The flames danced before her eyes as they caught. They twisted and spiralled, pirouetting like ballerinas, slender and curving. They moved quickly, catching every piece of darkness as if it were fuel.
Like a mother watching over her children, she smiled as they grew, as they learnt to grab the branches below them and swell, reaching higher into the night. The stars were dimmed to mere specks, imperfect spots on the indigo violet. But the fire, the fire thrived in the loneliness.
The night was silent, as if all the birds had been put to sleep and no beast had woken from its winter slumber. The blaze broke the silence, crackling contentedly, like the sound of paper being crumpled in her hands. Sparks popped into being, fireflies breaking free and surviving for a few seconds before being swallowed by the freezing ground.
She held her hands out and let her eyelids slide down. She threw her head back and felt the fierce glow on her face and neck. In the blackness of her mind, she imagined herself golden in the light. Golden, warm, and beautiful, like the being she had created.
The icy air closed in from all other sides, sharp as daggers. It bit into her, the wind blowing it into the centre of her bones. She ignored it, thinking only of the love of the thing she has made. It burnt slowly, releasing the heat trapped in the wood.
She opened her eyes, the orange reflecting in them. The fire was beautiful; it broke her heart every time it spluttered on a piece of too green wood. She began to feed it more, until the tongues of scarlet and tangerine reached the heavens.
She slipped her shoes off and curled her toes in the loose soil. It was cold and damp; dew was beginning to fall. She held her hands out, palm up to the heavens; she could feel the tiny pinpricks, as easily killed as the beautiful sparks.
Out here, nobody would find her. The night was too dark for the smoke to be seen. The air was icy, down below the villagers would have settled long ago. There was just her and the fire. The tall black pines hid her from view. She thought how curious it was that tonight; they did not shudder and drop needles onto the undergrowth. It was silent, just for her.
She breathed in the scent of wood-smoke, It was her favourite. Coal was heavy and grey, peat was almost too rich, too homey. But wood, wood burnt with a delicious aroma that made her love it even more.
It absorbed her fully, beckoning to her with svelte fingers, its snapping voice that of a mother. Their places had been changed, she thought happily, listening to the message. Come, it told her. Come and join me.
A few months ago, she would have refused. She would have told it No. I should not be here. You should not be here. But now, she had lost everything to it, there was nothing left for her beyond the woods. On this little jutting piece of land, above the deep ravine, all that she now cared for, the only thing she could now love, asked a favour of her.
She did not look back once. She had taught this fire to grow, so much more rapidly than people. It learnt so quickly, and seemed so wise.
She simply looked to where its tongues reached up, a stairway to heaven, and followed her only friend to her death.
*
They found her, the smoke having not left when the sun arrived. It clouded the sky just above them as it faded. The air was thick with it, they drew short and sudden breaths as they came to the source of the heat. The flames had died now, uncared for, but still the dense hotness crowded the air.
It was odd, the woodsman thought, turning her over sadly, how she loved the brightness and warmth so much and yet she favoured the night.
His companions were joyful. “She’s dead,” his closest friend, a wiry man with a hard brown face, said to him. “Why are you so sad?”
“After all of it, she couldn’t control it herself.”
“She gave in,” called another man. “And thank goodness she did.”
He spared the body, blackened and shrivelled another look. Her face was blissful in death.
“Are you not sorry, even a little?” he asked his companions. “She had so much life.”
“She was an arsonist, she deserved what she got,” one said. “Come on, we should go back and tell the village. There’ll be singing tonight.”
The woodsman hesitated for a moment, his huge, stocky fingers hovering over her body.
“We shouldn’t bring her back?”
“Let her rot,” said the gruff leader. “She brought it on herself.”
The other men heaved and began to leave. The wiry man looked at his friend, still not moving.
“Come on,” he said to the woodcutter. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“I know,” he said, picking himself up. “But she was so young.” He glanced back once more at the tiny body. “Seven years is far too short a time to spend in this world…”
