In the middle of the gray afternoon they build another fire, feeling the need for warmth, for heat, for something dancing and glowing and alive. It is easier this second time; now they know how, and they watch the headlines on the crumpled newspapers fade into the flame.
dow falls for fourth straight month; fed weighs bailout
chinese market manipulation likely a factor in downturn, officials say
Even after the fire has caught, they leaf through the stack of papers, taking in the headlines, the front-page photos. Peeling backward in time. large gathering ban to remain in place through august. house weighs measures to weed out pro-china subversives. polls show overwhelming support for proposed ‘pact’ bill.
Enough, Sadie says, dropping the papers back onto their stack. I don’t want to see any more.
In silence, they feed the fire, slipping it a stick here and there, offering it a log, nuzzling it into the flame, watching anxiously until it catches light. Flecks of rain slither down the chimney, making pops and hisses of steam. Both of them feel, without discussing it, that they must keep this fire burning, that if it goes out something terrible will happen, something precious and irretrievable will be lost, that keeping it burning is their only recourse, that somehow not only their fate but the world’s rests on them keeping this fire alight. If they can keep it alight, they are sure, Margaret and the Duchess will come back for them, Margaret will not only be all right but will bring news that her plan has succeeded, that everything has suddenly changed, that all that needs righting has been restored. They will earn this miracle. If they let it go out . . .
They don’t think about this, not daring to put those fears into words. That evening they don’t bother to cook, subsisting instead on snacks from the food bag, eaten by the handful whenever one of them is hungry. Dried cranberries, crackers, roasted almonds: they nibble their way through the day. As it gets dark, they do not retreat back to their separate rooms. Instead, they sit together by the hearth, watching the flames devour the logs one by one.
When they peek outside everything seems blurred, everything outside uncertain and obscured. No longer trees but an impression of trees: green blurs sliced by wet, dark streaks. No longer the calm water from yesterday but a slate-gray blur, something swelling and churning just at the edge of their sight. They can’t see far; a haze hangs in the air, like the spray of salt from the sea, and they pull the curtains shut so they don’t have to glimpse whatever terrifying fight is raging outside. The wind grinds against the roof, the windowpanes, the ground—so much rain, it is indistinguishable from an ocean’s roar. They are a small boat caught in a squall, everything topsy-turvy. Which way is up? They are no longer sure. The wood-paneled floor might be the deck, upended; the rain scouring the roof might be the waves, lashing and gnawing at the keel below their feet.
I’m scared, Bird says.
Sadie’s hand creeps into his, warm and comfortingly damp and alive.
Me too, she says.
Late into the night, they feed the ravenous fire, neither of them ready to give up, nodding off well after midnight, waking up as the fire dies down and the room grows cold, adding another log, coaxing it back to life, rousing it from the ashes again and again until, just before sunrise turns the sky gray-gold, they both fall asleep, side by side beneath the scratchy wool blanket, and at last the fire goes out.
They wake up, stiff-necked and cold, and look at the darkened hearth, then at each other.
It doesn’t matter, Sadie says quickly. It doesn’t count. It’s almost daytime now.
She says this with all her old brash confidence, but he knows she needs him to agree.
He nods. It’s okay, he says.
Outside the roar of the storm has stilled. The silence swells and echoes, their ears gradually adjusting to the absence of sound. Now the taps of the slowing rain are discrete, fingers drumming. Instead of an indistinguishable blur, they can make out individual sounds. There is a single drip of rain pattering against the window. There is the single ping of a drop clanging against the gutter like a bell. There, suddenly, is a single bird testing the predawn air, then another bird answering its call.
Though it’s still dark, they eat the last of the cereal for breakfast, because even at the end of the world, they think, these things make them feel more prepared for whatever is to come. Then, without discussing it, they take up their posts on the front steps, though they still are not sure what they are waiting for. The sky is just beginning to lighten. After yesterday’s storm the air feels clean and crisp, the birds shouting at each other from the trees. The rain-damp world seems two shades darker—the rocks changed from pale buff to dark gold, the dirt from gray-brown to near-black—but everything is still here. A squirrel climbs, fusty-eyed, out of its hole, dangles by its rear feet, and stretches itself languidly, first one side, then the other. At Bird’s feet an industrious pair of ants lifts a crumb that’s fallen from his breakfast and begins the long awkward journey back to the nest.