Dara looked up. It was true, of course. It was true. She had wanted to leave. She’d almost made it once, right before the car accident. Charlie was right about one thing, about that. They’d almost made it together, packing that rolling trunk, her chest jumping, imagining a world beyond that paint-thick front door. That house, this house. The house that was her childhood.
* * *
*
An hour passed, sleep tugging on Dara but never taking her.
A memory kept rising up, of Marie, age ten or eleven, squirming in her bunkbed above and insisting, I have something no one else has.
We all have it, Dara had said, dismissing her. But she’d never really been sure. Dara was dark, but Marie was light. Dara was cool, but Marie was hot. Marie, the wild child, the sword swallower, the illustrated lady, the freak.
“Marie,” she found herself whispering now, feeling for Marie behind her, her halting breath. “Do you remember the carnival? The one Dad took us to every spring at St. Joan’s?”
“Yes,” Marie said sleepily. “I remember.”
Dara didn’t know what made her think of it. Maybe it was Marie’s feet brushing against her feet, trying to stay warm.
“The Fire Eater was my favorite,” Dara said, pressing her arches against Marie’s hard skin. “And the Sword Swallower was yours.”
“They were the same,” Marie said softly.
Dara’s feet went still. “What?”
“They were the same woman,” Marie said, her sleepy voice, the words coming slowly and never quite finishing.
“What?” Dara asked, wondering if she was dreaming.
“I saw her once,” Marie said, her feet wrapping around Dara’s, warming them. “Changing her costume behind the stage.”
“They were the same?” Dara repeated, needing to be sure.
“They were the same.”
FIRE, SNOW
The dream came fast—moments, it seemed, after she closed her eyes, Marie curled up beside her. They were at the carnival, watching the Sword Swallower in the sideshow tent.
She was tall and grand, with scars around her mouth like hatch marks, like tribal signs.
The swoosh as she raised the sword, hoisting it high above her head. Then, bending her knees, springing herself into a spin, head whipping around in a pirouette.
One turn, two turns, then suddenly the sword became a torch and, stopping, she was no longer the Sword Swallower but the Fire Eater, scars around her mouth like hatch marks, like tribal signs.
Her arms mighty and rounded, lifted up over her head, forming a perfect oval. Her arms corded red and invulnerable, holding the torch high, so high it reached the sagging top of the tent.
The canvas, scarlet and gold, above them and suddenly shuddering with fire.
Dara, we have to go! We have to go! It’s time!
How she reached for Marie’s hand but couldn’t find her, the heat coming down like a vibration.
Opening her eyes, she thought she could still see it.
Waves of fire rolling across the ceiling, fingers of fire stretching to all corners.
I’m burning. My body is burning.
* * *
*
Is it morning, her eyes pinching, the room bright as noon but the clock saying four a.m. And then remembering the bedroom window faced west and dawn never came in there.
“Dara, we have to go! We have to go! It’s time!”
It was Marie, her hands on Dara, lifting her.
And she was on her feet and the room suddenly fell dark and her mouth filled with stench. The door open, the hallway black and her hand on the wall, her palm sticking to the hot plaster, and Marie pulling her, pulling her so her arm felt it might leave its socket.
The floorboards burned under her feet and she was running, Marie’s hand clamped to her wrist, pulling her down the stairs, stumbling to the entryway and the jussssssh of air sucking them in, gasping to hold them, and Marie nearly dragging them forward, nearly yanking Dara’s arm from its socket, across the threshold and out the door.
* * *
*
A swarm of fire trucks, a police car, outside, a neighbor must have called, great white tides of smoke, rolling across their house, swallowing their house, swallowing everything.
* * *
*
It might have been fifteen minutes or two hours, the hushed awe of neighbors in flannel pajamas, a little boy in mouse-paw slippers crying loudly, mournfully, the whine of sirens, a chemical smell in the air of singed metal, melting plastic, burning foam, but the fire was gone, leaving a heavy black streak up the center of their house.
What was left of their house, its center sunken, its cavity exposed: buckled floorboards, snaky wires, a few remaining rafters like fingers pointing and white ash like confetti shaking from its rafters.