Page 2 of Darkest Magic

“Okay.”

I tightened my grip on his wrist and pulled him as he scrambled out from under the bed. Without stopping I pulled him up against me and he wrapped his little arms around my neck and clung to me. “Hold on tight.” I didn’t need to say it, he was already holding me tightly, but it felt right so I said it anyway.

He trusted me, completely and terribly in that moment to do exactly what I’d told him I would do, get him some place safe. I just hoped I could follow through.

I stood with him clutching at me because I couldn’t crawl with him hanging on to my neck like that. Heat and smoke found us immediately and he started coughing against me. The intensity of it should have driven me back, should have melted me into nothingness, but instead I dove forward with luching steps as the fire surrounded us.

Instead of burning us the flames leaned away.

Only for a second, just enough time for us to get through, just enough that I could tell myself it was nothing later. A pocket of cooler air seemed to open around me and Davey. It wasn’t actually cold, just the absence of the heat that was everywhere else.

The flames along the baseboard moved away from us as though being fanned in the opposite direction by some wind I couldn’t feel. My whole body seemed to recognize it and I knew instinctively that it was something I was doing even though I had no idea how. But the wonder and the thoughts all vanished as Davey hacked and coughed in my ear as we made it to the staircase.

Going down the stairs was even harder than coming up them because I had to clutch him and also hold on to the railing at the same time. The bannister was even hotter than before, scorching my hand through my shirt sleeve. I missed a step, my foot sliding on the very edge of the wood and my shoulder banged into the wall with such force that my whole body vibrated with it and white sparks flared behind my eyes.

“You okay, Davey?” I croaked.

I felt his head move against my chest, but couldn’t tell if that was a yes or no. Either way it wasn’t like I could stop if he wasn’t okay. Whatever was wrong, if there was anything, would have to wait until we were outside.

“Hold on a little longer, buddy,” I said though my voice didn’t sound like my own anymore.

At the bottom of the stairs the entry way had turned into a mouth of flames and I honestly wasn’t sure how we were going to make it through. Behind us were the stairs, smoke, and fire, and in front of us was more fire. There weren't exactly a lot of options. I couldn’t stop since stopping meant letting the fire eat us, and I wasn’t about to let some other bird eat this worm that I’d worked so hard to rescue.

So I ran for it.

The fire rolled toward us for a moment before being pushed back again. It didn’t open a window between the flames or anything as neat as that, it just, leaned away from where we were. Not quite enough for my shirt to make it through unscathed, but I didn’t care. It was almost like the fire forgot how to touch me, and with Davey being wrapped in my arms it protected him too.

The front door frame was burning now as well, and what had been left of my sleeve caught in the flames as we lunged through into the night outside. We collapsed onto the grass outside as the fire truck arrived. The air was so cold against my skin that it was almost obscene.

Before I could process anything Mrs. Walker was ripping Davey from my arms. She folded over him the two of them collapsing onto the grass next to me as she sobbed.

Someone was pulling at me, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders. Murmurs from the neighbors reached my ears over the roar of the fire and the cracking of the wood behind me as I was urged further away from the burning house.

Finally, I looked at who was moving me and realized it was a fireman. We moved just as the front windows of the Walkers’ house blew out and glass rained down around us.

A few wobbly steps later and the fireman let me slump to the ground once more before he took my chin in his hand and made me look at him as he asked, “Miss, how long were you in there?”

“I don’t know, not long. I stayed low.” My voice was completely shredded.

The lie came smoothly from my lips and while it wasn’t a complete fabrication, I had stayed low in the beginning, I wasn’t sure how we made it out with me walking through the smoke and flames carrying Davey like that. His gaze dropped to my shirt sleeve and I followed it only to see that the skin that had been under the flannel material was completely fine.

The shirt sleeve was gone from shoulder to wrist with charred fabric at the seams. Some of the threads still smoked like incense sticks. But the skin was pale and whole, not a blister in sight. My jeans were scorched on the knees, probably from crawling on the stairs and landing, and my hair was burnt in some places, but nowhere near as much as it should have been.

The fireman stared at me as though I was a miracle. And it made me uncomfortable.

“I stayed low,” I said again. “Where the air’s better. My dad told me.”

He nodded slowly. The repetition seemed to make the lie stick a little better. The fireman clearly wanted an answer he could understand, and I’d given him that so his face smoothed out before he replied with, “You’re very lucky.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Lucky was a word people used when they didn’t want to examine things too closely, which was okay in this instance because I couldn’t explain what happened to him anymore than I already had without sounding like I’d lost my marbles.

By the time the paramedics were done checking me over and giving me oxygen I was more than ready to go home and get away from the staring neighbors. As I walked in I knew the kitchen would smell like onions, dish soap, and the damp spot in the ceiling that would probably spread a little more with all the moisture in the air from the firetruck, even if I couldn’t smell it through all the smoke that was still in my nose. All the lights were on as though my parents were trying to summon me home with a beacon. And maybe they were.

My mother sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in her shaking hands and one set where she knew I would sit down. The tea sloshed slightly in her mug, but she’d had enough already that it didn’t spill over the edges.

“Davey’s going to be fine,” she said quietly. “Smoke inhalation. They are keeping him for a few days. Mrs. Walker called already. She can’t stop—” Her voice cut off, and she took a mouthful of tea, using the mug to hide her face for a moment before she set it down once more. “She can’t stop saying your name.”