Fire Within
“Craig! The kids!” Haley screamed, fighting back tears as the flames crept higher and higher into the sky, battling against the dark, distant mountain vista for the view. She scooped up Fluffy in her arms and ran further back from the enveloping heat, then stopped to assess. The heat was unbearable, even from fifty yards away. Craig ran past with Julia and George, heading for the pond. Thank God.
There was so much smoke that Haley could hardly see the shed, still standing, a few yards away from their beloved home flaming wildly in the night. In that moment, she prayed. She hated that it seemed like she only ever prayed in times like this, when she was desperate and there seemed to be everything at stake. Everything.
I’ll do better, she pleaded. I know. Please, please don’t let it take the shed. For me. For Craig. For the kids. This was the risk they had taken. Well, one of them.
“Mom? Mom!” George’s voice was small against the roar and the crackle of the fire, but it came through to her heart, once a mother, always a mother, as clear as anything. She ran to him.
“I’m here. We’re all safe. It’s okay,” she said as she put down the terrified Golden Doodle and embraced her teenage son. His chest heaved, breath coming out in large gulps. “Do you have your inhaler?”
He nodded and slipped it out of his pocket, putting it to his lips and sucking in quickly. His breathing calmed. Haley looked up and locked eyes silently with her husband, seeing a question there. She shrugged and looked away.
The only thing they could do now is wait. And run. Haley, George and Julia, age 13, waited. Craig ran. After making sure his wife, dog and two kids were safely by the pond, he ran to the neighbor’s house to call the fire department.
Haley tracked the minutes in her mind. He’d been gone for five minutes. Joe, their closest neighbor, lived a mile. He should be back soon.
Craig ran fast. Living up here without a phone meant needing safety measures like a five-minute sprint to Joe’s house along the path made by Craig’s own footsteps through the cactus forest. Always the one to be prepared, this run was something Craig trained for specifically. They’d cleared it with Joe the first time they met him when they moved to the area two years ago. Despondent teenagers and all, the whole family practiced running together those first few months. Even Fluffy. Since then, interest and enthusiasm and willingness had waned and only Craig kept up the practice. Still, it was enough to create the well-worn path his feet pounded on now, when it really mattered.
Haley checked her watch again. It had been 10 minutes. It was five a.m. and there was still no sign of light. On a normal day, this is where she would come to watch the sunrise. These days, February, the sun didn’t rise until seven a.m. The desert and mountains of Northeast New Mexico were new to her East Coast brain that dreamt of green and lush, rolling hills most nights. But she’d grown to love the starkness of this land. The muted browns and brilliant sky colors of liminal dusk and dawn soothed her.
“What happened? Oh, my God. A fire. I mean, do you think we inhaled a lot of smoke in our sleep before we woke up? Oh, George! Can you breathe okay?” Julia prattled on, seemingly not pausing to breathe the whole ten minutes Haley had been actively drowning her out until that stopped being possible.
Craig appeared behind them, breathless, his dark blue t-shirt soaked through with black splotches of damp sweat. His eyes darted immediately to the fire, taking stock. The flames flicked higher into the dark morning, but hadn’t yet spread much side to side. There was still time.
“Everyone okay?” They all nodded as he embraced each with a strong side hug. Haley hung on, pressing her hand into the small of his back. “I think I scared Joe half to death, barging into his kitchen at five a.m. as if...my house was on fire.” He was always cracking jokes, even, and perhaps, especially, in times like this. Haley rolled her eyes but she saw Julie and George exchange a knowing glance, and was, this time, grateful for Craig’s joke-cracking nature.
The fire department should be here any second, Craig’s voice came through into her head.
Haley had forgotten to finish her time calculation. Five minutes there, five minutes back. They lived twenty minutes from town but with sirens and speeding, the big trucks with their freeing and damning water should be there in the next five minutes. She decided to pray again. Everything was about this timing. Everything. They had to save the shed. It would all be for nothing if the shed went up, cascading into flames like their roof now seemed to be doing.
She saw Craig’s eyes going up and to the right, a telltale sign that he was calculating, too. Had each step of his journey been the same inner calculation? Each jarring pounding of the dusty desert road a step towards or away from their future? Was it bleak or hopeful?
“I’m hungry,” George said softly. Haley’s mothering instincts perked up again.
“I grabbed our backpack of emergency supplies we keep by the door for this very reason. Breakfast bar?” she asked, pulling it out before the yes even formed on his lips.
“Since when do we keep an emergency backpack of supplies by the door?” Julia asked. Haley groaned inwardly. Where did her daughter’s suspicious nature come from? She got her stubbornness from her father and her curiosity from her mother. But Haley was usually as trusting as a snail.
“Since I heard a podcast last week about ways to protect your family living in the middle of nowhere without a phone,” Haley replied, the words coming out more sharply than she had intended. Seriously, this girl didn’t miss anything.
“Lucky timing,” George said earnestly. Haley prayed again, this time a small prayer of thanks to the gods and ancestors for blessing her with only one sarcastic and suspicious teenager, not two. The morning had been an exercise in her own spiritual development.
“So, what do we do now? Just watch all our possessions go up in flames?” Julia’s voice was getting as high-pitched as her anxiety.
“Jules. It’s going to be okay. The fire department will be here any minute. We’re all safe. Fluffy is safe. It’s - “
“Sure, as long as the precious fucking dog is safe!” Julia burst into tears. Haley shrugged at Craig as he did his best to do what he did best in the family. To be the best friend, Dad. He walked over and wrapped his arms around his shaking, sobbing daughter.
“I know. It’s okay. It’s okay,” he soothed, giving voice to the refrain they all needed to hear.
The croon of the fire truck’s siren with its diesel engine roaring up the driveway was what Haley needed and desperately dreaded hearing. How could both things be so true all at the same time?
She jumped up and started down the hill as the siren blared before she heard Craig’s voice run through her head.
Wait. Let them do their thing.
This way of communicating without speaking out loud was coming in handy a lot these days, she thought, as she took a few steps back to her stump.
I know, she heard back. She looked up, surprised. She usually had to direct it his way. Her boundaries must be down with all the stress if he was picking up her random thoughts now, too.
Indeed, the firemen did their thing. The flames were out within the long, torturous hour, the light from the fire diminishing as the light from the sun crept up over the ridge line. Haley paced. Craig stood as still as a rock. The kids fidgeted.
Are they ever going to come up? Haley wondered to Craig. He shrugged. It seemed like their whole world hung is the balance of their mutual shoulder shrugs, nods, and inquiring looks.
Finally, a fireman trekked up the hill toward them. Talk about torture. Every step seemed as laden as the smoke his being had accumulated in the short time it had been there. It wasn’t the smokiness of the campfire, the smell that Haley loved so much. Instead, he carried the acrid smell of the remnants of their worldly possessions—an eerie lingering of plastic. Cotton. Hair. Burnt hair smell, the worst. Ruin. What had they done?
“Folks, the good news is that the fire is out and you all are safe, including this friendly pup of yours.” Haley felt Julie’s eyes roll. “You’d be surprised how many dead pets we see on a regular basis,” the man continued, not missing the nuance of the teenage angst before him and apparently deciding it was a teachable moment. Haley appreciated it somewhat, but also wondered – this kid just experienced legitimate trauma, and you’re choosing this moment to mansplain about statistical pet deaths? Julia looked down, ashamed, and leaned over to pat Fluffy apologetically.
“The bad news is that there’s quite a bit of structural damage. You’d be surprised what smoke can do to your possessions, too. We’ll let you in later on to gather what you can. Maybe some pots and pans and some of what’s in the far bedroom away from the mudroom. You’ll need to call your insurance company. But it’s likely a total loss.”
“What does that mean, total loss?” George asked quietly.
“We’ll come back later this week and bulldoze it down. You’ll need to rebuild. Or move. Or live in the shed, I suppose.”
Not a bad idea, Craig said silently to Haley. She internally rolled her eyes back.
“Any idea how it got started?” Craig asked out loud.
They’d rehearsed this part. Haley knew she couldn’t be convincing. Craig was playing a part as sure as he had the first night they’d met so many years ago, on the university stage where Haley was a costume designer. Then, it was Shakespeare. Now, the stakes felt a lot higher.
“We won’t know for sure until an inspector comes out, but to me it looks like there was an electrical issue in the mud room. You folks have any work done recently?”
“Not since we moved in two years ago,” Haley answered.
“Right. Well, hang tight. We’ll let you know when it’s safe to go back. You’ll need to find yourselves somewhere to stay in the short-term. And maybe some breakfast.” Curt, as his name badge indicated, nodded in accordance with his namesake and lumbered back down the hill, his large boots and husky frame making him waddle a bit like a bear or a very large penguin.
Whew. We’re almost there. The fire is out. The shed is safe. This is good, Haley relayed to her husband of 20 years. She felt him nod back.
“What a second, WHAT?!” Julia’s voice cried from behind them. “What do you mean, we’re almost there?”
“What do you mean, sweetie? I didn’t say anything,” Haley said quickly. Too quickly.
“I heard you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know you and Dad can talk to each other without words. I just heard you. I know what you did. WITCH!”
Haley balked, every cell in her body going rigid.
“Julia, that’s enough. You’re scaring your brother. Calm down. Are you hearing voices?” Craig tried to regain control of the situation. Haley put her head in her hands. Her head hurt. A searing pain was coming through. She tried to breathe normally. In. Out. In. Out. George looked confusedly from one person to the next.
“I’m not hearing voices. I’m hearing your voices. You set a fire in our own house? While we were sleeping in it?!” Julia was reaching a hysterical level. Haley couldn’t help herself. She grabbed her daughter’s arm, hard, like she was four again and about to step out into the busy street. There was a big bus coming. She had to save her.
“Stop. This isn’t the time or the place. We will discuss whatever it is we need to discuss later in a hotel room. Got it?” She was sharp. Firm. Everything depended on this.
She kept the barrier around her thoughts, willing herself not to go back to Craig with the questions and bewilderment. After all this time, Julia had it, too? How long had she been able to hear them? Was it something that developed with puberty? She had so many questions, and now, so much fear.
“Fine. But this is bullshit.”
George narrowed his eyes, trying and then deciding not to try to understand his hysterical sister, his silent parents, that acrid smell the fireman had brought up the hill with him that permeated all the space with what could only be described as death. He stared at the empty, burn fire ring of old dried out embers and then back at the still smoldering house, then up at the red of the sunrise. Fluffy sat down beside him and put her head on the ground. He took a bite out of his breakfast bar. Blueberry. His favorite.
Haley waited twenty minutes after Curt and his herd of lumbering fireman disappeared back down the dusty road. Knowing they could no longer safely communicate between them without Julia potentially hearing, she just asked straight up. “Do you think it’s safe to go down? I want to check on a few things.” Craig nodded, and together they went down the hill.
“What’s in the shed, Mom?” George asked.
“Come see.” She knew the game was up and she had to let them in on it. This was a full family affair now. Always had been, behind the scenes, but now it was up-close-and-personal.
Craig opened the two swinging doors. It was a simple shed, the kind that came from Home Depot pre-made and was easy to fill with tools and tarps. That’s all that greeted them upon opening.
Haley rolled out the generator that they always kept but never needed, and found the latch under the board under the tarp underneath where it had been sitting. The rest of the family watched. Fluffy whined.
“We haven’t told you about this because it’s dangerous. But I guess it’s time you learned. Haley’s right. I am a witch, of sorts.” With that, she swung open the trapdoor and led them down a series of steps into a dark store room. She pulled out her phone from her pocket, turned on the flashlight feature and allowed the light to illuminate the small space. No larger than a root cellar, it appeared to be just that. Stacks of root vegetables filled the floor, making it hard to fit all four bodies in the small space. Drying herbs and braids of grass lined the walls with jars filled with different colored liquids and plants that filled the shelves.
“What is all this?” George asked. Julia was silent.
“It’s medicine.”
“For what?”
Craig sighed. We don’t have time for this now. His message came through clearer than he had intended and Julia looked up, having caught it.
“We don’t have time for this now,” Julia broken in, repeating her father’s unspoken words. “Okay, Dad. What do we need to do?”
“We need to go get what we can salvage from the house and head into town to the hotel. Act like everything is normal—as normal as losing your house in a fire can be. We’re probably being watched. Let’s go,” Craig responded.
Always the eternal processor, Haley longed to be able to sit down and talk it all out with Craig, to plan their next move, to go through every eye roll and questioning look from Julia, every possible scenario from here on out. But there wasn’t time. Haley knew her daughter, her impossible, incorrigible, stubborn, infuriating daughter, and her husband, her wise and irritating and incredible husband, were right. It was time to go.