.” I sniffed again and surveyed the ruin of Greycliff. “Oh hell. What a mess.”
Stannard nodded. “I’m going to check with Jimmy in there, see if he can tell what started this all.”
Suddenly a shout came from where the firemen were examining the inside of the house. That bred more shouting, which seemed to move from person to person up the drive, until I was finally able to make out the words.
“A stretcher! Get a stretcher in here!”
I looked over to where the action was, confused. Two firemen rushed back and were met by a couple of paramedics who, with unbelievable, practiced ease, moved a heavy-looking gurney down to the house and through the opened back door.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why do they need a stretcher?”
“Probably one of the firefighters got hurt,” Stannard said, frowning. “You stay put and I’ll—”
The shouting increased, the buzz of activity increased, and unconsciously, I began to follow the sheriff toward the house. Raincoated firefighters began to stream out of the house, and I saw one of the paramedics leading the foot of the gurney out. I could see black rubber on the stretcher, but it did not resolve itself into the boots that I expected—
As I stared I heard a shout: “Jesus Christ! Somebody get her out of here!”
The black continued to emerge from the house until the other paramedic came out at the head of the stretcher. Or where the head should have been. It was just a formless stretch of black plastic, all the way along the stretcher.
I stepped forward involuntarily. Time once again slowed and I heard a keening moan that seemed to continue endlessly. Some part of me realized that I must have been making the noise, but even with that knowledge, I felt myself collapsing; my knees turned to rubber and I stumbled, the world suddenly seeming to spin around me, my vision awhirl.
The more I tried to deny it, the more I knew it was true. I couldn’t have said how I knew, but as soon as I recognized the body bag for what it was, I also knew, as sure as my life, that it was Pauline they were carrying out of the burned ruin.