She held out her hand to him, and he took it in his own.
Maria Copis gasped and covered her mouth with one hand. She swore into her palm, her eyes widening, her brows almost disappearing beneath the fringe of loose, dark hair.
“Georges,” Emma said, “I’m sorry. Michael can’t play right now, but I wanted to introduce you to Maria Copis. Maria,” she added, “this is Georges.”
“He’s—” Maria hesitated and then took two firm steps toward Georges, who looked dubious but stood and waited. Georges didn’t look like a ghost. He felt like one, to Emma, whose hand was already beginning to sting at the physical contact. Maria tried to touch Georges and her hand passed through him, as Emma had known it would.
“Oh, my god. Oh, my god.”
Georges turned to Emma. “Where’s Michael?”
“He’s babysitting right now.”
The look of disappointment across those delicate features was its own kind of heartbreak, in a day that had already exposed too much of it.
“I’m sorry, Georges,” Emma said, kneeling so that she was closer to his eye level. “I promise as soon as I can, you can see Michael again. But we’re trying to help another little boy—”
“They caught him?”
“No. No, Georges. He’s trapped inside a burning building.”
Georges frowned. “Did he die there?”
Emma nodded.
“I don’t think you should go there.”
“We have to try to help him,” Emma said quietly. “He’s a little boy. Much younger than you.”
“Oh.” Georges nodded. And then, while Emma watched, he quietly disappeared.
And Maria Copis looked at Emma.
“I’m sorry,” Emma said, rubbing her hand. “Even dead children like Michael.”
The woman’s laugh was brief and brittle.
Emma swallowed air. “I can’t promise anything,” she told Maria Copis. “And I won’t try. I’m not sure we can even get past the fire—but I can’t leave him there without trying. We came here to ask you to come with us—but we might not be able to reach him at all. It might all be for nothing.”
“When are you going?”
“We’re going now. If you give me your phone number, I can call you if we can actually get far enough into the building to reach him.”
Maria laughed again, and it was the same thin laugh.
“But we have two cars,” Allison told her, correctly interpreting that laughter. “If you can’t find a babysitter, we can all go. Michael would stay if we asked him.”
“I can call my mother. I can ask her to come home from work. I can—” she stopped as Emma stiffened, but Emma said nothing. “…I can sound like a crazy, grief-stricken, hysterical daughter.”
Emma winced. But she didn’t disagree. “I could ask Georges to come out again for your mother,” she began.
“No. You’re right, even if you didn’t say it out loud. We could call her, she could come home, and she could be terrified enough that she wouldn’t be fit to babysit, if she even let me out of the house. How long do you think—” She lifted a hand. “No, sorry. I’m just being incredibly stupid. I can’t call anyone else, either. Do you have enough room for two car seats?”
Emma nodded. “We have two cars—and a couple of other friends as well.”
“There are more of you?”
“We needed help with the ladders. You’ll come with us?”
“Yes. He’s my son. There’s no way I’m going to stay here just waiting beside the phone while you try to help him. Yes, Emma. I’ll come. Maybe Michael can help with the kids while we’re there.”
If Emma’s world had changed overnight—and, with the appearance of Longland and the ghosts, it had—Rowan Avenue had continued in blissful ignorance. If, by blissful, one meant a raging fire and billowing dark smoke from all the downstairs windows. Emma got out of the car slowly, and approached the sidewalk, where she surveyed the ruined buildings. Only one of them was burning, which made it a bit easier to spot, given the lack of numbers on the front facade.
She glanced at Allison, who had also emerged, and at Michael, who was half in and half out of the car, struggling with the straps of a car seat and a toddler who did not, apparently, like being stuck in one. Amy had pulled up by the curb, parked, and flipped the back hatch of her vehicle up; she was already giving Skip—and Eric and Chase—instructions about the ladders.
Maria Copis emerged last, holding her baby while Michael carried Cathy. She stayed beside Michael, possibly because Cathy was attached to him with that toddler force that allows for no quiet separation, and possibly because it was hard for her to approach the ruins of her home, the place where her son had died.
Emma glanced at her and found it hard to look away. Maria was holding her baby as if the baby was some kind of life buoy and she was on the edge of drowning.
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Emma said softly to Allison.
Allison shook her head. “It’s going to be hard for her. Even if she weren’t here with us—even if she weren’t trying to help her son. Her oldest child died here. I don’t know if Cathy remembers the house or not—she’s still glued to Michael—but…Maria had to walk out of the house without Andrew and pray that he followed.”
“I know—it’s just…the look on her face, Ally.”
Allison didn’t tell her not to look. Amy would have, but Amy was busy shouting at Skip. Skip, not shy, was shouting back. Eric, not stupid, was quietly avoiding getting between two siblings who were arguing, and Chase—well, it looked as though Chase was trying not to be stupid and mostly succeeding.
Emma spread her hands out, palms up. “I feel like I should say something to her or do something for her, but I can’t think of a damn thing I could do that won’t somehow make it worse.”
“Except this,” Allison said quietly.
“Except this.”
“What do you see, Em?”
Emma grimaced. “Smoke. Black smoke. And fire.”
“Can you hear anything?”
Emma frowned. After a moment, she said, “Beyond the fire? No.”
“No shouting?”
“No. It’s the first time—” She grimaced again and wondered if the expression was going to be stuck there permanently, she’d used it so often lately. “Not that I’ve been here that often. But…no. I don’t hear her voice.”
“Is that a bad sign?”
“I don’t know.”
“Emma!” Amy, hands on her hips, had turned. “Are you going to sit there chatting with Allison all day, or are you going to get this show on the road?”
Allison touched her shoulder. “We needed the car and the ladders,” she whispered.
Emma nodded, shoved her hands into her pockets, and headed toward the facade, where Chase and Eric were now positioning ladders. Or trying to keep them in position. The front of the building was not entirely cooperating, because there was a small porch on the second floor that hovered just over the door. It wasn’t terribly wide, but it was—almost—in the way of at least one of the ladders.
They did, however, manage to set the ladder against the wall just to one side of the overhang. How, Emma had no idea, and she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. No one lived here anymore, so any external damage to the building wasn’t likely to get them in trouble.
“Eric,” she said instead, as she approached him, “I think something’s changed.”
He raised a brow, and left Chase and Skip. “What’s wrong?”
“I—when we were here last time, I could hear his mother shouting his name. I can’t hear her now. Is that because she’s here?”
“Emma, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. Chase sure as hell hasn’t, and neither have any of your friends. This is a first, for all of us.” He glanced over his shoulder at Amy and then back. “On the other hand, at least one of us isn’t fazed by it at all.”
“Amy doesn’t bel
ieve in dwelling on difficulties.”
“There’s a lot Amy doesn’t believe in. I’m surprised she believes in the dead.”
Emma laughed. “If she’s seen it, she believes in it. And if she believes in it, it’s not safe to question her.”
“I think I got that.” He smiled, but it faded. “Can you see the fire?”
Emma nodded. She glanced at Skip, and winced. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Skip so angry.”
“He’s not gaining much traction with Amy.”
“No, but he’s lived with her all her life; he’s got to be used to that. He mostly trusts her. If he’s pushing, he knows she’ll push back, and he’s the one who’s skipping Dalhousie to come to Amy’s party.”
“That’s not his fault.”
“His parents won’t care, unless he can convince them—and no one’s in a hurry to drag parents into this.” She failed to mention Michael. “They can’t do anything but die.” She turned back to the fire, although she’d never really left it; it was loud.
“Bad?”
“It’s bad. But firefighters did get in through the upper windows, and the worst of the fire seems to be coming out of the downstairs ones. If it’s true that I’ll be in whatever Andrew sees, I should be able to get to him through the second story as well.”
“Without the asbestos and the oxygen.”
“Thank you, Eric.”
He grinned, but the grin didn’t reach his eyes. “You don’t have to do this,” he told her, reaching for her hand and gripping it surprisingly tightly.
She looked over her shoulder at Maria Copis, still clutching her baby. Then she looked back, and briefly squeezed his hand. “Sorry. You don’t have to, though.”
“As if.” He shook his head, but he hadn’t expected a different answer, and she wondered why he’d tried. She would have asked, but Maria now approached her. Emma made way for her at the base of the first ladder.
“What do we do, now?” Maria asked.
“I go up the ladder,” Emma told her, striving for certainty. “I’ll take a look around.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“Give the baby to Amy or Allison. Or Skip. You can climb up on your own, but you won’t see the fire—at least I don’t think you will—until I find Andrew.”
“You don’t think?”
Emma winced. “I’m not entirely certain how this part works. I’m fairly new to all this—”
“Is there anyone here who isn’t?”
Emma didn’t answer that, but continued, “—but new or not, we all feel we need to at least try.” She tried to keep her voice smooth.
Maria Copis frowned. “This isn’t safe, is it?”
“It should be.”
“For you. This isn’t safe for you.”
Eric, bless him, said nothing.
“Does it matter?” Emma asked Maria, squaring her shoulders slightly, and taking the meager scraps of courage she could from defiance.
“Yes. You’re not dead. He is.” Maria swallowed and glanced away, but only for a second. “I don’t want to be responsible for—for killing you.”
“You’re not. This was my decision, start to finish, and we’re going up there with or without you.”
Eric cleared his throat. “I think you’re getting left behind,” he told them both.
Emma frowned and turned toward the ladders. Chase was already at the top of the rightmost one. He turned and blew her a kiss, and she grimaced. He missed it; he’d already braced himself against the ladder—with a pause to shout instructions to Skip and Amy, who had managed enough of a truce to hold the ladder steady between them—before crawling in through the window. “Chase,” she told Maria, “is very easily bored and has no sense of self-preservation.”
“Chase,” Eric corrected her, “is testing the floor to see if it’ll hold weight. It probably won’t,” he added quietly, “and if it doesn’t, you’re going to have to hold her hand before she enters the building.”
“But the fire—”
“Yes. She’ll see it, too.”
Maria’s glance bounced between Eric and Emma a few times. She didn’t speak. Instead, she withdrew for a moment. Emma almost asked why, but she stopped when Maria pulled up the edge of her shirt and nudged her baby awake.
“I’ll feed him,” she told Emma quietly. “And change him. Hopefully he’ll sleep until after—after we’ve finished.”
“What if he wakes up?” It was Allison, who had joined them quietly, who asked. Which made sense, since it was Allison who was going to be holding him.
“Walk him around. Or bounce him—gently.” She didn’t ask Emma how long things would take. She didn’t ask anything. Instead, she told Allison, “There’s a bottle for Cathy in the diaper bag and a couple of teething biscuits; if she’s fussing—and she won’t until she’s tired—have Michael give her both.” She took a breath, held it, expelled it. “I don’t suppose any of you have changed diapers?”
Eric raised a hand. “I have.”
“If she needs—”
“We’ll take care of her. If we’re down here.”
Chase came down the ladder and found Eric and Emma.
“Well?” Eric asked him.
Chase grimaced. “It held, at least part of the way in. I’d recommend that you let Maria risk it,” he told Emma, “but make sure she’s standing almost on top of you. If the floor buckles, grab her hand or her arm, and pull her in. Unless the fire doesn’t seem too bad when you get up there. In which case, just pull her in right away.”
He hesitated for a minute, and then he addressed Maria. “I’m going to go up with you both, if that’s okay. I’m crap with babies, and Eric’s practically a wet nurse, but without the breasts. If Emma has problems, I’m going to have to pull her out. I’ll be walking behind you, hopefully far enough back that my weight won’t be a tipping point if the joists are going to collapse. But I’ll need to risk a bit, because I won’t be able to reach her if she needs help.
“She’ll be walking into the burning house,” he added. “It won’t look like that to either of us, but…she might catch fire, her hair might burn. I don’t know if the effects of the—of—” he had the grace to flush. “I’m sorry. I don’t know if your son is strong enough to actually burn her clothing.”
Maria nodded gravely. “If she looks like she’s being burned, or if she starts to cough or choke, you’ll pull her out?”
“Got it in one. But I might need help. Don’t try to help me unless I ask for it; stand your ground, because the floor’s not solid. When I touch Emma,” he added, “the floor will be solid for me. But so will the fire. If you can avoid that, avoid it. Wait for my word.
“Got it, Emma?”
Emma nodded. “Maria, was he in his bedroom?”
Maria swallowed. The words were slow to come, and they came in a heavy rush. “Yes. I left him there and headed to the stairs. It’s the room to the side of the hall, not the back room. These windows open onto my bedroom. If you head out the door into the hall, his is the first room on the right.”
“Good. It’s not far.”
Chase said, “Far enough.”
Eric stepped on his foot. “Here, Em. Maria. Take these.” He handed them damp towels. “Cover your mouths, if it comes to that. I don’t know how much time you’ll have; I don’t know how much time you’ll need. Buy what you can.”
Emma nodded.
“Come out the same way you entered, if you have that much control.”
“We should be able to do that.”
“Yes. You should. But right now, Andrew is in the driver’s seat, and it may mean you won’t have the choice.” He hesitated and then added, “Even if you can touch him, and she can see him, she can’t touch him, Emma.” The words were soft and final.
Emma, who had not thought of it until that moment, felt the world shift—in a bad way—beneath her feet. His mother couldn’t touch him, and couldn’t pick him up, and he hadn’t moved the first time when s
he’d shouted and pleaded with him. He had waited for her to carry him out.
And that had killed him.
They started up the ladders. Emma went first, and she moved slowly, covering her mouth and nose with a damp towel. It was hard to see much, because the smoke from the lower windows was so dark and so acrid; it stung her eyes, and clung—she was certain—to her hair. She felt the heat, but the actual ladder was cool to the touch. It wasn’t much of a comfort, but here, you took what you could.
Beneath her, struggling in her own way, Maria Copis followed. Chase was climbing the other ladder in parallel, shouting encouragement. At least, that’s what Emma thought he was trying to do; what he was actually achieving was more irritating. Then again, an irritating Chase was a whole lot better than a deadly fire if she had to choose something to dwell on.
There was still broken glass in the window frame. Only the bottom of the frame, which was black with smoke, was an issue, if they were careful. Emma, who had dressed to visit a bereaved parent, winced—she had old painting clothing, most of it her mother’s, and after she’d finished here it was going to look a whole lot better than what she was wearing now. And she liked these clothes.
Chase helpfully told her to be careful of the glass.
She helpfully told him that she was; she might have said more, but Maria was here. Maria, whose face was a little like the shards of glass that nestled in what was left of the window’s frame; you could cut yourself on her expression if you weren’t careful.
Emma was careful enough to hold the cloth to her face and to partially cover her eyes, and then she wasn’t worried about Maria anymore. The room wasn’t burning, but smoke was wafting up the stairs and through the open door. It was hard to avoid the glass when she couldn’t clearly see it, but she came up on the window’s edge on the soles of her shoes before jumping lightly down. The floor held. It was hot, but it held.
Chase had told her to wait for Maria, but it was hard. This was where Andrew had died, and this was almost when—and what killed him, could kill her. She dropped to the ground, staying as close to the floorboards as she could to avoid the smoke.