Millie's unearthly howl suddenly stops, followed by a yelp. A shiver runs through me. Was that a yelp of delight upon seeing Amy come down to her, or a yelp from being kicked by someone to just shut her up? I can't tell. I only know my life depends on which one it was.
The Preacher takes the lamp and hangs it on a hook on the stairway wall. He comes back and pulls me to my feet again and we start toward the stairs up the back of the church. I struggle and twist and he hits me and I fall and pretend that he knocked me out so I can play the deadweight to the full without bein' hit again. He drags me to the foot of the staircase. Prolly wants me up in his office, where I'll be hidden for the rest of the time I'll be on this earth.
"And when I tell the Court of her openly practicing witchcraft at that horse race, why, they'll applaud my sending her back to Hell and wonder why I did not do it sooner," says the Preacher. "Can you believe it, Grandfather? The boldness of the beast, casting spells in front of multitudes, the fiendish boldness! Oh yes, I had my spies there, too, you may rest assured, Sir."
Me bein' all limp is provin' a harder bundle to get up the stairs than he would have thought. In floppin' my legs about I manage to stick my feet between the posts of the railing and hook my toes to stick them there. The Preacher curses and tries to free my entangling feet by tuggin' at me ever the harder, but it don't do him no good, so he throws me down and when he lets me go I try to slither headfirst back down the stairs, but he comes after me, and this time he picks me up with one arm under my knees and the other under my back like you'd carry a child, with my feet toward the wall. He's huffin' and puffin' with his labors and I can feel and smell his breath on my face.
We go past the lit lamp on the wall and I kick out with my feet and I hit the lamp and it comes off its hook and falls to the stairs behind us. The Preacher don't notice 'cause he's wheezin' away with the effort of gettin' me up to his lair and 'cause the lamp hit the carpet on the stairway, which muffled its fall, but I notice 'cause I can see over his shoulder and I see that the lamp has spilled out all its oil onto the stairs and the wick flickers in the middle of the mess like it's gonna go out but it don't, it lights the spilled oil on the wooden floor and it flares up with a whoosh, but he don't notice, no he don't notice 'cause he's still mumblin' with his gramps. He just pushes us through the doorway at the top and, with his foot, slams the door shut behind us.
He lurches forth and we go into a room, but it ain't his office like I'm expectin', no, it's a plain room with a single bed with high bedposts and a bedstand with a pitcher and a basin. There's a window, but the curtains are pulled. There is a chest of drawers and one of the drawers is half open and I can see some things inside. Girl things. There is a neatly folded handkerchief on the top.
It is Janey Porter's room. The one she died in. And the one I'm going to die in, too.
He throws me down on the bed.
"You recognize your old chamber, do you?" He leans over my face and peers into my eyes. "Yes, I have quite figured it out, you see. I did not punish you enough last time and so you came back to haunt me. To tempt me again into sin. To make me do it again. I did not kill you enough then. I did not punish you enough then. I shall not make the same mistake this time. Oh no, I shan't."
Great plan, Jacky. Oh, this worked out just fine, Jacky, you fool!
He reaches into one of the deep outside pockets of his coat and pulls out me own shiv. Oh, to be killed with me own shiv!
I can smell smoke.
He takes my knife and very carefully cuts the cords from my ankle. I wait a moment and then lash out my foot to kick him and I connect, but not hard enough 'cause he just goes ooof! and sits down on me and takes a piece of the cord and ties my right ankle to one bedpost and then pulls me legs apart and ties the other ankle to the other bedpost. He does the same thing with my wrists and I can't do a thing to stop him. He don't notice the smoke curling under the door, but I do.
He puts me shiv on me breastbone and I thinks, This is it, I'm sorry Lord for everything I done, and it's at this moment that I finally chew through the gag and the slimy pieces fall to either side of my mouth and I gathers all the fear and terror in me and I opens my mouth and I lets out the longest, most bloodcurdling shriek I got in me, "God help me I don't want to burn!"
It ain't God who comes smashin' through the door in a shower of splinters—it is Ephraim Fyffe, but he looks damned good to me! The door falls off its hinges and Ephraim stands there lookin' like the very Avenger of the Lord, with his fists clenched, his shirt torn, and rivulets of blood coursin' down his face.
The Preacher gazes at him as if at Beelzebub himself. Ephraim brings his fist around, and the Preacher's mouth falls in on itself and blood and teeth spatter against the wall as he sinks to his knees and moans.
"Ephraim! Get the knife!"
Ephraim bends down and picks up my shiv and starts cutting me loose. There's loud crackling now and the smoke what's comin' in is thick and black and—Hurry, Ephraim— and he's done with my hands and he flips me the blade and I catches it and saws through the ropes on my ankles while he goes after the Preacher, who's staggered to his feet and out into the hall.
I'm on me feet and I stick me shiv back in me vest and grabs Janey's hanky and puts it over my mouth and nose 'cause the smoke is chokin' me and me eyes are runnin' from the sting of it and I gets to the hall and see that the flames are roarin' up the staircase and I follows Ephraim's white shirt in the black smoke and he shouts, "Jacky! In here!" and we fall into a side room where the smoke ain't so bad yet. I see it's the Preacher's office and Ephraim goes to the window what's been busted in and what has jagged glass pointin' in all around the inside edges, which is how he got all cut and bloody, coming through that window. He kicks at the glass from the bottom edge and looks out.
"Look out, she's comin'!" The flames are at the door behind us and the floor is hot.
"I can—," I shouts over the roar.
"No time!" says he. "Keep your arms to your sides till you're clear of the window!" and he lifts me up, one hand on the scruff of my neck and the other in the clothing bunched up around my crotch, and holding me level-like, he pitches me out the window like a sack of grain, clear of the cruel glass.
I hit the blessed cool air and expects to kiss the hard ground but instead land on something soft that gives beneath me and I look up and see all around me people holdin' the edges of the blanket they held there to break my fall. There's Henry and Annie and Dolley and Betsey and Sylvie and sturdy Peg on a corner, and there's men and women I don't know but can only gawk at in wonder, and there's more people pouring up the hill with buckets and axes, and there's water wagons and men in helmets, and the people holding the blanket let it down to the ground and I roll off it and I find, wonder of wonders, that I have rolled up next to my seabag. It's here by the door where my kidnappers had thrown it.
They pull the blanket up taut again for Ephraim, who's now standing in the window. The flames are right behind him now. All the windows below have melted out and thick tongues of fire lick out at the wooden sides of the church. It is going up fast.
"Jump, Ephraim," cries Betsey, tears pourin' down her cheeks. "Oh, please! Jump!"
He does. He lands feet first on the stretched blanket and it serves to break his fall enough so he is not hurt. He still hits the ground hard, though, the upper windows bein' real high and him bein' real big. As soon as he's upright, Betsey's arms are around him and cryin' about the bloody cuts on his face and arms.
"Nay, it's nothin', Betsey, they ain't deep. See, they're stoppin' already."
"Reverend Mather," sobs Betsey, still clinging to him, "did you...?"
Ephraim shakes his head. "Kill him? Nay. He ran up to the steeple. Let his God kill him."
And then it's Millie's lovin' tongue I feel on my face and I starts into blubberin' from all the shock and terror and the chokin' smoke and I don't make much sense just, "Millie you sweet sweet dog you saved my life you did you did you did." And then my friends are pullin' me to my feet and kissing my cheeks and pullin' me away from the heat of the doomed church and the sparks that are dartin' about everywhere like fireflies in the wild wind that's swirlin' about. I see Sylvie's sleeve next to my face and there's little burn holes in it from the embers floatin' down and about. Poor Sylvie, your shirt, I think crazily, as if that was important now in all this. My mind is churnin' around and I got the mad urge to run—run!—'cause I'm the one what started this fire and everybody's gonna be mad at me and oh, God, there's Wiggins and I know he's lookin' to arrest someone for all this and I know who it's gonna be and I pick up my seabag and start weavin' away.
There's the rest of the upstairs girls in their white nightgowns blowin' about them in the crazy wind, wringin' their hands and wailin', and there's Amy runnin' toward me and Millie loping out to meet her...
Then all eyes go to the church steeple, 'cause it's now completely engulfed in flame and from inside it comes this high awful shriek, a long scream of a soul in terrible pain and in utter desolation. Then there's this rending sound of something giving way and the great bell comes loose from its belfry and falls seemingly slowly through the burning timbers to the ground, and when it hits the cobblestones, there's this deep, sad bonggggg. I wouldn't have thought that something that heavy could bounce, but it does and it turns over slowly in the air and comes down again and bonggg still softer and then one more faint bongg and then it rolls over and comes to rest.
Finally, Janey, the bell has tolled for thee.
But the screaming continues. It can't still be him ... No, no, it's not. It's horribly not. The roof of the stable has caught fire from the sparks and the horses trapped inside are screaming in terror.
Amy is runnin' to me but I yell at her, "Amy! The horses! Let the horses out!" and I point at the stable, its roof ablaze. She stops and turns, confused, and then runs for the stable, followed closely by Henry and Herr Hoffman.
"Look!" shouts one of the girls. "The school!"
The school, too, is on fire. The embers blew into the bushes around the foundation and they flared up and the first floor is already in flames. "Is everybody out?" I shout and Peg says, "All mine are!" and the upstairs girls look at each other and can find no one missing. There's more men streamin' up the hill with buckets and axes to help ... there's John Thomas in that bunch filling buckets at the pump and passin' 'em along a line to throw the water on the base of the fire but it ain't gonna do 'em no good, it's too far gone, it's—
"Oh, my God!" says someone, pointing up. "It's Mistress!"
I look up and sure enough, there she is, standin' at an upper window, lit from the light from the burning church. She is in her nightgown and her long gray hair is loose and flying out wildly from her head. The big entrance doors are a sheet of flame. There's no way out that way and if the first floor is gone, then she can't come down through the kitchen. She's trapped.
"What's she doing?" asks a girl on the edge of hysterics.
"Jesus," says I, "she's takin' her precious needlework off the walls, that's what she's doin." Damn!