I must go home before home burned, too, and they put me in a sanitarium . . . and the fires would burn there, too.
There was no one on earth except for me and this dog, who watched from the mango box while I threw some clothes into a small trunk. He watched me clean myself up, and strip myself down, and tend to the cut on my head, which could have been so much worse. (It was hidden in my hair, above my right ear. Once the bleeding stopped, no one would see it at all. We would all be free to forget about it.)
I must have readied myself quickly, for I escaped the house before anyone came to question me—or even inform me of the disaster. I must have done a very good job of cleaning up; I recall that I washed my hair in the sink and combed it back.
I recall bits and pieces of everything. I recall great swaths of nothing.
Mostly, I recall Felipe watching me warily, his bulbous black eyes taking in every move, weighing every action. Not judging me, I don’t think. Assessing me. Encouraging me, perhaps. Maybe he was only calculating my odds of success and survival and continued freedom. Dog is man’s best friend, they say, but I barely know this one. He might have been thinking only of whom he might rely upon next. He might have been hoping that his next owner was a wealthier man.
“You can rely upon me,” I swore as I attached the leash to his collar. “At least as far as Cassadaga. If I am no use to you there, I think a woman named Alice Dartle might take you in. She is a kindly sort.” I had no good reason to assume it, but I said it anyway. “Or if you will give her the sniffles and make her sneeze, I will find someone else. I swear, I will not leave you alone in this world.”
He stopped wriggling at the end of the leash. I took that as a sign of acquiescence.
• • •
SO now we are on a train together, and I am carrying a few possessions and all the money I could pull together in such a last-minute fashion. I stopped by the bank on the way to the train station and cleaned out the business account and my personal account and even the little nest egg that Evelyn and I had been saving (except for the money I’d left for Silvio). We had been saving it in case of children, when I was to return from the war. The money would never serve its original purpose. There was no harm in taking it.
• • •
(WHY, then, did I feel like a criminal when I withdrew it? Why?)
• • •
I would say that I am carrying a small fortune, but that would overstate the case. It is a respectable sum that I could live on for months, or even a year or more—if I’m very frugal. Frugality doesn’t come naturally to me, but neither does excess. In the balance, let’s say this is enough to keep me for nine months. It will keep me as long as the child that Evelyn never carried.
• • •
SO now.
Yes, now.
I am trying to behave like a normal man, bored upon a train. Felipe is asleep, cuddled against my thigh. I saw a smudge of soot on his head, so I licked my thumb and tried to wipe it off. He needs another bath, the poor thing. I need another bath, too. I will try to arrange one for both of us upon our arrival.
We should reach Cassadaga in another hour.
This means one more hour of neither bursting into wracking sobs nor fainting from the headache or heartache. I wish I felt numb, but I do not feel numb. Shell shock supposedly presents itself as numbness in some men, but mine is not so kind. (If that’s what this is. Can things apart from war produce the same symptoms? I don’t see why not.)
My mind is racing much faster than this pencil can, and my heart feels as if it’s been trampled upon and then lit on fire. Emilio is gone. I know he’s gone. I know I could not have saved him. (I could scarcely save myself. No, Felipe saved me. I owe my life to a dog who can fit in a mango box with room to spare for a pillow.)
I should have made the effort. Regardless of my promise to keep and save the dog, I should’ve remained behind with my friend, my employee, my steadfast partner in business. He deserved better than me. He always has.
Oh God, someone will have to tell Silvio. It ought to be me, but it won’t be. Not now that I’m on this train, rather than sitting at home with my face in my hand, sobbing my eyes out. The train is the more dignified option, but I can scarcely hold myself together. It may not be a dignified option for much longer. I am almost out of dignity.
I envy the men on the sidewalks with their dirty blankets and empty bottles.
But Felipe helps. When I can’t stand to sit still another minute, I run my fingers along his head and neck and down his back. I talk quietly to him, like he’s the one who needs a gentle word. He sometimes looks up at me, his face full of questions.
Sometimes, he keeps his head down and sighs.
15
ALICE DARTLE
Cassadaga, Florida
I WOKE UP groggy and aching. My throat hurt and my arm hurt . . . though between the two, the arm was definitely worse. Dr. Holligoss said the injury would weep, and he was not just pulling my leg: It had oozed all night, straight through the bandage and onto the sheets.
I sat up and pulled the bedding with me. I was glued to it with my own disgusting dried juices.
The pain was just incredible. With every turn or pull of my skin, or the bandage, or the sheet, fire ran shooting up my arm. I could not imagine simply ripping the sheet free, much less pulling off the crunchy bandage—because both were so firmly affixed by a most tender and miserable bit of my body. With this in mind, I dragged the sheet with me to the bathroom, and I held it up so as not to pull the burned skin while I turned on the taps to run a bath. I disrobed as far as I was able, but there was only so much I could do with one arm out of commission and a bedsheet attached, so when the water was high and warm (but not too warm), I climbed inside wearing my nightshirt and feeling very silly about it.
But mostly, I felt sorry for myself.
I couldn’t let my arm weep alone, so I cried piteously as I dunked it slowly into the warm water, bandage and sheet and all. I thought if I soaked it all down it might peel off more easily, and I was right—for a relative value of “right” and “easy.” “Easy” only meant “it was possible to remove the sheet after a few minutes of sitting half naked, stewing in water that became more vile by the moment, as the yellow stain faded and the bandage loosened.”
I peeled it inch by inch, until I could throw the whole sodden mess on the floor and let the burned arm breathe. Even cool air felt like an oven on the nasty, raw wound, which still had a peculiar scrawl to it—it still made me think of someone’s signature, carved right into my body.
Was that an “H” or an “F”?
Neither, obviously. It was a chance design, drawn by the random drippings of melted celluloid. There was no pattern, and it was silly to pretend otherwise.
This didn’t stop me from staring at it like it could tell me something.
Eventually I pulled myself together enough to clean the wounded arm and everything else that needed cleaning, and I dressed the wound again with the ointment the doctor had given me. I stood naked in front of the sink and wrapped everything back up.
I did not do as good a job as the doctor had, but it stayed secure enough for me to finish drying off and getting dressed—and I did not want to, but I chose a long-sleeved sweater to wear over my dress. It would be too warm, but it would hold the bandage in place better than my own amateur efforts alone.
The sweater would also hide it. I hated to look at it. I couldn’t exactly forget about it, not with the miserable pain, but when I didn’t have to look at it, I could pretend that it wasn’t as bad as all that.
I am good at pretending.
• • •
THAT’S a lie. I am a mediocre pretender, at best.
• • •
I went to breakfast with my teeth grinding together, trying to smile through the agony and act like nothing was wrong. Yes, my cough was goin
g away, sure, I would appreciate a glass of water, no, thank you, I don’t want to talk to the reporter from DeLand, of course if the police or firemen want a word with me I will make myself available. I ate alone, shooing away any offered company because I was having a hard time with all the lying. I mean pretending.
All the while, as I sat in the hotel restaurant and tried to forget that my arm was horribly burned, I thought about the letter from Ybor City. I thought about Tomás Cordero, because now the man who dreamed of fire had a name. He had a story.
And I had no doubt.
Even if the coincidence had not convinced me, all I had to do was hold that letter and listen to where it came from—listening, but not with my ears—and it was all so abundantly clear. The soldier, the fire, the loss. The dread and the fear. He wants my help. Mine, personally. He read about me in The Sunflower, and he wants to come see me.
I thought that it might not be a good idea, considering. Cassadaga has had plenty of fire already.
I’m not supposed to believe in coincidence. I don’t really, now that I think about it.
• • •
OVER breakfast I mentally composed a plan. I would write back to Tomás Cordero. We would exchange a few letters, and I would see if I could help him from a distance. (I was already writing these letters in my head.) If I could not be of any use to him via the post office, then I would take the train to Tampa and visit him myself. But he probably should stay away from Cassadaga.
But the best-laid plans of mice and men . . . isn’t that how the poem goes?
• • •
AFTER breakfast I took tea on the hotel porch, staring across the railroad tracks at the remains of the Calliope. I watched workmen cart away wheelbarrows full of soaked ashes and blackened rubble. I sipped from my cup while they dumped the wheelbarrows out onto a flatbed attached to a truck, in order to haul it farther away. Maybe they’d take it all the way to the ocean and dump it there.
I wasn’t alone on the porch. Edella Holligoss was there, watching the grocery on the other side of the block where the Calliope used to be, and probably counting her lucky stars that the fire hadn’t spread. Dolores Brigham was there, too, staring out at the wreckage, or at the houses beyond it. Honestly, it didn’t look like she was staring at anything that anyone else could see. I thought about asking her if she was all right, but I couldn’t find the energy.
We all three faced the blackened lot, and no one spoke until Mabel climbed up the stairs to join us, and then we were four.
She was wearing a pair of sunglasses and a dark purple dress made out of very light cotton. Florida mourning wear, I thought. It wasn’t a very appropriate thought, and I hoped that no one else had heard it. Not least of all because no one had died. So far as anybody knew.
“How are you doing this morning, Alice?” She drew up one of the white wicker chairs beside me and sat down.
I looked down at the bandage without even meaning to. “I’ll survive. I’ll whine about it, but I’ll survive.”
She offered a weak smile and leaned back into her seat. “If you need any help with the bandage . . .”
“Thank you.” I resisted the urge to scratch it. If I began, one of two things would happen: Either I’d immediately regret it, or I’d never stop scratching it again. I couldn’t tell if it hurt or itched. Or which one it was doing more. To distract myself, I asked her, “Does anyone know how the fire started?”
She shook her head. “Everything went up so fast. The DeLand fire chief said that sometimes theaters just . . . they go up in smoke like that. The film catches fire so easily, and the projectors run so hot . . . it’s just one of those things that happens.”
“You think it was an accident?”
She lifted her sunglasses, propping them atop her forehead. “You think it wasn’t?”
I didn’t have a good answer. Why should I? It was a stupid question, and I never should’ve asked it. “I don’t know what it was.”
Mabel didn’t let it go. “Do you think something strange has happened?”
Dolores answered before I could think of something suitable in response. “Yes, something very strange.”
Now we all turned to look at her.
She didn’t unfix her gaze from the Calliope. She talked in a low, steady voice, like someone who was making an effort to keep from screaming. It unsettled me down to my bones. “Something terrible and strange. Surely someone else must feel it, too. Alice.” She didn’t say my name like she was asking me a question. She said it like she was naming me as a witness.
I swallowed. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Is there anything you’d like to tell us?”
“Not remotely,” I said, with absolute honesty. I wished I had a pair of sunglasses, because I could use something to hide behind. I cleared my throat. “But if you must know, I’ve been having some . . . dreams. Odd ones, full of fire.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mabel. “Dreams of setting fires?”
“No, just . . . fires. Being in the middle of them, you know. Rather like I was . . . I mean, yesterday. But not quite.”
Mabel frowned. “So . . . not a premonition?”
“No, I don’t think so. I was in a fire, but not that fire. It was some other fire, on a battlefield—and I was looking for a man. When I found him, he knew my name. It wasn’t the bad spirit from the reading, though,” I was quick to add.
“How do you know?”
“They’re connected, but different. The man on the battlefield is only a man. The bad spirit is . . .” I almost didn’t tell her, but at the last moment I listened to my gut and said it anyway. “The bad spirit called himself the hammer.”
She absorbed this, and I could tell she wasn’t sure if she should be annoyed with me or not. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“I meant to. I forgot to. I don’t know. Please, it was an awful night, and the Calliope fire was awful, and I’ve just had so much on my mind.”
It wasn’t much of an excuse and I knew it. She knew it, too, but she didn’t press. She only asked, “Did you know the other one’s name? The one on the battlefield?”
I was grateful that she’d let it drop. “No, and I couldn’t see his face, either. He was wearing a mask like the firemen wear. Except it wasn’t exactly like that. It’s hard to explain. Good Lord, but I hate having to tell people about my dreams. They always sound so silly.”
“Dreams in Cassadaga are always fair game for dissection,” Dolores said quietly. She went back to watching the scene across the tracks. “They very often mean more than we expect.”
Edella nodded and added, “Though often we don’t realize it until after the fact.”
“Until it’s too late?”
“If you were dreaming of the Calliope fire, then yes, your understanding came too late to prevent it.” Mabel put her sunglasses back down and folded her hands across her lap. “For example.”
I shouldn’t have, but I said, “But I told you, I really don’t think that’s what it was about.”
“Why not?” asked Dolores.
I shrugged. “Just a feeling. And I trust my feelings more than I trust my dreams.”
I finished up my tea and left them there, because I didn’t feel like pretending anymore and I didn’t want them to pull the truth out of me: that I’d found a fire in my room, and that I’d been dreaming for weeks of a man who dreams of fire—and it’d only gotten worse since that open reading—and how I thought the burn on my arm looked like a signature.
It was pure madness. They’d put me away.
• • •
THERE’S also this: I cannot explain it, but I was already protective of Tomás Cordero. He was lost and confused—he was not a violent criminal or a dangerous man. He wanted help. He did not want to start trouble, or fires, either. I didn’t want Mabel or Dolores or anyone else to know abou
t his difficulties yet, on the off chance I could keep him a secret in a town full of clairvoyants.
He’d asked me for help, not them. I could help him; I was sure of it. I could shine some light—I could do some good in his world, and prove (to use Mr. Colby’s words) that I deserved to be here.
So why did I feel this weird sense of approaching darkness?
• • •
I crossed the street and went to the bookstore, because I wanted some scenery that hadn’t recently gone up in flames—and also I wanted to distract myself further. Why did I need so much distracting? My arm was a misery, yes, but that wasn’t all of it. It was the fire, and the darkness. Did that make sense? Darkness and fire? You’d think it’d be brightness and fire, partnered together.
No, you wouldn’t. Not when you’ve been in the thick of it.
When I think about the theater I think of the flames, yes. But mostly I think of the darkness, the shroud of smoke and ash, and knowing that something perilously hot was close by—but not being able to see it.
That’s how I felt right then, as I wandered to the bookstore for lack of anything better to do. I felt like something dangerous was very, very near, but I couldn’t see it at all. I could only fumble around and try to avoid it.
So I went to the bookstore. It’s attached to the fellowship hall and the camp meeting offices. I stood before the bulletin board and read name after name of available mediums and clairvoyants, some belonging to people I’d met, some belonging to strangers. My name wasn’t up there yet. It wouldn’t be, not until I could take up permanent residence. Not while I was living in the hotel.
I pictured my card there, beside a little note with my address and services listed.