Part 15

     The smoke is incredibly thick as we round the tower, the wind had been carrying it away from where we stood before. It's such a thick, heavy smoke, far darker and strongly scented than the smoke from a campfire (which is really the only kind of fire I've ever been around). Every now and then, I seem to catch the smell of paper, of wool, of cedar – but it disappears so quickly, I can't be sure I'm not imagining it. And the heat – it comes in waves, shifting with the location and strength of the flames, but when it hits, it's intense. I shift my course a little farther from the building, slowing a bit to better judge distances, not wanting to risk getting burned.
     Evelyn... where's Evelyn? I peer ahead into the darkness, but my eyes are so dazed from the intensity of the flames, it's difficult to see anything outside the range of their glaring light. “Evelyn?” I call out softly at first, but then, deciding the rest of the family is far enough away not to hear me, I raise my voice louder. “Evelyn! Where are you?”
     Nothing but silence for a moment, and I continue on, more slowly. I'm at the side of the house now, moving toward the back corner. The fire is spreading more slowly in this direction than it was across the front of the house, but the windows nearer the front have already been broken, and the eerie amber light glows from all but the last few rooms along this side. I hear a snapping twig behind me, and I jump, crying out.
     “Kimberly... it can't be you?”
     “Evelyn!” She's behind me somewhere, I turn my back to the house and stare into utter blackness. “I can't see you yet...”
     She laughs as she suddenly emerges from the darkness in front of me, but the laugh is not the light one bubbling with joy that I'm so used to hearing from her. It's tinged with hysteria now, with relief and terror tumbling over each other as they try to escape from her lips. “Kimberly... oh, Kimberly, of all the times to be here! Why on earth are you here tonight?”
     I return the embrace she wraps me in, and we cling tightly together for a moment. “Evelyn... I'm so glad you're alright. I don't know why I'm here, I never do. But what are you doing way over here, why aren't you with your brother, and your mother?”
     She pulls back, and looks into my eyes seriously. “I saw someone. They were sneaking away from the tower. I don't know... I think it was a man, but I don't know if it was Father or not. But, Kimberly... there's no way he could have gotten out in time! The fire must have started there – and I saw the roof of it collapse, long before I saw the person.”
     “Could he have jumped from a window before the roof caved in, and just been standing near the house, without you seeing him until later?”
     She shakes her head slowly. “I don't... I don't know. I don't think so, I saw him there, and I was standing just over there, so if he'd walked to that spot from somewhere else, I would have seen.” Her brows furrow, and she puts a hand to her forehead, rubbing at it. “But it's so hard to see anything against the fire, I--- Oh!” She lifts her head suddenly, her wide eyes catching the orange of the flames behind me, making her eyes seem to flicker supernaturally. “But Avery, Avery saw him! That's what he was looking at so long, when he first came out of the house, I asked him about it. He told me he saw a person's shadow against the flames of the library windows. It could only have been Father. Mother said he locked himself in – as he often does – and Father's the only one who has the key to the study, which is the only way to get into the library.”
     I nod slowly, biting my lip in thought. No other answer, then. Somehow... he survived the room burning and collapsing. “Was there anything he could have hidden in or anything, to protect himself?”
     She shakes her head decidedly. “No. Everything in the room was made of wood, and there wasn't any furniture large enough that he would fit inside anyway. The only thing that wouldn't have burned right away was the fireplace, of course, but since a fire would have been burning in it already...”
     “Right...”
     She looks again over her shoulder, away from the house, toward the gardens. “He moved so quickly once I saw him, I'm not even certain which way he went. But why... why would he run off like that?”
     I sigh heavily, shaking my head. “Any answer I can come up with is a really, really unpleasant one.”
     She gives me a wry smile. “Well, then, it would certainly suit his nature.” But as her eyes are drawn back to the burning house, her face sobers again, and I can see tears welling in her eyes. “Oh, Kimberly... Kimberly, our lovely house! Our home - I don't remember living in any other place but this. What are we going to do with it gone? And with Father gone... If he disappears, the property will go to Mother I'm sure, but... Oh, Kimberly, I complained so much of the difficulties in my life before, but I'd never had any real hardship! How could I have been so ungrateful?”
     My face grows stern at this, and I put my hands firmly on her shoulders. “Evelyn. You've had so much hardship – I don't even know a tenth of it, I'm sure, but even I know you've endured far more than any child should. Emotionally, psychologically, physically; your father has put all of you through absolute hell. And your mother hasn't been a whole lot of help, I don't think. Dear girl, if you and your brothers lived in my world, no-one would have allowed your parents to keep you, if that's how you were treated.”
     She blinks back a few of the tears, and swallows hard, nodding cautiously. But her eyes are still on the burning ruins of her entire life – and I throw my arms around her, and let her cry in my arms, and I can't help but cry along with her. “...but you're right, this is a very different kind of hardship. You poor girl... I wish I could tell you everything will be all right.”
     “...can't you? Don't you know if it does?”
     I hesitate a moment. “I... don't actually know much, after this night. But I don't think you'll stay in town, I think your family will move, but without your father. That at least, I guess will be an improvement.”
     She takes a long, shaky breath, and pulls back from my embrace. She wipes her eyes, and tries to get herself back under control. “You're right, of course, we'd be so much happier without him around. Though... for all that he mistreated us, he was still our father. Our lives won't feel the same without him around. And... he wasn't always terrible. He brought us the loveliest books, and gifts when he traveled. It wasn't often, but... he did at least think of us.”
     I smile half-heartedly, and wrap an arm around her shoulders, guiding her toward the back of the house, which will be a shorter way to the path her family is on. She leans against my side, clearly worn out from everything that's happened tonight. “Anyway, young as he is, I'm sure Avery will be a good enough older brother to make up for the baby not having a father around.”
     She stops in her tracks, and looks up at me, bewildered. “The baby? You mean Molly's baby? Why should---”
     I stop too, suddenly remembering the exchange between Evelyn and Cora just a few minutes before. “That's right, Cora said... but, the newspapers I read – will read – say that she made it out of the house with her three children.”
     Evelyn's eyes go very, very wide. I quickly amend what I've just said. “But they may have gotten it wrong – maybe they just assumed the baby was hers, without asking her about it.”
     Evelyn shakes her head slowly, deep in thought. “No... no, I think they're right. I'm sure Mother will make up some story about Molly being unable to care for the child, and we'll adopt it, but... I think it is her baby.”
     “Her baby... but..?” I know where she's going, but I don't want to be the first to say it.
     “Her baby, but not entirely my sister. Only my half-sister.” Her voice drops softer as she continues, and we begin walking again. “Mother does not always account for her time away from the house very well. There has been more than one night where she claimed to have stayed with a friend in town, when I knew she could not have – I knew the friend was out of town, that sort of thing. She acts as though we are still children, cheerfully believing everything she says.” This last, she says with a note of bitterness in her voice. “She and Father rarely even speak any more – I don't think I've seen any sign of affection between them in years. They've always fought, but when I was younger, there were days he would be almost sweet to her – teasing and flirting, little kisses and compliments. And she just... she was like a flower bursting into full bloom, when he acknowledged her like that. But as the years went on, that became so rare, and the flower was replaced by more and more thorns.” Her eyes drift back to the house for a moment, and she shakes her head. “I don't know which of them is the more likely suspect for starting this tonight. The house was too full of memories for either of them to bear anymore, I think. Memories of pleasant times that could never return, memories of painful fights and anger... and the constant reminders that the house was built as a place for lovers, that my uncle built it for my aunt all from love of her. Father was always reminding Mother that his brother planned all the gardens – and every time he said that, she must have felt jealous, of that love that my aunt had that my mother could never have.”
     I hadn't thought of that before, but as soon as Evelyn says it, I can feel how true a statement it is. Mr. Mason's reminders were more than just a jab to her pride – they were a wound to her heart, as well.
     We're nearing the far side of the house now, and as we take the last few steps beyond its immediate vicinity, Evelyn slows to a stop. We turn back, to watch the flames tear away at the place that was once full of such beauty. The black stains of the smoke and fire seem fitting, somehow, as though they were showing what the house had been feeling for years – decay, and rot, and a sickness at heart. Evelyn leans heavily against me, and I squeeze her gently, leaning my head against hers.
     “You can start things over, and make them happier for yourself. It was a beautiful place to live, but there was too much sadness at the root of everything. Let it be a fire of renewal – burning away the old, that the new might grow up in its place.”
     “But I won't ever really forget this place, you know.”
     I smile down into her hair. “No, I know you won't. Neither will I.”

     We follow the path to the edge of their property. As I'd guessed, there's a carriage house that we pass along the way – I'll have to see if it's still standing in my own time, now that I know where it is. When we reach the... well, what passes for a main road, I can see her brother and mother not far ahead.
     “I should let you go on alone from here – explaining me to your mother might be a bit of a challenge,” I say with a wry smile.
     She forces a laugh, but it's short, and her voice is rough from the smoke, and crying, and lack of sleep. “I suppose. I do wish you could stay with me... but I know you never can.” Suddenly, she looks stricken. “Kimberly... if I move away from here, will I ever see you again?”
     I blink, startled. I hadn't even thought about that. “Evelyn...”
     “Oh!” She throws her arms tightly around me, and sobs into my shoulder. “To leave my home, and the one friend I've had in this place, in the same awful night... Kimber, it's not fair!”
     “Oh, Evelyn... I don't know what to tell you, I... Evelyn, you're such a sweet, intelligent, beautiful girl, you'll make friends anywhere you go. I'm sure you won't live so far from other people anymore, you'll be surrounded by friends. And I... I've hardly been here at all for you, I wish... I wish I could have been more...”
     She squeezes me tighter at this. “Even when I couldn't see you, I knew you were thinking of me. And that always helped. From the time I was such a little girl, just knowing there was a 'grown-up' that cared, that didn't get angry with me, was such a comfort.”
     “Evelyn? Evelyn, don't dawdle so!” Cora's distant voice, calling from down the road.
     Evelyn looks into my face for a long, long moment, as if memorizing me. “I won't ever forget your kindnesses, Kimberly. You won't forget me?”
     I smile weakly, tears in my eyes as well – though I know I may yet see her again, it's always uncertain, so in a way, I'm saying my goodbye to her as well. “Evelyn, I won't ever forget you. I've been drawing pictures of you, you and your brothers, and the gardens, and---”
     “The gardens! Kimberly, I never told you, the canterbury bells, I---”
     I smile and hug her. “I know you planted them for me. Thank you... and they're still there, even in my time. I think of you every time I see them.”
     She beams at this, and kisses my cheek. “I'm so glad. I---”
     “Evelyn! Come along now, please?” Avery this time.
     Evelyn gives me one last clinging embrace, and I hug her tightly. “Goodbye, Kimberly... you've been sister and mother to me, when I had neither. I'll always love you.”
     “And I'll always love you, Evelyn. You'll always be in my heart.”
     She holds my hands in hers as she begins to step away, looking into my eyes all the while. Finally, she squeezes my hands, then pulls hers away. Instantly, tears form again in her eyes, and she balls up one hand to rub at them as she turns away.
     She runs up the road, after Avery and Cora and the baby whose name I still don't know. I watch her as long as I can, until things start to blur, and if it's tears or time-shifting that causes the first blurring, I can't tell.