The ground, littered with seasons of rotted chestnut shells, slowed her down. The trees were overgrown now, and run wild. But they’d been planted in rows, an orchard once.
It was a fine-looking house, even in the dawn, but it had fallen on hard times. Through a gate she stepped into the yard piled high with leaves and fallen branches.
The front door was boarded over. Another door under an eave to the left was nailed shut.
The seconds were ticking. She should have stayed on the road.
She stepped back a few feet and looked up to the roof. Traces of smoke were coming from a small chimney on the far side. Even as she watched, the amount of smoke increased, turning from gray to black. She caught a light through a slit between the curtains.
She continued around the house. Only windows on the left side, either shuttered or curtained or with glass too filthy to see through.
Around the back, a little porch swamped in leaves. Clambering up the steps, she tried the door. Locked. There were narrow windows on either side, as grimy and impenetrable as the others.
No time for good manners. If it’s someone else’s house, she’ll apologize.
Stepping back on her right foot she slammed her boot heel through the panes. Glass and rotten wood gave way. Reaching her hand in, she felt about for the lock, threw it, and pushed the door open. She listened. Just the sounds that houses make.
A small entry hall. Three doors. Left, right, and straight ahead. The smell of smoke, stronger now.
The door on the left was not locked. But it was only a shallow closet with a mop in a bucket.
No such luck on the second door. In addition to a keyhole lock, there were two more great iron padlocks. Leaning down she peered through the keyhole. Dimly illuminated by moldy skylights, she could make out a hallway stretching off into darkness, doors running the length on either side. Strangely, the hallway had the appearance of being too long to fit within the house.
A bump, the sound of creaking floorboards through the door to her right. Smoke was trickling out along the top. No time to search for another way in, she sized up the door. Paint peeling, worn wood, a rusted old mortise lock.
She slammed her shoulder hard into it and nearly swooned from the pain. Wrong shoulder. Leaning her head against the door to recover, she thought to turn the knob.
It wasn’t locked.
She nudged the door open. Acrid smoke whorled around her, blocking the top of the narrow corridor. She ducked down and made her way through the debris piled up along the walls on either side: books, figurines, clocks, birdcages, piles of shoes, and stacks of dirty dishes. She took a peek around the corner at the end of the passageway.
Much of the furniture in the drawing room had been pushed aside to accommodate a huge piano. Like the rest of the room, it was covered with rubbish.
She almost missed the boys, dumped in a heap onto the chaise longue along with a pile of shirts and socks. She ran to them, the canopy of smoke just above her head now. Besides the smoke, there was a sweet chemical odor of—chloroform! Tipped over on the floor, a bottle and a handkerchief. She shoved the cork in the bottle and pulled the pile of shirts down on the spill.
She pulled off her helmet and gloves and reached out to touch the boys’ cheeks. One of them groaned. Alive, but there was no time to examine them further. From the next room—the source of the smoke—came the crackling of a fire and the sound of a kettle coming to boil.
Adi ran low across the room and stuck her head into the kitchen.
In the far corner, rising out of a pile of broken furniture and what appeared to be the contents of a man’s clothes closet, the flames were a breath away from reaching the curtains covering the windows.
And there, past the table and chairs, on the floor next to the stove, sat Coal. He slouched against the wall, ripping pages out of a magazine, crumpling and tossing them into the fire.
Seeing something out of the corner of his eye, Coal turned and froze, looking as if he’d seen a ghost. The kettle screamed.
Pushing past him, Adi caught hold of the curtains and tore them loose from the rods, out of the path of the flames. She snatched the kettle from the stove, got as close as she could to the flames and poured.
It wasn’t enough.
Tossing the kettle aside with a clang and a clatter, she started plucking dishes out of the sink, crashing them to the floor, until she found a pot, full of fetid water. She pulled it out and threw it on the flames. But the fire still grew.
This wasn’t working! Could she drag the boys out of the house? Was there time? Did she have the strength?
Just then, behind her.
“Sir! Stand clear!” A hand grabbed her shoulder. Pulled her back. One of her brothers, looking a bit groggy, tottered across the kitchen and dumped a full bucket of water onto the flames. With a great whoosh! the fire surrendered.
“Not a bad thing, a leaky ceiling!” said one of the boys, banging on the empty pail.
The other one didn’t respond. He stood stock-still staring at Adi.
She threw the window latch and pushed the casement open. A blast of cold November air blew into the room, fluttering magazine pages, scattering the smoke. Now, both of the boys stared.
“Xander,” said Xavier. “He—Thomas was right! It’s—”
From out of the smoke and shadow, eyes blazing, Coal rose up before them, higher and higher until he seemed to scrape the ceiling.
Adi moved between him and the boys.
But, just as quickly, with a cough and a groan, the man fell into his chair at the kitchen table. From under a crow’s wing of black hair he stared up at them, his eyes bruised and runny, a sickly stain darkening the shoulder of his coat.
Muttering to himself, he dug around in the dishes on the table until he found his cigarettes and lighter.
Adi pulled the watch from around her neck and opened it.
Seconds remained. Twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two . . . She held it out to the man.
A cigarette hanging from his lips, Coal looked at the watch, clicking his lighter to no effect.
Adi snatched the lighter and the pack of smokes and tossed the lot into the sink. Leaning over, she swept everything away: the books, the cups and dishes crashed to the floor. The boys stared wide-eyed as she slammed the watch down on the empty table. A saucer gyrated on the floor in accelerating circles until, finally it stopped.
Coal looked up at the girl, watching her as she listened to the house moan and creak through the walls, as if these indignities were the last it could bear. There was a popping and cracking sound like marbles bouncing on a wooden floor.
“Don’t you know, Adi Dahl,” said Coal, nodding his head toward the pile of wet wood filling the corner. “I always have a backup plan.”
It took a second. With a gasp of comprehension, Adi grabbed the boys and shoved them toward the open window.
With the tip of his last cigarette, Coal spun the watch around on the table.
“ ‘’Tis a consummation,’ ” he said, with a cough, “ ‘devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep—To sleep—perchance to dream.’ ”
He looked over at Adi, the last out the window. Glass began to explode in the back of the house.