“Mabel’s checking!”
Another bell joined the chime of the hotel bell as the fire truck pulled up to the scene. “Out,” he urged. “I’ll see to Mabel, and you get him to safety.”
I nodded and caught Tomás when he slid down the last step to the lobby. It was mostly clear in there. Everything looked fine, except for how there was no one sitting on the chaise by the tearoom, and there was no one in the restaurant, and there was nobody getting coffee for the porch. Everyone was outside, and some of those people had been lucky enough to grab a few belongings before escaping. I had my purse and my carpetbag hanging across my torso and around my neck, and I had Tomás hanging across my shoulder. That was all I could carry.
My muscles strained, but I am strong. I am stout. And Tomás was now upright and a little more alert than before. His feet were working again, but they were working slowly.
“Faster,” I urged him.
“There’s no fire down here . . .”
I don’t think we heard each other. It was hard to hear anything over the bells.
• • •
(WE would need one more bell if we were going to do all this in threes. One was left in Harmony Hall; isn’t that what Dolores said?)
• • •
MABEL and Mr. Rowe came swooping up behind us, encouraging us forward. “The second floor is lost,” Mabel said.
Mr. Rowe added, “It’s all coming down, sooner rather than later!”
With their help, I got Tomás the rest of the way outside and down the porch—where we could feel the heat from the fires above, and hear them even with the din of the bells. There was a crackling, fizzing sound that ran through the background; there were flickers of spark and ash as the cinders came out from the broken windows and blew out into the night.
Tomás muttered into my neck and along my shoulder, “Not real fire. Not a normal fire. They don’t . . . they don’t move like this . . .” The rest of what he mumbled was in Spanish, so I didn’t understand it.
“Come along, Tomás. You can do this. We’re almost there.”
We lured him down the sidewalk and into the street, like we’d taken Dr. Floyd. It was far enough away to be safe, and we were all gasping for air, coughing, needing to rest. All of us, even the people who’d been inside, who now stared openmouthed in horror at the hotel—as it blossomed into something unearthly and bright.
One by one the last windows shattered, and the flaming curtains billowed outward. One by one the rooms collapsed, and the hotel shuddered to its knees. First the south corner, then the north. The other two followed.
The fire truck had arrived, and no one cared, except the people with homes nearby. There was nothing to be done for the hotel, so the firemen concentrated on keeping the rest of the town wet—spraying water on rooftops so the traveling cinders had no place to catch, and soaking down the grass, the porches, and the trees.
Dolores called for everyone’s attention, loudly enough to be heard over the confusion. I hadn’t realized her voice was so powerful. I’d never heard her speak above an ordinary voice, but when she shouted . . . my God, the whole world heard her.
“Everyone, please—into the bookstore and the fellowship hall. Everyone!” She received a collection of confused stares in return, so she hollered it again and I took up the cause.
“Everyone!” I added my less impressive voice to the mix, and I helped Tomás to his feet. He was holding Felipe again, so it was more awkward this time, but I got him to hand the dog off to Mabel so I could walk him over to the bookstore, up the steps, and inside, where the lights were low, but they weren’t on fire. “We will need every last one of you!”
Gradually, people turned away from the burning hotel. Reluctantly, they left it.
Believe me, I understood. The inferno was a spectacle to behold, but there were still plenty of buildings left to burn, and it was time to put a stop to it. All of it.
“Tomás?”
He looked at me with dull, tired confusion. “Alice?”
“We’re going to fix this. We’re going to fix it right now.”
He wanted to believe me, but he didn’t. Not quite. It was written all over his face. “Now? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” I lied. “We know what to do. All we have to do now . . . is do it.” It came out sounding silly, but I couldn’t think of a better way to say it, and he got the gist.
He leaned on me heavily, but he put his own two feet—one in front of the other—all the way into the fellowship hall, where paintings of sunflowers decorated the walls, and Mr. Colby was seated at the front of the room. A cane rested atop his knees. His hands were as spindly as twigs on a winter-dead tree. His hair was as white as the halos of the saints. But he was there, and he was ready.
More ready than the rest of us, thank Spirit.
Somebody had to be.
26
TOMÁS CORDERO
Cassadaga, Florida
THE FELLOWSHIP HALL’S lights were turned down low, like usual—or like the last time I’d been there, when Alice read me, and frightened me, and confused me. Now it was not only dark but also very crowded. There was scarcely room to stand, and barely room for the anxious people to pace in small circles or fret back and forth, from foot to foot. They grasped one another and whispered and cried. They prayed, and they called upon their spirit guides and helpers. They’d been staying at the hotel, or they had loved the hotel. As I understand it, the place been the center of the town for decades, and now it is gone. One way or another, that is my fault.
Either no one knew that I was the source of their difficulties, or everyone was too kind to make any accusations. I didn’t know most of them. I hardly knew the people I recognized, for I’d been in town only a few short days (though it seemed like a lifetime); but I saw a few faces from the train, and a few from my introductions around town. I was among strangers, but they were not unfriendly strangers. They were only frightened.
I did not see David Fine. The police had taken him away, and I wished they hadn’t. He ought to have been there with everyone else. He belonged there more than I did. He certainly understood the danger of my presence better than anyone else. But he was absent and this, too, is my fault.
I reclaimed Felipe from Mabel, who was holding him like a casserole dish fresh from the oven. I’m sure she is a good and loving woman, but heaven bless her—she had no idea what to do with a dog. He cuddled into my good arm, attached to my strong shoulder, which was unpunctured by bullets. I patted him with the other hand, and I whispered to him in Spanish. I think he likes it when I do that. It is probably a simple matter, and the language is more familiar to him than English.
He sighed and buried his head in my shirt.
• • •
THIS shirt was one of my own. The last one I owned, for the moment, though thank God or Spirit or whoever that my wallet was in the pocket of my jacket. I could buy more clothes or buy the material to make my own. I distracted myself by thinking of what I would do if my shop in Ybor City had not burned to the ground. What cuts would I use? What would Silvio recommend? I’ve always appreciated his opinion. What would Emilio . . .
• • •
I quit daydreaming.
It would only make me cry, and Felipe needed someone strong. I could not be strong for Cassadaga, but I could be strong for him.
• • •
ALICE is strong. She’s not very tall, but she’s as sturdy as a boulder. She carried me from the hotel or she dragged me, however you choose to look at it. I could not have made the short journey across the street without her. Without her, I would lie in the middle of the hotel’s flaming coals and shattered timbers. Without her, I would be lost.
She stood beside me, protective as always, trying to give me breathing room that the crowded space could not easily provide. It was growing quite warm in the hall. The air
outside was cool enough, for Florida’s winter, but the fire across the street was cooking the whole block, and the frightened press of people clustering together. Their breath, their fear, their whispers. All so warm, and all so close.
Dr. Holligoss appeared and seemed vaguely appalled that I was out of bed—then he swiftly shook his head and was quick to say, “I’m so glad you aren’t in the hotel. I remembered the pills I gave you, and I was afraid . . . but I’m glad you made it out.”
“Did everyone?” asked a woman behind me.
Mr. Rowe replied, “I believe so, but I cannot say for certain. So many people were at the prayer meeting. So many people were down at the lake.”
• • •
“HOW did the fire begin?”
“Where did the fire begin?”
“What will we do? Everything we had was inside . . .”
• • •
THROUGH the window we could all see the glow of the hotel—truly an apocalypse, by now—even though we were across the street and on the far side of the building in which we cowered. The light from the enormous fire was brighter than the moon by far, and harsher than the gaslights and lanterns that were scattered throughout the hall.
Behind all of this claustrophobic terror, the bells were ringing.
Such awful bells they were, not Sunday church bells or tinkling wedding bells, but fire bells—metal beating on metal to no tune, no rhythm except the incessant, mind-numbing gong, again and again and again, so hard and so fast, and so loud.
It was strange, then, how we all were able to hear the feeble Mr. Colby when he rose from his chair, leaned on his cane, and declared to the room at large: “Thank you all for being here. We need you all—each and every one. We need elevation and prayers, and we need”—he coughed weakly into the back of his hand—“our community.”
Everyone fell silent, except for the bells. Everyone listened, even me. Especially me.
“We have an intruder,” said Mr. Colby. “He came uninvited, attached to a visitor who came here seeking assistance. Although this visitor is welcome and blameless, the intruder he carried is a dangerous spirit, bent on our destruction.”
Dolores Brigham stepped onto the low stage to stand beside him. Her voice was much stronger, and it carried better past the clanging bells and the hushed, horrified chatter that rolled around the room. “We have reason to believe that he is the revenant of a German cleric, a notorious inquisitor who literally wrote the book on identifying, prosecuting, and punishing witches.”
“But how can we know that’s right?” I muttered.
“Oh, we’re right,” Alice muttered back.
“How can you be certain?”
She shuffled through the press of the crowd to face me, then held up her arm for me to see the injury she’d kept hidden thus far. It was a nasty burn, a sprawling thing that went from wrist to elbow, coiling from the underside of her arm to the top. It looked too deliberate to be random.
It looked like . . .
“Because,” she hissed. “He signed his name on the mess he’s made. He left me the ‘H’ for ‘Heinrich,’ or for ‘hammer.’ That’s what he calls himself: the hammer.”
It was hard to argue with her, in part because yes—it looked like a signature. And in part because I could not read it and did not know what it said. She was as likely to be correct as she was to be wrong. It was too much to hope, really.
Any hope was too much. I instinctively distrusted it.
Dolores Brigham continued. “This man believed in trials by fire, and he believes he’s found a nest of witchcraft. He means to burn this place to the ground, building by building. He means to kill us all if he can.”
“He believes that he’s doing God’s work,” Mr. Colby said gently.
• • •
ALWAYS so gentle, that one. More gentle than Valero, I think. Even in the face of unfathomable darkness and fiery extinction, he looks for grace. This man should be numbered among the saints. What would his symbols be? Who would pray for him?
A pentacle. A cup. A wand.
The accused. The bedeviled. The lost.
• • •
MY new friend is not so gentle, but there are saints for that, too. Peter was a notorious brawler. Longinus had his spear. The French girl, Joan, who led an army before she died in the same flames that would take us, too.
Alice would do them proud, I think.
• • •
SHE cried out, “No!” and stomped up to the platform, rejecting the forgiving spirit of Mr. Colby. She took her place by his side, where everyone could see her. “No, no, this monster doesn’t think he’s doing God’s will—he’s doing his own will, chasing and torturing and killing innocent people, just like he did when he was alive. Maybe he used to hide behind God, and act with a church’s authority. But I think he was a maniac. He’s even worse now that he’s dead, and we shouldn’t feel any great sympathy for him. He’ll destroy us if we let him.”
“But we won’t. We won’t let him,” Dolores said, placing a hand on Alice’s shoulder.
“How will we stop him?” asked a young woman—so young I am tempted to call her a girl. She was shivering, hugging herself with a shawl. She had escaped the fire in her nightdress. She was barefoot, and her feet were covered in soot and sand.
“We are going to banish this thing, using the best weapons in our spiritual arsenal. We will call upon the help of three spirits.” As Mr. Colby said this, the bell over at Harmony Hall began to ring, joining the other two and raising the din even higher, louder. It was miserable, and I could not imagine how it could help. “And three bells.”
Dolores Brigham said, “We do have a plan. We must not panic.”
“We will all sit together,” he said. “We will pray, and concentrate, and call upon every good guide we’ve ever known. We must elevate ourselves with love.”
The girl raised her voice again. “Is that how we’ll find the three spirits?”
Dolores, Alice, and Mr. Colby looked back and forth at one another, and my stomach sank. It might have been ungenerous of me, and it might’ve been a ridiculous pessimism on my part—but I knew on the spot that they had no idea how to go about finding these spirits, or any confidence that their efforts would work at all. But I had to be strong for Felipe, who was shaking again. I patted him and wrapped him in my arms, even though my shoulder was as stiff as a rod and scarcely wanted to move.
I was still groggy; that might’ve been it. There were pills, and they were making me slow and sad, and hopeless.
“Mediums, please gather over here.” Dolores indicated one of the long banquet tables. “Clairvoyants, here—and here.” There were more clairvoyants than mediums, apparently. “Other assorted talents, over here. Interested devotees who lack higher abilities . . . I want you all to gather and proceed single file to the pavilion.”
Protests rattled around the room, but she waved them down.
“We need you at the church for two reasons: One, we need your prayers and your positive energy—every last bit of it. Two, there’s nothing at the pavilion to burn. Only the canvas sheets and the columns, and the pews, I suppose. It’s the closest thing to a safe place we can offer, and from there, you can lend us your energy. Do we have any meditation guides who are willing to lead?”
Several hands were raised, and with a little negotiating, about half the people in the fellowship hall were able to leave in a quiet, orderly procession. The rest of us could breathe again. Everyone spread out and moved wherever Dolores directed.
I was surprised at how well it had worked. It almost gave me hope.
(But not really. Not quite.)
Now there were three groups, and much more room. I joined the group on the platform stage, where Mr. Colby had returned to his seat. I asked, “How can I help?”
“Join our circle,” the old man said.
“Sit with us and help us raise energy.”
“What about these three spirits?”
“This is how we reach them.” Dolores Brigham took my hand and directed me to sit cross-legged on the floor. “By meeting them on their plane, by reaching their level and showing our intentions. This is how we seek their grace.”
So while the people at the medium table sought out spirits to guide them, and the clairvoyants at their tables meditated toward solutions, I took Alice’s hand with my sore arm and Mr. Colby’s hand with the one that didn’t hurt. (Felipe climbed into my lap and curled up there.) Dolores closed the circle by taking a seat across from me and clasping the remaining hands of Alice and Mr. Colby.
Around us the bells rang, and the people bargained or conspired with the dead. Beyond the doors of the fellowship hall the hotel burned to the ground, and a hundred people sang songs down by the lake, praying for angels.
“It’s something to do with the water,” said Dolores to me.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You were wondering about the lake, and why they should pray there. The lake itself is no more sacred than any other body of water, but it does something . . . It”—she hunted for a word—“amplifies something, like a phonograph’s horn or a radio’s antenna.”
Mr. Colby added, “We don’t know why, or what the mechanism is. Only that it matters. Now. In this circle, Mr. Cordero, you are the phonograph’s horn, the radio’s antenna. You were the focus of this man’s attention. He tricked you, and he lured you here. He may hear you more clearly than he hears us.”
“Should I . . . call to him?”
“Yes,” he said firmly.
At the exact same moment, Alice said, “No.”
The old man smiled at her. “If we bring him close, we keep him away from those at the church. If we bring him close and accept the danger ourselves, the spirits may be more likely to hear our calls—for our peril will be the greatest.”
“You want to bring him here so we look the most desperate?” she asked incredulously. Her hand was sweaty in mine.