The Turnout(100)

“Yes,” Marie said sleepily. “I remember.”

Dara didn’t know what made her think of it. Maybe it was Marie’s feet brushing against her feet, trying to stay warm.

“The Fire Eater was my favorite,” Dara said, pressing her arches against Marie’s hard skin. “And the Sword Swallower was yours.”

“They were the same,” Marie said softly.

Dara’s feet went still. “What?”

“They were the same woman,” Marie said, her sleepy voice, the words coming slowly and never quite finishing.

“What?” Dara asked, wondering if she was dreaming.

“I saw her once,” Marie said, her feet wrapping around Dara’s, warming them. “Changing her costume behind the stage.”

“They were the same?” Dara repeated, needing to be sure.

“They were the same.”





FIRE, SNOW


The dream came fast—moments, it seemed, after she closed her eyes, Marie curled up beside her. They were at the carnival, watching the Sword Swallower in the sideshow tent.

She was tall and grand, with scars around her mouth like hatch marks, like tribal signs.

The swoosh as she raised the sword, hoisting it high above her head. Then, bending her knees, springing herself into a spin, head whipping around in a pirouette.

One turn, two turns, then suddenly the sword became a torch and, stopping, she was no longer the Sword Swallower but the Fire Eater, scars around her mouth like hatch marks, like tribal signs.

Her arms mighty and rounded, lifted up over her head, forming a perfect oval. Her arms corded red and invulnerable, holding the torch high, so high it reached the sagging top of the tent.

The canvas, scarlet and gold, above them and suddenly shuddering with fire.

Dara, we have to go! We have to go! It’s time!

How she reached for Marie’s hand but couldn’t find her, the heat coming down like a vibration.

Opening her eyes, she thought she could still see it.

Waves of fire rolling across the ceiling, fingers of fire stretching to all corners.

I’m burning. My body is burning.



* * *



*

Is it morning, her eyes pinching, the room bright as noon but the clock saying four a.m. And then remembering the bedroom window faced west and dawn never came in there.

“Dara, we have to go! We have to go! It’s time!”

It was Marie, her hands on Dara, lifting her.

And she was on her feet and the room suddenly fell dark and her mouth filled with stench. The door open, the hallway black and her hand on the wall, her palm sticking to the hot plaster, and Marie pulling her, pulling her so her arm felt it might leave its socket.

The floorboards burned under her feet and she was running, Marie’s hand clamped to her wrist, pulling her down the stairs, stumbling to the entryway and the jussssssh of air sucking them in, gasping to hold them, and Marie nearly dragging them forward, nearly yanking Dara’s arm from its socket, across the threshold and out the door.



* * *



*

A swarm of fire trucks, a police car, outside, a neighbor must have called, great white tides of smoke, rolling across their house, swallowing their house, swallowing everything.



* * *



*

It might have been fifteen minutes or two hours, the hushed awe of neighbors in flannel pajamas, a little boy in mouse-paw slippers crying loudly, mournfully, the whine of sirens, a chemical smell in the air of singed metal, melting plastic, burning foam, but the fire was gone, leaving a heavy black streak up the center of their house.

What was left of their house, its center sunken, its cavity exposed: buckled floorboards, snaky wires, a few remaining rafters like fingers pointing and white ash like confetti shaking from its rafters.

Shivering under a heavy blanket someone had draped over her, Dara stared at it in wonder. How small it looked, how diminished. Like looking at a fuzzy Polaroid from childhood, like stepping into your kindergarten classroom again, its furniture like matchsticks under your feet.

“You’re so calm,” a neighbor was saying to her.

“She’s in shock,” whispered another.

She turned and looked at them, a white-haired couple in matching robes. Holding hands, their bony knuckles knocking against each other.

“I’m okay,” she said. Because she was, though she couldn’t say how, or why.

But she was looking past them at Marie in the distance.

Marie, except her blond hair was black, black streaks running up one arm.

Sitting in the back of the fire truck, an oxygen mask over her face, mottled legs dangling, she was waving at Dara, waving her over. Come here. Hurry. It’s time!

Dara waved back and began walking toward her, the blanket falling from her shoulders.

Breathe. Breathe.



* * *



*

The firemen were talking about the gas furnace, the flue. Years of junk caught in there. Old leaves, a bird’s nest, dead mice.

Flame rollout, they were calling it. Flue gets jammed up, flames escape and roll out like a great wave.

It’s a shame how much junk people keep in their basement, right by that combustion chamber and I always tell my dad, the flame should be clean and blue.