Arsonist's Land
The thirteenth of November and already it was dark by five. I played on the computer for a while after school until I heard the dog whining and knew I couldn't procrastinate any longer. I pulled on my jacket, scarf, hat and muddy sneakers, clipped on Tigger's leash while he wriggled around the mudroom, grabbed a handful of raisins to snack on and stepped out onto our warped, rain-saturated deck. Meandering up the road in no hurry, I could feel the mist pressing against my face like Tigger's cold wet nose, making my own nose tingle and my jaw grow tight.
I turned the corner and met shadowy pines, the low-down sun creating glistening stripes in the darkness where it met the wet bark of the trunks. A little way up the trees on one side ended at a gravel driveway and a crooked mailbox, and sunk back from the road was the Davises' new home. Delivered by a truck in four parts and pieced together quickly, it was one of those premade houses where all the windows were identical and the siding gave it a funny, face-like look. Insulation still covered one side, and the yard remained torn-up earth. I gazed at it and remembered the night it had burned. I had heard the siren, and the trucks rumbling up the street, from my cozy bedroom, sitting up in bed reading Hamlet. Soon lost again in the puzzles of Shakespearean verse, I hadn't thought about it until the next day, when I'd heard my English teacher mentioning a fire to another teacher in hushed tones. Waiting for her to sign a late pass to my next class, my ears pricked up and my head whirred as I finally began to make the connections.
"…Justin was asleep on the couch, apparently… got out alright… everyone did, thankfully…"
"…what a tragedy, though… as if the poor kid needed more worries…"
"…it's just terrible, all these fires… first the Saunders' place, now this…"
"… good thing they're insured… "
I let it sink in on my way to chemistry. Justin's house burned down? No wonder he wasn't in class today. He hardly ever came anyway, but still. Wow. What would it be like if my house burned down? Where would we live? Would Tigger get out okay? I poured over my imaginary fire all that day.
Two weeks later, the Davises had hired people to start laying the foundation. Someone planted a ragged American flag in the big pile of sand left by the builders, stuck in at an angle like in the Iwo Jima picture. Another two weeks and the exciting news went around that if anyone wanted to watch the house-people put up an entire house in one day, the new home was being delivered on Sunday and set up on Monday. My sister walked up there with a girl we babysit for sometimes and they watched them fit the pieces together like a jigsaw. I had ballet and the rest of Macbeth to read, and anyway, building sites didn't particularly interest me.
Now the house was completed, with the exception of putting siding over the insulation on that one part, and someone (Mrs. Davis's sister-in-law, I think) had put out big pots of mums on the front step. I peered at these closely while Tigger sniffed around the mailbox; my mom had taken her plants inside ages ago, and all except the sturdy geraniums had since died there. How were her mums still surviving? I felt a sharp tug at the leash as Tigger dove into the drainage ditch after a chipmunk. I scolded him and pulled him back, dragging him away from the chipmunk and into the woods on the other side of the street. I was surprised when I stepped onto the leafy forest carpet and didn't feel it squelch under my feet; with this discovery I decided that now would be a good time to go take a last look at the stream that had a bend in it a little ways into the forest, before ice and snow made it an unpleasant ordeal. Keeping Tigger's leash short to prevent it snagging on branches, I ducked around the prickly evergreens, scuffing at the dead leaves and kicking up pinecones. Everything was slick and shiny from the on-off rain we'd had all weekend and the current fog and drizzle. At the bottom of the slope leading down to the creek I happened upon a curious structure of mossy stones, only about a foot high, broad and somewhat circular. The stones overlapped each other in what appeared at first to be just a messy pile of rocks, but when I examined it closer I realized it was more like an oven or an igloo, three sided and with a rounded roof, stuffed with dry leaves and sticks. I was about to investigate further when a mouse shot out of a crack between the rocks and Tigger tore after it, pulling me with him.
We moved on along the creek bank, mushy with the rain and piles of leaves. Rotting logs were everywhere, fallen against trees and across each other, caught by thorny bushes, little teepees against the dark wet trunks. Tigger knocked one over, sending dirt and pieces of soggy old wood everywhere. As I brushed mud off jeans, I heard somebody swear behind me, and whipped my head around to see Justin Davis, leaning against a tree.
"Hey," I said, feeling awkward.
"Hey," he replied, looking down at the leaves we stood on. He glanced up again and gestured vaguely to the sky. "Hate days like this, don't you?"
"Yeah," I nodded, thinking of the soft swirling mist and the beauty of sunlight on wet bark.
"Been raining since Thursday, and they say we're going to get more of it all this week," he said.
"Yeah. Lotta rain." I wasn't feeling so good.
He was looking around at the trees and the creek, rubbing his elbow thoughtfully.
"I swear, there's not a single dry spot in this whole stupid wood," he stated bitterly.
"There's one over there, just underneath those rocks…" I trailed off, looking in the direction I was pointing. The teepees of branches were in an eerily straight line following my finger. I lowered my hand.
Justin had stopped rubbing his elbow and was gazing in the direction I'd been pointing, his eyebrows peaked in interest. He reached into his jacket pocket with chapped hands and started to pull something out, then snapped out of his daze and replaced it, turning to me suddenly.
"It's getting pretty dark out here. Probably pretty late, too."
"Yeah, I should be getting back…" I was already stumbling back to the road. Once out of trees the world seemed even hazier, less secure. The fog curtain gave the greying road ahead a ghostly tint, and as Tigger and I fled down it we seemed to be struggling against yards of gauzy fabric. We turned the corner and I was relieved to find the orange ovals of lamplight still glowing on our street, the unmistakable wooden mailbox at the end of our driveway. Our pace didn't slow from a hurried walk until we were jostling up the steps and spilling into the small mudroom like water suddenly let loose from a dam. I hung up my jacket and scarf and ran upstairs to my bedroom, where I turned on the cozy lamp by my bedside and yanked the covers up around my legs where I sat, back against the wall. As though muffled by the mist, I heard the siren begin its high, faraway wail, like a foghorn in the night. I shivered, and began Twelth Night.
