The Fireman (15 page)

“Allie,” Harper said. “And Nick. Nick! What about Nick? How can he join your sing-alongs and shine with the rest of you if he can’t hear?”

The others looked at one another—and erupted into happy laughter, as if Harper had said something quite witty.

“Nick,” Carol said, “is a natural. He could shine before I could. Why, though . . .
why
it’s so easy for him to join the Bright . . . that’s a question not one of us can answer. Nick says just because
he
can’t hear music doesn’t mean the
Dragonscale
can’t. My dad says it’s another miracle. He’s a great believer in miracles. So am I, I guess. Come on, Harper, I want to show you the rest of the camp.”

“If you want a crutch,” Michael said, “I have a shoulder.”

On their way out, they stopped to put their dishes in a bin of gray, soapy water, and Harper glanced at the two teenage boys working in the kitchen. They were drying glasses by hand while listening to a radio.

It was tuned to static.

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5

The kids were chasing a soccer ball in the valley again, the eerie pale green ball racing this way and that, like a will-o’-the-wisp on crack.

“I don’t know how we’ll wear them out when it snows,” Carol said.

“What happens when it snows?”

“Mr. Patchett says we’ll have to be more careful about our movements outside,” Michael told her. “If we leave tracks, someone could see them from the air. There isn’t one part of winter I’m looking forward to.”

“When did you come to camp, Michael?” Harper asked.

“After my sisters burned to death,” he said, without any trace of distress. “They burned together. They were still holding each other after I put them out. That’s a blessing, I think. They didn’t die alone. They had each other for comfort. They’re gone from this world, but I hear them whispering to me in the Bright.”

Carol said, “Sometimes when I’m in the Bright, I would swear I feel my sister standing right next to me, close enough so I could lay my head on her shoulder, like I used to. When we shine, they all come back to us, you know. The light we make together shows everything that was ever lost to darkness.”

Harper clamped down on a shudder. When they spoke of the Bright, they had all the uncomplicated happiness of pod people.

Carol led Harper into the garden of towering monoliths and pagan stone altars. “There’s a rumor these rocks are thousands of years old and were placed here by an ancient tribe, with the help of alien technology. My father says they were hauled here from the quarry in Ogunquit, though, which is why it’s better never to ask him about anything really interesting.”

When Harper was in among the stones she could see brass plaques screwed into the towering pillars of granite. One listed the names of seventeen boys who had died in the mud of eastern France during the First World War. Another listed the names of thirty-four boys who had died on the beaches of western France during the Second. Harper thought all tombstones should be this size, that the small blocks to be found in most graveyards did not even begin to express the sickening enormity of losing a virgin son, thousands of miles away, in the muck and cold. You needed something so big, you felt it might topple over and crush you.

“This is our church,” Carol told her. “If you go up in the steeple on a clear day, you can see into Maine. Only you don’t want to look at Maine. There’s nothing up north except for black smoke and lightning. In the mornings we come to sing and share the Bright and usually my dad will say a few words. After, it serves as a schoolroom.” Carol pointed at a path tunneling through sumac and firs. “I live back there, through the woods, in the little white house with the big black star on it. I stay with my dad. I feel guilty about that sometimes. I should probably stay with all the other women, in the girls’ dorm—that’s where we’re going next. My dad says I can move out anytime if I want to be with the other women, but I know if I left he wouldn’t ever sleep. He’d drink too much coffee and worry and pace around and worry more. He only sleeps about five hours as it is and I have to make him take a pill to do that. Come on! Let me show you where I keep my harem!”

Carol led her around to the back of the chapel, where four stone steps descended into a hole the rough size, shape, and depth of a grave. At the bottom of the pit was an old door on rusted hinges, half-open to look into the cellar.

“You’ll have to manage without us from here,” Michael said, nodding to Don. “We’re not allowed.”

“It’s no place for two strappin’ young boys like us,” Don Lewiston said. “All them wimmen undressin’ you with their eyes, plottin’ ways to use you to satisfy their repress’t needs—it makes a decent man feel lucky to escape with his life and virginity intact.”

Michael lowered his head, a blush darkening his pale features. Don laughed.

Carol shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Michael Martin Lindqvist Jr., you are just too much fun to embarrass.”

Renée said to Harper, “If you don’t have any garter belts, you can borrow a few of mine. One of the rules of the girls’ dorm, no clothes allowed except for French underwear. Corsets and so on.”

“I am
not
listening to any of you,” Michael said. “I am saving myself for marriage.”

He foisted Harper off on Carol and marched briskly away, at something very close to a run. Don Lewiston strolled after him, hands in his pockets, whistling “Spanish Ladies.”

Carol helped Harper make her way below. There were more steps on the other side of the door, descending deeper into the hill.

The room beneath the chapel was a single enormous space, the ceiling supported by whitewashed brick pillars. Camp cots made a knee-high maze across the pitted cement floor. Close to thirty women were hanging around, sitting on their beds, or standing by a folding table set up against the back wall where there was a Mr. Coffee.

Michael and Don could, in fact, have safely descended the steps without fear of finding themselves in a silken garden of delights. The room had an unsexy smell of damp and mothballs and most of the girls had the waxen look of people who had not seen daylight for a long time. No garter belts in sight, but a lot of wet socks hung over pipes to steam-dry. The prevailing fashion was Salvation Army chic.

There was a double-sided chalkboard close to the foot of the steps, the sort of thing sandwich shops stood on the sidewalk to advertise the day’s specials. Harper paused to see what was written on it, in bright chalk and girlish lettering:

HOUSE RULES

NO CELL PHONES EVER! YOUR CELL PHONE SHOULD’VE BEEN TURNED IN TO A LOOKOUT!

SEE SOMETHING, HEAR SOMETHING . . .
SAY
SOMETHING!

EVERYONE HAS A JOB TO DO! KNOW YOURS!

FOOD, BEVERAGES & MEDICAL SUPPLIES BELONG TO EVERYONE!! NO HOREDING!

NO GOING OUTSIDE IN THE DAYLIGHT!

LISTEN TO THE LOOKOUTS! IT COULD SAVE YOU’RE LIFE!!

DON’T LEAVE CAMP WITHOUT TALKING TO A LOOKOUT FIRST!

WEAPONS ARE STRICTLY FORBIDDEN!

SO ARE SECRETS!

SAFETY IS EVERYONE’S BUSINESS!!!

Act like everybody depends on you! They Do!!

“Quick,” Carol said. “What’s your favorite song, celebrity crush, and the name of your first pet?”

Harper said. “ ‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me,’ Ewan McGregor, mostly for
Moulin Rouge,
and my first pet was a schnauzer named Bert, because he was soot black and made me think of the chimney sweeps in
Mary Poppins
.”

Carol stood up on a chair and cleared her throat and waved an arm over her head to get the attention of the room. “Hey, everybody! This is Harper! She’s our new nurse! ‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me,’ Ewan McGregor, and a schnauzer named Bert! Let’s have a big cheer for Nurse Harper!”

This was met by a mix of hooting, applause, and halloos. Allie Storey threw a bra at Harper’s head. Someone else yelled, “Harper what?”

Carol opened her mouth to reply, but Harper spoke first.

“Willowes,” she called out. “Harper Willowes!” And to herself, in a lower voice, she said, “Again. It seems.”

Carol led Harper on a winding path among the beds, to a neatly made cot near the center of the room. Harper’s carpetbag had been set upon the pillow.

Harper unbuckled it and peeked inside. Her clothes had been picked up and put in neat stacks.
The Portable Mother
rested on top of all. Harper folded her Temporary Cat and put it inside the cover. Her child’s first pet.

“I should thank Mr. Rookwood for collecting my things,” Harper said, remembering only after the words were out of her mouth that the Fireman seemed to be Carol Storey’s least favorite subject. It was too late, though, so, in a casual, offhand tone, she finished: “Where would I find him?”

There was no look of contempt or anger this time. Instead, Carol regarded her with a mild, almost bland expression, then punched her softly in the arm. “Come on outside again. I’ll show you.”

Even with Carol’s help, Harper’s ankle was twanging painfully by the time they mounted the steps into the night. The temperature had dropped. The air had texture now, a thousand fine quivering grains of almost-rain blowing in off the ocean.

They stood alone, at the rear northeastern corner of the chapel. Carol pointed over the soccer field, the pines, and the boathouse below. Out in the surging blackness of the water was a darker blackness, a small island.

“He’s out there,” she said. “John Rookwood. He doesn’t come to church. He doesn’t eat with us. He keeps to himself.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“I don’t know. It’s a secret. It’s his secret. He never leaves the island for long and no one knows why. You hear different stories.
She
died out there, you know. My sister. She burned to death and almost took Nick with her. Maybe John is out there mourning her. Maybe he’s doing penance. Maybe he just likes being mysterious.”

“Penance? Does he blame himself somehow?”

“I’m sure,” Carol said, and although her face was carefully composed, Harper once again heard an edge, a razor wire of emotion. “Not that it’s his fault. He wasn’t on the island when it happened. No. My sister didn’t need any help to kill herself. She managed that just fine on her own.” Carol gave Harper a sidelong look and said, “But I’ll tell you what. I won’t let the kids go out there anymore: Nick and Allie. I think John understands. You might not want to make a habit of dropping in for social visits yourself. People who get too close to John have a way of going down in flames.”

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6

After a breakfast of soft, milky oatmeal and bitter coffee, it was time for services.

Ben Patchett was her crutch again and helped her along, out into the unseasonably warm October night. Dragonflies whisked through the perfumed dark. The buzz of excitement and pleasure, rising from the crowd around her, brought to mind small country carnivals, Ferris wheels and fried dough.

They filed into the narrow, high-ceilinged chapel, beneath splintery exposed rafters. The nave was a long cabinet of shadows, windows boarded up against the night, the enormous space lit by just a few candles. Giant shadows twitched restlessly against the walls, more distinct than the people that threw them.

Harper had an arm across Ben Patchett’s shoulder as he led her to a pew midway up the aisle. Another man squeezed in on her right side, a small, tubby fellow, a little older than Ben, with pink cheeks and the smooth complexion of an infant. Ben introduced him as Nelson Heinrich, who in a former life had owned a shop called Christmas-Mart, which perhaps explained why he was wearing a sweater with reindeer on it when it was just turning Halloween.

The merry chatter died as Father Storey stepped to the podium. He moved his spectacles up his nose and peered owlishly at his own songbook, then announced: “If you’ll open to page 332, we begin tonight with a plain but honorable hymn, beloved by the Pilgrims in the early days of America.”

This was met by a smattering of laughs, although Harper didn’t understand why until Nelson opened the songbook to the right place. It was a camp songbook, for little boys and girls, not a true hymnal, and the song on page 332 turned out to be “Holly Holy” by Neil Diamond. Harper approved. If anyone could save her soul, it was probably him.

Carol rose from the bench behind the organ and came to the front of the stage. She lifted her ukulele to acknowledge a little flurry of applause.

Nelson bent toward Harper’s ear and, rather loudly, said, “It’s easy, you’ll see! Nothing to it! Just lay back and enjoy it!” An unfortunate statement with unfortunate connotations, Harper thought.

Ben winced, then added, “It doesn’t always come right away. Don’t worry if nothing happens to you tonight. It would be amazing if anything did! Like bowling a strike the first time you pick up a—”

But he didn’t have a chance to finish. Carol began to play, belting out that melody that sounded as much like a marching song as a gospel. When they all began to sing—over a hundred voices resonating in the gloom—a pigeon was startled off one of the rafters above.

Allie and Nick were in the row directly ahead of her and the first Harper knew anything was happening was when the boy turned his head and smiled at her and his normally aquamarine eyes were rings of gold light.

Wires of Dragonscale on the back of Ben Patchett’s hand lit up, like fiber-optic threads filling with brightness.

A glow built from all directions, overpowering the dim red illumination of the candles. Harper thought of an atomic flash rising in a desert. The sound of the song mounted along with the light, until Harper could hear all those voices in her chest.

Onstage, Carol’s belted white gown was rendered diaphanous, the body beneath painted with light. She didn’t seem to mind or notice. Harper thought, helplessly, of the hallucinatory nudes who pirouetted through the credits of the James Bond movies.

Harper felt she was being swallowed by all their noise. The brightness was not beautiful but awful, like being caught in headlights hurtling madly toward her.

Ben had an arm around her waist and was unconsciously kneading her hip, a gesture she found revolting but could not seem to break away from. She glanced at Nelson and found him wearing a choker of light. When he opened his mouth to bellow out the next line, Harper saw his tongue glowing a toxic shade of green.

She wondered whether, if she began to scream, anyone would hear her over all the other voices. Not that she was going to scream—she had lost her breath, could not even sing. If not for her fractured ankle, she might’ve run.

The only thing that got her to the end of the song was Renée and Don Lewiston. They were across the aisle and a little closer to the stage, but Harper could see them through a gap in the crowd. Renée’s head was turned to look back at her and she smiled sympathetically. The loops of ’scale around her neck shone, but it was a faded sort of glow, and the light had not reached her kind, clear eyes. More important, she was
still there,
still present, paying attention. And that was when Harper understood what so unnerved her about the others.

In some way Ben and Nelson, Allie and Nick, and all the rest of them had left the room, leaving behind lamps made of human skin. Thought had been replaced by light, and personality by harmony, but Renée at least was still there . . . and so was Don Lewiston, who sang dutifully, but did not glow at all. Later, Harper learned that Don was only sometimes able to shine with the others. When he turned on, he turned on intensely, but more often he was completely untouched by their song. Don said it was because he had a tin ear, but Harper was unconvinced. His rumbling, rough bass was perfectly in tune, and he sang with a casual, disinterested confidence.

Harper smiled weakly for Renée, but felt unsteady and sick. She had to close her eyes to withstand the assault of the last thunderous verse—her Dragonscale crawled unpleasantly, and the only thought she could manage was
stop, stop, stop
—and when it was over, and the room erupted into stamping feet and whistles and applause, it was all she could do not to cry.

Ben absently stroked her hip. She was sure he didn’t know he was doing it. The threads of light on his exposed ’scale were fading, but a brassy sheen remained in his eyes. He regarded her with affection, but not much recognition.

“Mmnothing?”
he asked. His voice had a drifting, musical quality, as if he had just woken from a restorative nap. “No luck? I wasn’t paying attention. Kind of lost myself for a minute there.”

“No luck,” Harper said. “It might be my ankle. It’s been achy all morning and it’s a little distracting. Maybe I’ll just sit for the next song and rest it.”

And she did sit the next time. She sat and closed her eyes to shut out the bright glare that so felt like oncoming headlights.

She sat and waited to be run down.