Authors: Hill,Joe

The Fireman (68 page)

“I see his head!” Allie shouted. “Oh, holy fuck! Keep pushing, bitch! You’re doing it! You’re making this shit happen, right now.”

Nick ran and hid his face in Don Lewiston’s stomach. Harper shut her eyes and pushed, felt she was shoving her intestines out onto the deck. She could smell a sharp, briny tang that might’ve been the sea or might’ve been placenta. When she opened her eyes for a moment, she saw the Phoenix again, now no larger than an ostrich, floating on the peaceful water beside the boat, wings drawn against its sides. He watched her with calm, knowing, humorous eyes of fire, a burning slick of oil on the sea.

She pushed. Something gave. She was torn open, her crotch a ragged seam of flame that made her sob with pain and deliverance.

The baby waved fat arms and squalled. Her head made Harper think of a misshapen coconut, slicked with blood: a dense thatch of brown hair, smoothed down to a lumpy skull. A fatty red cord dangled from her stomach, coiling on the deck and winding back into Harper herself.

It was a girl, of course. Allie put the child in her arms. Allie was shaking all over, and not from the cold.

The boat rocked at ease and the baby rocked in her arms. In a voice pitched just above a whisper, Harper sang a few lines of “Romeo and Juliet” to her daughter. The infant opened her eyes and looked at her with irises that were bright, shining rings of gold, the Dragonscale already deep inside her, wound right around the core. Harper was pleased. Now she didn’t have to give her up. All she had to do now was sing to her.

Sunlight glinted off the steely blue edges of the waves. When Harper looked for the Phoenix, there was nothing left except a few tongues of flame flapping off the water. Sparks and flakes of ash drifted in the still cool air, pattering down into Harper’s hair, onto her arms. Some of the feathers of ash fell on her daughter, a smear of it across the little girl’s forehead. Harper bent forward and kissed her there.

“What will you name her, Harper?” Renée asked. Renée’s teeth were clicking together. She was shivering, but her eyes were shining with tears, with laughter.

Harper rubbed her thumb on her daughter’s forehead, spreading a little of the ash around. She hoped some of John was in it. She hoped he was all over her, all over both of them, keeping them still. She felt he was.

“Ash,” Harper said softly.

“Ashley?” Allie asked. “That’s a good name.”

“Yes,” Harper said. “It is. Ashley. Ashley Rookwood.”

Renée was telling Don about Machias, about their final boat ride and the men who shot John.

Don wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “They’ll be after us. But maybe not for a while. We could have a twelve-hour head start on ’em. We might like to use that time to make ourselves scarce.”

“Where?” Allie asked.

Don had sunk down on one knee to be next to Harper. He slipped a hand out of his pocket with a small knife in it, unfolded the blade, shot her a questioning glance. She nodded. He made a loop with the umbilical cord and sawed through it in two strokes. A weak gout of blood and amniotic fluid pumped over his knuckles.

“An Tra,” he said.

“Gesundheit,” Renée told him.

One corner of his mouth turned up in a weary smile. “It’s on Inisheer. Heard about that on the BBC World Service. I’n pull in about thirty different nations on a good clear night. Inisheer is an island off Ireland, An Tra is the town. Eight thousand sick. Full support of the gov’nment.”

“Another island,” Allie said. “How do we know that’s not bullshit, too?”

“We don’t,” Don said. “And this boat ain’t equipped for a transatlantic sail. We’d be damn lucky to make it.
Damn
lucky. But it’s the best I got.”

Allie nodded, turned her head, squinted into the rising sun. “Well. I guess we don’t have anything else to do today.”

For herself, Harper felt no alarm it all. She was sore, but content. Those fat clouds were breaking up, and the sky to the east was an almost perfect, serene shade of blue. She thought it seemed a nice enough day for a sail, and she recalled that John’s mother had been Irish. She had always wanted to see Ireland.

Nick had crouched down on his knees to be next to her. He looked at the baby with a sweet, plain curiosity and then moved his hands, writing on the air. Harper smiled and nodded, and then bent close and put her nose to Ashley’s.

“Hey. Your big brother has something to say to you,” Harper told her. “He says hello. He says it’s a pleasure to meet you and welcome to Earth. He says get ready to have some fun, little girl, because it’s a big bright morning, and this is where the story begins.”

Begun on December 30th, 2010

Completed on October 9th, 2014

Joe Hill, Exeter, New Hampshire

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins
Publishers

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Credits

“Jungleland” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1975 by Bruce Springsteen, renewed © 2003 by Bruce Springsteen (Global Music Rights). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins
Publishers

....................................

About the Author

Joe Hill is the author of the
New York Times
bestsellers
NOS4A2, Horns,
and
Heart-Shaped Box,
and the prize-winning story collection
20th Century Ghosts
. He is also the Eisner Award–winning writer of a six-volume comic book series,
Locke & Key
. He lives in New Hampshire.

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers
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http://www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Canada

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