CHAPTER 1
Life has a way of showing someone who they are in spite of their best efforts to be otherwise. For example, Franny Hummel had not planned on becoming a mother that evening.
Franny was a woman of routine and found herself anxious when she deviated too far from it. She rarely had guests, and if she did, it would be one or two at a time, always departing at a reasonable hour once Franny began to blow out candles. She was quiet, tidy, and prided herself on her low cost of maintenance.
And yet, she was a reader of novels. She devoured them one by one, and in that way, fancied herself an adventurer. She would have been a great heroine, she imagined, had she not been so comfortable where she was. Had she ever found a reason, she could have taken off into the night to find her fairytale.
Instead, she had found Stephen, her late husband of many years. Theirs was not a passionate affair, but she had preferred it that way. They had been friendly to each other all of Stephen’s life, and their disagreements were unpleasant, but never very eventful. She had loved him a great deal and missed the old shared habits that had come along with their age. He had been a kind man, and he had left her a comfortable house and some money to finish out her time. Though her life had been free from much adventure, it had also been free from much devastation. It had been pleasant, and she was content. And she always had books.
On this cool, quiet evening - one that had been preceded by a day of autumn weed-pulling - Franny had been reluctant to retire to her bedroom, having acquired a new edition of a novel she had read twice already. Franny consumed seven chapters before drifting to sleep in her overstuffed chair. It was the only item of furniture in her living room that needed reupholstering, but she hated to let go of the comfortable, worn-in fabric upon which Stephen had so devotedly reclined in the evenings. It still smelled vaguely of him - cedar chips, coffee, wool. In her last moments before sleeping it was not the novel that swam around in her descending consciousness, but him. In her dreams, he did not always know he was dead. In those half-conscious moments sometimes she, too, could forget.
The fire was low, but her garden’s sage resting just beside the embers continued to gently smolder as she slept, leaving the house fragrant with its scent. Her grandmother had burned this species of sage, and the smell reminded Franny of early spring evenings in that old cottage with the garden full of weeds and the moonlight shining through the window.
The fire leapt, but Franny remained undisturbed in her sleep. It burned hotter and brighter, climbing up the chimney and licking the edges of the fireplace. The wood crackled and split and the rug began to singe. A figure appeared in the inferno and stepped quietly out of the fire, which then shrank back into its coals upon her exit. The small figure stood still, tendrils of fire snaking around her bare body and settling into her freckled skin. Her knees bent, and she crumpled to the floor.
The sound woke Franny with a start, and she nearly toppled over in her chair when she spotted the naked child on the rug before her.
“What in gods’ names!” she exclaimed, dropping the book and climbing over the armrest to get to her feet. How spry of you, she thought to herself. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she felt she was frozen in place. Her voice seemed to come from a mile within her.
“Who are you?”
The girl did not move or speak. Franny grabbed her book and held it defensively, then leaned forward to get a better look. The young girl’s honey-toned face, neck, shoulders, and arms were dotted with shimmering, golden freckles, and the glow beneath them was steady and warm. Her thick, wild hair was saffron red that flickered golden in the low firelight. Most unusual.
Franny looked around. Her door was securely shut and bolted. There were no broken windows. The most obvious (and yet the most absurd) answer was that the girl had come from the fireplace before which she now lay.
“Surely not,” Franny said. “Hello?” she called from halfway behind her chair. The girl still did not move.
I have no idea what to do. Been a while.
“Young lady?”
Nothing.
Franny uncoiled from behind the chair and took a step toward the girl, who looked to be between five and six years of age.
“Do you need help?”
Franny cringed at her own words. An obvious question with an obvious answer to an obviously unconscious person.
“Oh for heaven’s sake.” Franny huffed and stepped decisively toward the girl. She knelt down and touched her shoulder. The girl’s skin trembled beneath her hand, startling Franny, but she did not wake. Franny, having jerked her hand away, slowly placed it against the girl’s skin once more. It was burning up.
“Oh dear.” Franny stood and went to the basin to fetch a wet towel. The girl would need medical attention if the fever did not subside. She would have to go fetch the doctor.
But when Franny turned back around, she nearly fainted. The girl was upright, spine straight as a board, mouth gaping open, eyes wide. As if someone were shining a lantern from inside her guts, a light poured out of the girl’s jaws and eyes and nostrils. Franny screamed. The girl responded: the voice of a woman, matured and grown, shouted a name - a name Franny would not be able to recall for the rest of her natural life.
CHAPTER 2
There are trees. Tall, coverless trees, once alive and full of evergreen bristles; now, they are bare and still. She hurtles through them at breakneck speed, breath burning her chest, heart banging in her throat. There is blood. Warm, thick, darker-than-she-expected blood. It pools in her boots, making her feet slick. Speared through the chest. Just above the heart it seems, because she is still on her feet. The ground is frozen.
There is a pursuer. Fast, relentless, and focused.
There is a clearing. She reaches it. Heat bubbles up from the long cold chasm of consciousness that threatens to leave her behind. There are flames. Lighting her blood like black oil, her organs - smoldering embers.
A pillar of light; hallelujah. A fiery cyclone cutting through the long plain of cold earth, parting the looming clouds. Her legs crumble beneath her, betraying her at last. From behind the trees, she sees his form emerge.
There is nothing.
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