The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,82
her aunt’s chapel.
All the candles were lit, and her aunt was on her knees at the prie-dieu, her head bowed, her fingers clutching her rosary.
“Aunt Martha!” Rebecca shouted. “The house is on fire! We have to get out!”
Slowly, almost as if in a trance, Martha Ward turned her head and gazed at Rebecca. “It’s all right, child,” she said softly. “The Lord will look after us.”
Ignoring her aunt’s words, Rebecca grabbed Martha Ward’s arm and, with all her strength tugged her to her feet, then out of the candlelit room and into the foyer. Jerking the front door open, she shoved her aunt out onto the porch, then stumbled after her. Rain had begun to fall, but Rebecca ignored it as she pulled Martha off the porch and out into the yard as sirens wailed in the night. Rebecca looked up to the second floor, once again calling out her cousin’s name. But even as she shouted to Andrea, she knew it might already be too late: unlike any of the other windows in the house, Andrea’s were glowing orange from the flames that danced within.
Rebecca sank to her knees on the front lawn. Oblivious to the rain and the cold, with tears streaming down her face, she joined her aunt in prayer.
Chapter 8
Rebecca sat trembling in the waiting room of Blackstone Memorial. She was doing her best to answer all the questions she was being asked. Most of what had happened was still clear in her mind. She recalled waking up and smelling smoke, then calling out to her aunt and cousin to warn them that the house was burning. After that, as events started moving faster and faster, her memories were jumbled. She remembered calling 911, and getting her aunt out of the house. But then it became a blur. The fire engines began arriving, and a police car, and people had come out of the other houses. That was when they started asking her questions, but there were so many people and so many questions, she couldn’t keep them sorted out. Finally, when Andrea was carried out of the house and put in the ambulance, Rebecca had begged to be allowed to go to the hospital with her.
She’d crouched on the floor of the ambulance, trying to stay out of the way of the medics, who were putting an IV in Andrea’s arm. When she got her first good look at her cousin, she almost screamed out loud. Andrea’s face was badly burned; her eyebrows were gone, and flesh was peeling from her cheeks and nose. The skin on her arms and shoulders was blackened, and all her hair was gone, except for a charred stubble on her blistered scalp. Though Rebecca quickly looked away, she felt a terrible hopelessness flood over her, wondering if Andrea would survive even long enough for them to get to the hospital. But when the ambulance had finally screeched to a stop, her cousin was still breathing, and Rebecca scrambled out of the ambulance fast enough not to delay the medics. A few seconds later they pushed past her with the stretcher bearing Andrea’s body, and Rebecca thought she heard a faint moan.
Rebecca had been clinging to that sound ever since, while the waiting room quickly filled with people and the questions began all over again. This time, though, it was the deputy sheriff, Steve Driver, who had put his hands on her shoulders to stop her trembling, and was gazing down intently at her.
“Is there anything else you can remember, Rebecca? Anything at all?”
She shook her head. “I’ve told it all.”
Driver shifted his gaze to Martha Ward, who was sitting next to her niece, her rosary clutched in her fingers, her lips working as she silently recited her prayers. “What about you, Mrs. Ward? Did you hear anything? If you were awake—”
“She was praying,” Rebecca said quietly. “When she prays, she never hears anything at all. She didn’t even hear me when I came into the chapel to get her out of the house.”
Steve Driver reached out and touched Martha’s arm. “Mrs. Ward? I need to talk to you. It’s really important.” When Martha only kept on praying, he squeezed her arm and shook her slightly. “Mrs. Ward!”
As if jerked out of a deep sleep, Martha suddenly looked up. There was an odd, empty look in her eyes, but then her hands dropped into her lap and she shook her head sorrowfully. “It was God’s will,” she pronounced.