This can’t be happening. Cherie, numbed by a sense of unreality, wondered if any of this could be real. She hadn’t always been good to her sister. If only she could take back every mean thing she’d ever said or done.
A shout rose from the crowd when Jack appeared at the large windows on the second floor. He pushed them open with a mighty shove and leaned out over the ground. He held out a small, bundled blanket in his blackened gloves.
Several men dropped their buckets and rushed forward, but James got there first. He caught his nephew before he could land on the ground. Flames, fed by the fresh air, roared in the window behind Jack. A sharp pain in Cherie's gut doubled her with misery.
Cherie's mother ran to her grandson. Once the babe was safe in her arms she walked to her home, not looking back at the inferno certain to have stolen one of her daughters.
Jack appeared at the window once more, in his arms a much larger shape covered in a smoldering quilt. Cherie’s father joined his son and together they caught the figure before she could hit the ground. They carried her back to the fountain to see if any signs of life remained.
“Jack, get out of there,” Cherie whispered, terrified of what might come next. She didn’t see him through the smoke that had taken over the window once her sister had been dropped.
With a roar, the roof and upper floor collapsed. For a second, the smoke cleared from the open door and Cherie thought she could make out a large boot on the ground near the frame. Pushing forward, she her arms were captured by the village preacher, a thin, dour man with a voice that droned everyone to sleep Sundays at the village chapel.
“Come away, girl. There’s nothing that can be done.”
Too miserable to protest, she swept his face with her nails and he lost his grip of her. She got as far as two yards from the door. There was movement inside--she was certain she could see him. It was his foot just there on the inside of the door. She threw herself on the ground and crawled into the entrance. Grabbing his ankle, she tried to shift him. His size made him too heavy for her to move. Screaming for help, others crouched forward against the inferno to help her. She passed out.
****
“Wake up. Please, wake up.” Water dabbed her face. She looked into Alyssia’s eyes. With a start she came to her knees. They were outside and she could hear the crackling of the fire still feasting on the butcher’s grand house.
“You’re alright?” She touched Alyssia’s singed hair and smoke blackened cheek. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“Yes, though soaking wet. Jack poured water over me and my baby, wrapped us both in the wet bedclothes. I was so scared I passed out.”
Cherie took her sister’s shoulders in her hands. “And Jack?”
Her sister’s eyes went to the ground. “They’ve sent for a doctor, but his hair was on fire and his clothes. When they pulled him out, he was burning.” She put her head in her hands and sobbed.
Cherie got up, the first hint of dawn was in the east and she looked out over the square, with its large common lawn. Buckets had been left scattered all over it, everyone having given up on the the still burning house. Over by the fountain she spotted a clutch of people. As her mind cleared she recognized a form on the ground that could only be Jack.
She went as quickly as she dared in her bare feet--where had her boots gotten too? The preacher was by Jack’s side, attempting to gently peel off linen and leather fused to his skin and still smoking. Jack’s face was black with soot. Cherie sickened with the thought of what damage might lay under that dark mask.
“What should I do to help?” she asked.
Reverend Andrew, a timid man, started at the request of a certain young hellion who had already raked his face with her claws. He swallowed. “Pray for him. That he might pass quickly and not wake to the pain.”
“No. No.” She shook her head. Then her eyes shined with rising comprehension. “That’s not how it is.” She smiled and ripped the hem of her nightgown to wet and clean him. “He will live—I know it now.”
That day her family took him into their home with Cherie as his personal nurse.
As she placed salve and new bandages over his oozing blisters, she thought of how long her vision had haunted her, terrorized her. Every time she stepped out at night she thought that the monster would be hiding behind a tree or a bush, ready to grab her and steal her away from everything and everyone she loved. She imagined some dank dungeon where he would keep her, beat and whip her until she surrendered herself up to him. In dreams she screamed and broke her hands hitting against the stone walls of her cell.
She didn't imagine that the man who would be her husband could have possibly won her heart first.
****
“Hand me a mirror!” His fingers touched his face and he flinched. In the weeks after the fire, though in agony, Jack had been strong and complained little even during the brutal pain of the changing of his bandages. But in this request Cherie knew he was weak.
Though inevitable, Cherie dreaded the moment,. The fire had taken ears, hair, and part of his nose. He lived. He was the very image now of the man in her vision. And Cherie understood that she had nothing to fear from him. In fact with every day, she grew to love him more for his bravery and selflessness. But she knew he was also human, and a man so disfigured would fear being outcast from his fellow man.
Cherie mustered every bit of love she felt for him and let it shine on her face. “Jack, listen to me.” She took his hand in hers. His eyes, one lid still swollen almost shut, searched out hers.
“I am the only mirror that you will ever need.”
She pressed his hands to her lips, caressing them with a gossamer touch. Not a monster but her own true love.
###
From April Grey:
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