David stands next to me as I lean against the bark of a leafless tree. The trees on the rise are far enough away from the fire to live another season. To live a hundred more seasons.
“That place,” he says, and leans his back against the tree, his shoulder pressed to mine. “That was my hell.”
I look at him, see his orange-lit profile as he watches—with what I would swear is pleasure—as the orphanage burns.
The fire is strong enough that, even from a distance, the heat is intense. The marauding flames reach high into the night sky, the rising smoke erasing the field of stars. The blaze appears to me as a giant hand reaching upward, pointing toward the heavens in a final rebuke. Or, possibly, a promise. A vow to one day return.
We can’t help ourselves. We stay and watch for what feels an eternity. We watch until the giant, accusatory hand becomes nothing but burning wood. A wall collapses inward, and soon the entire roof follows.
We’ve seen enough.
“We need to go,” I say, hoping David doesn’t register the fear and pain in my voice.
David nods. His eyes flick to my stomach, then back to my face. “Okay, yeah. The farm?”
“I think so. It’ll be light soon, and I know the way. The storm has lessened, I think we can make it. Timothy may need to be carried at some point.”
“I can walk,” he grumbles, and is already stumbling forward through the snow. “Which way, Father?”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s referring to me.
Andrew, I can see you smiling at all of this.
I’m so sorry.
“East,” I say, and begin walking. My hand grips a bunched knot of Byron’s torn shirt, pressed firmly against my torn skin. I don’t think the bleeding has worsened, and for now my wits feel relatively clear.
I am light, I think.
David comes up next to me, presumably in case I falter, or fall; but as he limps by my side, a set grimace on his face, I take reassurance from his presence.
The fire at our back lights the way ahead.
The others follow in our tracks.
62
GRACE SITS DOWN TO BREAKFAST AFTER POURING FRESH coffee for her father.
She eyes the biscuits and eggs hungrily, but takes the time to fold her hands and offer up a prayer of thanks. When the blessing is complete, she digs in with vigor.
John watches her thoughtfully.
“What?” she says, wiping at her chin for loose crumbs.
“Nothing, nothing. Just admiring your appetite.”
She gives a wry smirk, then pops another piece of buttered biscuit into her mouth, making him laugh.
Outside the window, the day is breaking, and she’ll soon be at chores. She’s excited to wade through the fresh snow. She loved falling asleep to the careless creaking of their strong house in the hard wind of the storm, the knowledge that she would wake to a gorgeous new world of white, the crisp dry air of a clear day after a good snowfall.
She studies the sky through the window, amazed at how clear and blue it is, like the shell of a robin’s egg. She wonders if she can convince her papa to walk with her, up the nearby hill with the toboggan he built last winter.
Grace takes a sip of coffee, debating whether the snow will be too soft for good sledding, when she glances once more out the kitchen window.
A dark shape emerges atop a distant rise. A gentle crest, now covered in snow, dotted along its ridge with blanketed pines, is soon marred by multiple figures, each of them slogging through at its center, aiming for their home.
“Papa?”
John Hill sees his daughter’s concerned stare and turns his body to face out the window. He squints into the brightening day, trying to make out the shapes.
And then he knows.
“Grace!” he says, standing so abruptly his chair nearly falls backward. “Get your coat and boots and follow me. Hurry now.”
She stands, shaken and frightened. She steps up to the window, puts a finger on the chilled glass, as if it will bring her closer to the distant shadows.
Then Grace, like her father, makes out the shapes for what they are.
“Oh my God,” she says.
And then she’s moving.
The front door is open, her father already running through the deep snow. “And get blankets! As many as you can carry!”
Grace does.
*
Her father reaches the boys first.
An older boy, seeing his approach, staggers, then drops the sleeping child he’s been carrying in his arms—for who knows how long—into the thick snow. As the smaller boy hits the ground, the older one drops to his knees. Head hanging limply to his chest.
Two younger-looking boys stand on either side of the tallest one. They each have an arm looped around his waist, as if to keep him from falling. His feet drag through the snow. Grace sees them as she approaches and has only a moment to wonder how they managed to get him so far in that condition.
Her father is at odds, seemingly not knowing which boy to go to first, but it doesn’t matter. They’re done. Spent. Having found their way, they all collapse into the snow.
Grace arrives like a flurry of warmth and energy. She begins draping blankets over them all, one by one. Her father removes his coat and wraps it around the smallest one, bundling him.
The tall one, who the other two carried along on sheer willpower, also collapses.
Grace knows.
She doesn’t say, but she knows.
She runs to him, already crying, and rolls Peter over so she can see his face.
The first thing that catches her eye is the dark red stain in the snow, followed by the blood-soaked wound in his stomach. So much blood has spilled that it’s crusted nearly the length of one pant leg, pooled into the waistband where, in the freezing temperature, it’s crystallized along his skin like red ice.
“Peter?”
His face is pale as the snow, his lips gray. But his eyes open, bright blue, and he shifts them to look at her. His throat clutches, as if he means to speak, but only air comes from his mouth. A soft, cold gust. The breath of the dying.
“I’m gonna carry the little one inside, I’ll be back,” John says. He lifts the wrapped boy in his arms, runs as best he can toward the house.
Grace looks around at the others.
They all look back at her openly. Plainly. One of them, an older one who looks Peter’s age, says her name. It’s not a question.
“Yes,” she replies.
She does not know them. Does not know their faces.
Peter has told her names, so many names, but right now she can’t remember them. Can’t remember a single one. But these are the ones he’s lived with. These are the ones he told her stories about. She feels a kinship to them, to these half-frozen, exhausted strangers.
The other two boys huddle together, under blankets now, shivering.
Their eyes are not on her, nor the home in the near distance, with promises of warmth and food and shelter.
Their eyes are on Peter.
The older one gets to his knees, crawls closer. He takes one of Peter’s hands in his own. Tears spill down his face, dotting the snow silver.
“Peter? It’s David. Look, Peter. It’s Grace. She’s right here. We made it.” He sniffles, rubs at his face. He looks at Grace for a moment, then back down to his friend. “Please stay, Peter. Please stay with me.”
Peter’s eyes shift to look at the older boy—David, he said—then his eyes move up, focus on the bright, depthless sky overhead.