House of Darkness House of Light (54 page)

***

Nine months later bad news hit as blunt force trauma. Word of the tragedy spread like the raging wildfire which consumed Lenora’s home in a matter of minutes. The parents barely made it out alive. Standing in the front yard, they were forced to witness the demise of their own family; helpless to rescue the children as they begged for help at the bedroom windows. There would be no saving them. Each quickly succumbed to smoke; a tender mercy. Their house was incinerated before fire trucks even arrived; burned to the ground. It was transformed: cinders and embers, ashes and dust; inconceivable devastation.

The road remained closed to the public for weeks afterward, too gruesome a sight to behold. It was later determined an electrical short, a spark from the lights on their Christmas tree had ignited the blaze. Not two weeks before the blessed holiday, a hush fell over the town. No one could breathe. Their mind-bending loss colored black every private thought and muted utterance. Joy was dead. The Spirit of Christmas went up in flames along with its sacrificial lambs. When needed most, a holy, sacred day went unobserved, save the vast outpouring of parishioners who prayed for this family; the churches were full to overflowing, as was the church on the day of their funeral. Five caskets; five lives lost…all, gone too soon. Hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand people stood outside, braving bitter cold air for the duration of their service, trembling with emotion as tears froze to cheeks. Nancy wept uncontrollably. She had hoped some of the mourners there to pay their respects in death were those who’d treated her friend disrespectfully in life; hoped this apocalyptic event would touch hardened hearts with shame and regret and would change their minds and lives. Do unto others…For Nancy, the loss was inconsolable.

Carolyn had been profoundly moved, haunted by this tragedy. It lingered in her mind for months, as pallor of death on the palette of life. She could not shed the image of coffins from consciousness; she could not bear to know how these five children died; tears erupting spontaneously at the thought of it. Meanwhile, as mother, her role was to comfort her own grieving daughter, to no avail. They mourned together; a painful and prolonged ordeal. To have had it happen at all was shattering enough, but to have known and lost such an exceptional child, as the victim of merciless fire, was more than she could tolerate. Knowledge of it forced her into the darkest corners of her troubled mind, compelling her to revisit painful memories of her own. Carolyn could not comprehend what the parents were going through: it had to be Hell; proof of the existence of Hell on Earth. It
had
to be an excruciating burden to bear; the vision of those final moments seared into their memories forever.

During her time at the farm, Carolyn had known fear. She’d witnessed fire lapping at the walls, tickling lace curtains with the flick of a flame in a room filled with smoke. She’d known the torment of the vile, haunting vision; one which lingered…known the sensation of paralyzed panic, an expectation that her five children were about to burn to death. In those moments it was as real as reality gets; as real to her as the flames which claimed Lenora; that vivid recollection of pure, unadulterated terror. In those moments she’d prayed to God, begging for His mercy, begging to die with her children, knowing she’d never recover, never survive their loss. This too had been a reality, branding her memory with a searing series of images for eternity. She understood. Her children survived an ordeal their mother endured; she had been saved and her girls were spared. No one could save Lenora. No one rescued a little damsel in distress. No fairy tale ending this time. No happy endings at all.

Carolyn’s vision was intended to intimidate, provoke a response; to elicit visceral fear. It was a hoax; one perpetrated upon her in the night, appearing to be as real as anything she had ever encountered in life. Lenora and her brothers perished in a way mortals fear to the core of their being. Fire is wild; elemental. It has no agenda; no alliances or ulterior motives. It possesses the ultimate power to create and to destroy. It is, at once, a threat and promise: a blessing and a curse. It does not discriminate. It does not pick and choose. It is and it will, once raging beyond control, claim anything and everyone in its path until extinguished. Carolyn understood the nature of the threat as well as she understood the true Nature of Fire. An acute awareness of its pure power instantly transported her from sympathy to empathy, pressing her to feel in full measure entirely bereft by the tragic loss of a family. During her darkest hours she considered this loss as an evil omen: as a harbinger and a warning: five children…gone too soon. They could have been her own. Such thoughts possessed the woman, casting a spell ignited by pain of grief. Wildfire raging beyond control within her troubled mind; consuming her present, rekindling memories of past experiences she longed to forget, it required several months before Carolyn could extricate herself from a chronic mindset of abject terror and utter despair borne of the intimate knowledge of Fire. Sweet Lenora had broken the surly bonds of Earth and like the tiny bird she resembled, was free to fly away home; to touch the face of God. Lord, have mercy on their souls.

***

The following spring found Carolyn once again out in her garden preparing sacred ground. It was still frozen stiff in spots the rising Sun avoided along a daily star trek across the sky; icy patches left behind, tucked along the granite wall as plaques to remind an anxious gardener: full exposure was not making an appearance before mid-May. In the interim, places softened by the shining warmth gave her a point of reference from which to proceed for the season.

The school bus loud and clearly required some immediate attention: brake repair; a disquieting thought as Carolyn heard it squeaking and screeching to a halt in front of the farmhouse. A beautiful day though still a bit chilly, she had been outside for hours and was ready to take a break. The girls rounded the hill into the back yard in search of mother, knowing precisely where she would be. Carolyn stowed her hoe against the stone wall. Andrea joined her there. As soon as the woman vacated her own garden spot, the crows came to see what she might have stirred up for them. Crafty little devils, they’d been lurking in the nearby trees, watching and waiting for The Early Bird Special.

“Mom, where do birds go to die?” A morbid question right out of the blue.

“What made you think of something like that?”

“Look at them.” Dozens of crows had come to call. “Look up.” She did.

There overhead was a pair of spiraling red tail hawks drenched in sunlight, spinning gracefully in circles with the wind. Pointing toward the garden spot, she exclaimed: “Look at the huge one over there!” Staring at the magnificent specimen, hunting and pecking his way through organic debris, she noticed: “His feathers look purple in the light…he’s the biggest crow I’ve ever seen! I didn’t know they got this big…probably from eating out of our garden!”

“That’s a raven…he’s a close cousin of the crow.” Carolyn knew her birds on sight, even from a considerable distance.

Andrea considered the circle of life. “There are so many birds in the world. How long do they live and where do they go to die?”

“I’m not sure, honey. I never really thought about it before…I enjoy them in the moment.” In this respect, Carolyn was an existentialist at heart.

“Lenora was like a little bird.” Her somber tone: evidence of a youngster’s reflective, melancholy mood.

“That’s what this is about?” Carolyn achieved clarity on this dark subject.

“On the bus ride home I was going through my notebook and I found this; something I wrote sitting right there on the wall…not long before she died.” Andrea handed a torn piece of paper to her mother.

Carolyn recited the lines of a poem: “Either I am losing my mind or finding my way. I am here, now perched upon the precipice; on the verge of flying elsewhere. I am almost home.” Handing it back to the woeful child, Andrea again presented it to her in return, a gift of remembrance; in memoriam.

“You can keep it. I memorized it as soon as I wrote it down.”

“Those are poignant words, sweetheart. Thank you.”

“I was with the crows when I wrote it. Something strange happened to me.”

“What happened?” A natural element of concern joined the pair for a three-way chat…a cosmic conference call commenced.

“I really can’t explain it but I think they spoke to me. All of a sudden they stopped stomping on the corn stalks then started hopping straight toward me. They got quiet and didn’t squawk or bicker like they usually do. They just sat with me and watched me like they
knew
I was feeling sad and came to cheer me up. I came outside to watch them but they were watching me instead.”

“You had a bird in the hand?” Relieved it was nothing too serious; Carolyn found the image amusing, smiling while she counted crows.

“They never got that close to me; they just hopped on the wall, cocked their heads and looked at me right in the eyes. Then I wrote this down but I didn’t know where it came from or what it meant. Now I think I know.”

“When did it happen?” Carolyn was growing more curious by the moment.

“Last December, a couple of weeks before Lenora died. That day the wind kept tearing the pages out of my notebook so I gave up and got up to go back inside the house. When I left they all stayed behind on the wall. Just before I reached the kitchen porch I heard them calling so I turned around and there they were…flying in circles right over my head! They were flying
for
me! I felt it inside, I swear it! They were trying to tell me something important!”

“No swearing.” Mother gently teased her sometimes-too-serious daughter.

“It was beautiful! All of them were making the most perfect patterns in the sky…what’s the word…when they all fly together?”

“In formation.” Carolyn’s brain functioned as an instant-recall thesaurus.

“Yes! Flying in formation! I
know
this must sound weird. It’s why I didn’t tell you before. When I found my poem again today it made me think;
that’s
what they said to me. They were giving me information! At first I thought it was about me, but it wasn’t…and it wasn’t about them either…it was about Lenora. They were trying to tell me something bad was going to happen.”

“Do you think it was a message…or maybe a premonition? You might have the gift, like Fran.” Carolyn was no longer teasing; she was entirely sincere, admiring her friend’s affinity for all things winged. Fran was known to dwell among angels, doing their bidding on Earth. Her eldest seemed to share the proclivity…if she could only decipher the messages she received.

“I don’t
want
this gift! What good does it do? If it
was
a premonition then why didn’t I know it sooner? Why didn’t I
know
so I could have…what’s the point if the answers to the most important questions come too late to help?”

“You cannot,
must not
blame yourself for what happened to Lenora. It’s a tragedy, but under no circumstances was it in any way your fault.” Carolyn’s comment arrived in the form of a command. “You are
not
responsible for it. There is nothing you or anyone else could have done to save that sweet child or her brothers. You had no conceivable way of knowing what would happen to them…you could not have known. Annie. Do not blame yourself.”

“And now Lenora is home…with God.” A pause for reflection in the midst of painful thought, Andrea was still struggling with a loss; bewildered by it.

“You can’t give it back, you know…the gift.” With pure compassion in her heart and words, Carolyn peered deeply into her daughter’s tearful eyes.

“I know. I have always known.” Andrea wiped away droplets pooled at the rim of her wire glasses.

“So, about your morbid question…why isn’t the floor of the forest littered with the bodies of dead birds? I do not know why. We walk these woods all the time. I’ve never seen the body of a bird. Have you?”

“No. They
can’t
live forever…or do they? Are they really the spirits of our ancestors? Do they watch over us…from above? Are they like our Guardian Angels? Some say whenever a person dies, a bird carries the soul to Heaven. Is that really true?” A substantive philosophical question requiring an equally metaphysical approach to the response, Carolyn paused; ethereal or corporeal in nature…what is the essential Nature of these delicate winged creatures? A thoughtful mother had to admit having no definitive answers to any questions in this realm though she offered some suggested reading on the subject.

“I’ve been reading from
Ovid
. He wrote: ‘All things are always changing, / But nothing dies. The spirit comes and goes, / Is housed wherever it wills, shifts residence / From beasts to men, from men to beasts, but always / It keeps on living.’
I find his theory of life and death fascinating. Comforting.”

“Me too. Thanks. You
do
believe me about my poem…and the crows?”

“Of course I believe you…that’s one question you never have to ask me!” Embracing her daughter, Carolyn suddenly realized their discussion was the beginning of a healing…for both of them. “Look at those scavengers!”

“Red tail hawks approaching…warp factor six!” Andrea pointed upward.

“You’ve been watching too much
Star Trek
lately.” Carolyn laughed then noticed the creatures had indeed decided to
drop in
for an afternoon snack, at the speed of light suggested. Both ladies stood quietly beside the stone wall, marveling at the precision technique of two miraculous birds of prey, gasping as they swooped down into the garden. One snagged a field mouse. The other took flight behind its companion, talons empty; along for the ride, no doubt. Their presence, though fleeting, was quite enough to draw vehement protest from the crows…rather selfish creatures…not prone to sharing the spoils.

“Look at their wings, mom. They look like angels.”

“How do you know? Have you ever seen an angel?” Carolyn, cajoling her eldest, never expected an answer to her rhetorical question.