Time Drifters

Caelen had urged us to give the Sister the benefit of the doubt, even though our combined cries for help must have been able to penetrate the thick wooden door and tumbled out the window grate to anyone near the garden. But when she came into view, there were no shovels or trowels in her hands. Instead, she was carrying what looked like a watering can and a long tin box.

“It would appear the door is locked, good Sister,” Caelen said, his voice strained.

“This truly is difficult for me,” she said, disturbingly calm as she came right up to the window grate outside. Her stony face felt all the more menacing with the evening light only casting a halo around the ridges of her black wimple. She hefted a loosened bale of straw closer to the grate and then began kicking chunks of it through.

“What are you doing?” Renatta demanded as we all jumped back to avoid getting it on our heads.

“You could still tell me where the books are,” Sister Vellena said, bending down and stuffing more straw at us.

“No way in hell,” Thomas yelled. “Unlock the door, now!”

“Thomas!” Renatta chided.

“What?” he barked. “She’s insane.”

“It is disturbing to see that manners and respect decline so much with time,” the Sister said, taking hold of the metal can and removing a cap from the spout. “You might want to back up a bit,” she added as she began dousing the black liquid in arcing spurts.

“What are you doing?” yelled Calico.

“That’s coal oil!” Gwendolyn said, horrified. “Stop!” she shrieked, charging towards the grate just as some of the oil splattered onto her face and to the base of her dress.

“You witch!” Caelen yelled.

“My books, please, children,” Sister Vellena said calmly, kneeling for the box and withdrawing a sulphur stick.

“Your soul will burn in purgatory,” Caelen growled, continuing to damn the woman while the rest of us started searching for a cloth to help Gwendolyn.

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor demons,” Sister Vellena began to chant as she struck the match.

Marijka screamed.

“For God’s sake, woman!” Caelen boomed. “This is murder! Murder!”

“Stop her!” Marijka wailed, just as Barkley and Rufus, flanked her protectively.

“… nor things present, nor things to come…,” the Sister continued, cradling the flame on the match and kneeling down as if she were about to plant another herb in the garden.

“Stop!” Barkley said. “I’ll tell you. I’ll take you to them. Just let me out and we can go.”

Our mutual gasps and calls for silence from him must have tipped her off to the fact that he knew something. She leaned towards us, allowing the flame to die with a curling wisp of white smoke snaking upwards.

“Tell me where they are and I’ll go to retrieve them first,” she said.

“No, way,” Rufus hissed, stepping forward into the light so his face could be seen beside Barkley. “I am the one who really knows where they are.”

“Well done, the eleventh,” Sister Vellena said. “Always an odd number. And I see that you aren’t united in agreement. I cannot let you out because I cannot contain you. But, my dear, unlike you, I will still be here. So I suppose I have time to find the books.”

“You never will,” Barkley taunted.

“What will it take for all of you to leave?” she asked, getting down on all fours to look in at us. “Why did you come?”

“Capucine has to leave,” I said. “She has to get far away from you.”

“Agreed,” Sister Vellena said, looking surprised and relieved. “This will happen. You have my word.”

“Yeah, right!” Thomas scoffed.

“As God is my witness, on my soul, I will send Capucine away,” Sister Vellena said, looking upward to the heavens. “Now you may leave.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Francesca said.

“It takes a while,” I said, adding in a mutter to the others, “Especially for me.”

“No, you cannot stay here any longer,” Sister Vellena said, withdrawing another match and striking it, despite our united and desperate objections. “I put my faith in God, that he will be merciful and return you to your homes… or to His.”

The match tumbled, twirling on the bar of the grate and igniting the oil that was still dripping from the metal. With a deep whooshing grunt, the flame spread instantly, almost before the tiny stick had even touched the straw.

“’For the wages of sin is death,’” Sister Vellena quoted, standing, “’But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.’”

“We are human beings, not demigods,” Renatta said. “We will die here by your hand if you do not let us out.”

“You did not know?” Sister Vellena said surprised. “The kitchen is already burning. Isaac must have been playing with fire again, before he left for the evening.”

“You’re sick,” Thomas said, turning back from the window, seeing the pillow of smoke curling under the door being blown away by bright, flickering light.

We all tried to open it but the lock made it impossible. The storm door was also immovable, even with our combined effort to kick and thrust it apart in the center. There were no tools, and even Isaac’s bed was made of a wooden frame, so it was impossible to break apart to create anything useful. We could continue to dig our way out, but we’d never make it in time with the smoke now billowing upward.

“Get it off me,” Gwendolyn said, desperately tearing the fabric on her own dress to detach herself from the oil soaked cloth.

“Don’t!” Caelen cautioned, yanking Thomas back from the burning straw just as he was about to throw the old dirty blanket over the flames. “It’ll just catch and get worse.”

“It’s getting worse now,” Thomas said, waving his hand at the flame that was beginning to crawl across the wooden planks of the ceiling. “This place is like tinder.”

“Help!” Barkley and Rufus were screaming towards the grated window.

“Go back home now,” Sister Vellena said, raising her voice to be heard above the cries and the pop and crackle of the burning wood. Through the shimmer of heat I could see her make the sign of the cross towards us and open her mouth to speak. But then, it was as if her body had liquefied in the flames. Her form crumpled and fell and in her place I could see Mrs. Dalcour standing with her crowbar firmly gripped in both hands.

“Help! Madame,” I yelled, joining Barkley and Rufus.

Without a word, Mrs. Dalcour stepped over the body of the fallen Sister and thrust the pick end into the wooden slats of the storm door.

“Ain’t gonna move,” she said, straining.

“The key,” Rufus shouted. “It’s around her neck. You can open the door in the kitchen.”

“It’s already blazin’,” Mrs. Dalcour yelled, looking up at the building with fear.

“Water!” I said.

“Not on coal oil,” Renatta warned.

“No, dowse your clothes in water,” I yelled out to Mrs. Dalcour, just before she disappeared from the frame of the window grate.

I was worried that she hadn’t heard me. Caelen was already back at the door, helping Thomas to give it another try.

“Get down lower,” Francesca cautioned everyone, removing her sleeve from her face for a moment. “Breathe below the worst of the smoke.”

We dropped to our knees and duck walked towards the door. Those seconds seemed to hang like hours, until we heard a shriek from the other side, followed by a scratching on the door. Calico and Caelen had their hands on it and thrust it open just as Mrs. Dalcour clicked open the latch, her hand covered with the base of her skirt.

The kitchen walls were rippling with a sheet of yellow flames. Huge tin pots that had hung on a rack rattled to the tile floor adding to the din of our voices as we shouted to each other, trying to figure the best way to escape to the side door in the blazing chaos.

Her duty done, Mrs. Dalcour cowered from the flames and also grimaced at us, seeming caught between evil on all sides.

“It is gone!” Renatta shouted, pointing to the kitchen block where the Sister had left the Post.

“She took them,” Thomas guessed, shielding his face from the heat just as a row of shelving loosened from the far wall, unleashing a crash of porcelain plates that clattered down.

“We go!” Caelen yelled, grabbing Marijka like a rag doll and rushing ahead. Mrs. Dalcour had left the door open, but the wall around it was frothing with grey billows of smoke, stoked beneath by orange flame. Following his path, we ducked and pushed ahead, running to escape.

Hitting the evening air was like jumping into a cold lake. The relief of being free and away from the fiery prison Sister Vellena had locked us into was overwhelming and we all shook from the fear. Mrs. Dalcour went straight for the pump, and pounded the handle up and down, forcing water to gush out and spill over the wooden bucket so we could extinguish our singed bits of clothing. Francesca ducked her hands into the bucket and dowsed her entire head, feeling her way through the long strands as though she knew they were still melting.

The stench of the fire felt like it had burned through my nose, and I gulped some water, trying to cool my throat. Even as she kept pumping, Mrs. Dalcour was looking right at me.

“Why did you do it?” I asked, seeing the limp form of Sister Vellena still lying near the storm door.

“Imogene told me,” Mrs. Dalcour said, with a sour face. “When you come, you tried to shake her hand.” I was worried. Ways of apologizing jumped into my thoughts.

“I know, you not from here,” she said with a dark smile. “You from a better place.”

There was a commotion at the corner of the house, and I saw Renatta, Caelen and Thomas disappear with one of the Daily Ladies.

“There’s kids still in there,” Calico called out, turning on her heels and running.

I took off my jacket and Mrs. Dalcour pumped more water while I wet it, wincing while I pulled it back on. Barkley came to do the same and then we both lifted the bucket by the handle and hurried towards the front of the house as fast as we could go.

I was going to ask if anyone had called a fire department or if there was a kind of league of volunteers. But I gathered it was more or less assumed to be a done deal by the screams and wailing of the nuns and children standing and watching the smoke pouring out of the windows.

Caelen and Thomas needed no prompting for what to do with the water. They stripped off their shirts and dunked them, while Renatta removed her outer coat.

“Yer not going back in,” Caelen said.

“I am the eldest,” Renatta countered. “And I have very good hearing. The children may need me.”

“Not much longer,” Thomas said, frowning at the volume of soot gushing out of the third floor. He gasped and pointed. There were two children who were trying to get someone’s attention out of the window. I could see they were motioning to something behind them. And then they disappeared. Barkley ran towards the main entrance and we all followed.

Renatta used cloth on the doorknob, but allowed Thomas to open the door. The noise had been muted until there was an open passageway, but now we could hear the roar of it from above. Half of the broad staircase was burning up the railing, but the other side was still completely clear and we quickly moved towards it while looking up to plan our path. The landing where Aureliano and Isaac had performed was still alright, but the ceiling above looked like a living painting of a dancing dragon; oranges and stripes of red twisting amongst slithering smoke.

“Be watchful,” Renatta said absently, taking a tentative step upwards.

“You don’t have to,” Thomas said nodding back.

“Go!” she commanded.

Caelen was calling out to the children when we got to the first landing and we all joined in by the time we’d reached the second floor. Renatta pointed the way down the corridor, away from the fire and then lead us into a tiny stairwell with miniaturized steps.

“Try not to breath, not in the stairwells themselves,” Francesca said, coming up behind us. Thomas waved for her to go back, but she gestured wildly for him to keep on climbing.

We all rushed, aware that seconds counted, and I prayed that when I got to the third floor I’d be able to take a breath. When we arrived, the flames were the worst at the back of the building, probably being fed by the wall that climbed up from the kitchen. Barkley picked up a chair and smashed out the frame of a window, ducking down afterwards to avoid the moving cloud of smoke that was rushing to escape. He dared to do the same to the next window but lost the chair at the same time.

Near the far end of the building, we saw small legs moving through intermittent breaks in the smoke.

Renatta pointed from herself towards the kids and Caelen shook his head. She seemed to turn away in disgust, but instead she launched forward, pulling her jacket up over her hair. Caelen lunged to snag her but he missed. Her legs disappeared into the haze. Caelen grabbed my jacket and slung it over himself, running after her while staying as low to the ground as possible.

An eerie creak screeched all around us and suddenly we felt a jolt as the floor shifted. The building lurched as if it had just been hooked up to a moving train.

“Timber’s going,” Thomas yelled, pointing downward. The volume of the roar had increased. Within seconds, I could feel a vent of hot air wafting up at us through the stairwell.

“Something changed,” I said, pointing. Francesca grabbed me and pulled me down the steps behind her. I was protesting, thinking I should help the others but also feeling guilty that I was relieved to get away from the diminishing area above. As we returned to the second floor, we saw that the fire on the far side of the steps was now consuming the wall and had made its way to the front windows.

“How long before it cuts off the stairs?” Francesca asked, glancing up.

“Look!” I said, pointing to Caelen who had come into view at the east end of the building, heading down an adjacent stairwell. He was carrying a little boy over his shoulder and Renatta was on his heels, guiding a little girl. He pointed up and Francesca and I wheeled, realizing that we had to warn the others to get out.

We were yelling all the way, but it wasn’t until we reached the top and motioned to Thomas and Calico that we could convey the message.

“Barkley… gone on,” Thomas yelled, sending Calico and us away while he began crawling to where he thought Barkley was. Once again, we made it back to the second floor and once again I got halfway down the stairs to the main foyer when I heard him.

“Trinder!” I turned and saw Thomas on the landing, the same one where Isaac and Aureliano had stood. Thomas was trying to support Barkley, who was coughing and sputtering and struggling to walk. I went back up to him and braced myself on the other side of Barkley while Thomas indicated for me to pick up his leg so we could carry him.

It was likely our combined weight that did it.

On the first step off of the landing, everything shifted; the support gave out and Thomas and Barkley slid towards the left and into the flames consuming that side of the steps, while I jerked right and grabbed the banister. I fought for my grip on the railing, and flailed my other arm to maintain contact with Barkley.

Rolls of smoke wafted around me and stung my eyes and I tried to bob my head so I could breathe air that wasn’t full of ash. In a blur, I saw Rufus and Caelen bounding up the steps below me, arms pummeling over each other. Barkley slumped towards them and then I saw Thomas being yanked up as well, his jacket and pants on fire.

I glanced over my shoulder and saw the others were at the open door, ready with another bucket of water and Thomas got soaked thoroughly before he’d even been dragged through the door. I was frozen, still hanging onto the banister rail like a captain clinging to the mast of his sinking ship.

Renatta waited till the others had passed her and then waved me to come forward. What she couldn’t see was that the next board down had caved in as well. I reached ahead with my foot, cinching my way down the railing, struggling to get a firm footing.

“Hurry, Liam!” Caelen said. “Come down right now.”

I was the only one to see it happen. Caelen stepped forward towards me just as the facing board from the second floor walkway broke off. It pivoted, swinging down like an axe, knocking him to the floor. Renatta was the closest. She wheeled around and ducked under the burning plank, grabbing the fabric of his jacket to try to drag him towards the door.

Adrenaline surged inside me and I gripped the railing as hard as I could, using the spindles to descend sideways like a spider skidding into the center of its web. My foot touched the next board and I righted myself with only four steps to go.

The railing board was still burning and I saw the back of Renatta’s dress catch on fire. I yelled but she didn’t hear me. She had Caelen turned around with his head pointing towards the door when the other end of the board suddenly gave way. It struck her shoulders and I saw her go limp as the heavy beam took her to the floor and pinned her onto Caelen’s legs.

My scream got sucked into the thunder of the fire. I don’t remember thinking about it, but I must have jumped right over the burning board. I know I tried to grab Renatta’s shoulders to pull her out from under the beam but the heat was too much. I moved to Caelen and dug my hand under his armpit to get a grip on this shoulder. With Renatta and the wood on top of him, I was only succeeding in pulling him inches at a time.

I turned for more help and saw that there were flames at the doorway. Marijka was on the other side, pointing.

I had to do something to get the board off of them. I darted to the left and kept low to the ground until I reached the end of the facing board that wasn’t yet burning. I held my breath and lifted it, shuffling forward and hoping that I had freed them both, praying that I’d gone far enough before the weight became too much for me. I looked to my right and saw Calico and Gwendolyn, waving. I released the board and as I let it crash down I saw a fresh line of sparks vault up from where it shuddered onto the floor.

Calico was screaming and Gwendolyn was yelling Caelen’s name, trying to rouse him while struggling to move his body. I rushed to the other side of him to help pull him forward, while Calico tugged on his shins, freeing one leg and then the other.

But it was most horrifying to see that there was nothing we could do for Renatta. Pinned by the wood and totally unaware, her clothes were engulfed in flames and her hair was singed all the way up to her smoldering bonnet.

Marijka appeared at the door with a bucket of water and Calico rushed to help her soak the doorway and toss the remainder onto Caelen’s legs just as Gwendolyn and I got him out to the porch. Marijka was screaming and pointing at Renatta, still left inside.

I looked back at Renatta and saw a frightening white electricity suddenly flash over her body. It arced upward until it became a peach-colored shimmer bubble. The flames around her appeared to speed up and then stop, detaching from Renatta’s body as though a cold wind had whipped across a field and extinguished a campfire. She was left peacefully inside her sphere as if she were sleeping with her face against the earth. In three heartbeats, she had vanished.

The burning beam remained suspended in mid air for a couple of seconds after Renatta’s shimmer bubble burst and then lurched downward. It landed defiantly along the foot of the steps, flames surging higher around it as though whetting its appetite for the wooden staircase.

“She’s gone, Marijka! Just gone,” I said, still staring. I felt Marijka grab my sleeve and when I turned, I saw her shielding her eyes from the fire. “Where are the others?” I yelled.

“Thomas has left,” Marijka said, heaving in air to speak amidst her sobs. “Francesca, too… right in front of Madame Dalcour.”

I looked up and saw the nuns and Daily Ladies comforting the children farther down the driveway. Two farm workers were running up the lane towards the house.

“We gotta get Caelen around the corner,” I said, feeling exposed and on display at the front of the building. “We can’t all go like this.”

“Caelen,” Gwendolyn said, urgently trying to rouse him, even as we all struggled with his limbs, clumsily moving him. When we got around the corner of the house, I saw Rufus helping Barkley, leaning his brother’s back against the base of the pump.

“They’re in Imogene’s shed, in the tool box,” Rufus yelled out to me, just as he and Barkley’s shimmer bubbles arced around them and then joined together to become one larger green one. I turned back to see if anyone was following us and when I spun back, the twins were gone.

As we set Caelen down, he moaned and his eyes opened.

“You’re alive, Caelen,” I said, still thinking about Renatta. He looked over at Gwendolyn. She smiled at him and his mouth curled a bit, before he started coughing. Marijka went to get him water while Gwendolyn helped him prop up on one elbow, but Marijka had barely gotten the pump going when I heard the warning.

“Get back,” Gwendolyn said, standing with a look of concern on her face as she pulled her hands to her chest.

Even though Gwedolyn had managed to step ten feet away, both she and Caelen shimmered almost simultaneously.

“We’re going fast,” Calico said before the other two had even disappeared.

“Imogene!” I yelled desperately. I looked through the darkness beyond the fire’s glow into the wavering shadows of the trees. “We gotta tell Imogene…”

I noticed Marijka staring towards the back of the kitchen. The roof on Isaac’s room had caved in. But on the green grass that lead to the storm door, there was no sign of Sister Vellena.

“She’s gone, too,” Marijka said, bewildered.

“Liam!” Calico said, nudging me in the ribs.

I turned and saw Imogene and I ran towards her, not caring if I had to chase her down.

“You gotta tell Capucine a secret,” I said. “The books are in the toolbox in your shed. Can you remember that? And promise? Please?”

Imogene nodded and then pointed behind me.

Calico was shimmering away. Marijka stared in wonderment and then ran over towards me.

“Do you think we get to go home?” she asked. “I’m scared. Renatta… she looked like… It feels like we failed.”

“I hope so, Marijka,” I said, “I don’t think we’d be going anywhere if we had failed. It’ll be okay!” I wanted to believe it, even with the fire right beside us and even as the vision of Renatta was still fresh in my mind, too. I was sure she’d been unconscious but I couldn’t tell how badly burned she’d been when she left. I knew I couldn’t tell Marijka. I mustered a smile and she reached out and took my hand.

“I like you, Liam,” she said.

“Me you too,” I said.

I felt Imogene brush past my arm as she took off, running for the drive. Two carriages were rattling in, their horses shying at the sight of the fire, prancing in protest. I began to run after Imogene and turned to see if Marijka was coming. Her face was turned towards the lane, but her eyes were locked in place. She froze and I knew she was shimmering.

“Imogene!” I shouted, catching up to her as she was about to round the corner. I saw the Monsignor descend from his carriage before it had even stopped. He ran towards the building, his mouth and eyes contorting and dissolving in pain like melting candle wax. He fell to his knees, distraught. Capucine and Isaac were running close behind.

And Aureliano?

“Please go and tell her, in the shed inside the toolbox,” I begged Imogene. “You know they can’t see me when I leave. Please?”

Isaac was jumping up and down in excitement and Capucine was struggling to hold him back, even though her face was utterly stunned. One of the nuns came to help her with Isaac, and I watched as Imogene ran up and touched her back. Capucine stopped and she looked my way as Imogene leaned into her ear.

I felt it coming. I tried to smile and Capucine and I had just enough time for a final exchange. I waved and watched her slowly raise her hand. Her palm was facing me and extended, almost as if she were reaching out to touch something too distant to grasp, like a dream of something that she had seen dancing in the flames.

The fire beside me went white hot and then cooled in a blazing mist, disappearing along with the vision of Capucine standing with the others as their world changed forever.