Thorns of Truth (47 page)

“
Iris!
” The scream tore from Rachel’s raw throat. “
IRIS … WHERE ARE YOU?
”

She could
feel
it. Her daughter was in the house somewhere. Hurt, maybe even unconscious.
Please, God, help me find her. She didn’t mean to do it. She’s not responsible.
I
am.

Rachel rushed blindly ahead. Something bit sharply into her shin, causing her to stumble and nearly fall. A footstool, she saw, its needlepoint design of a shepherdess staring up at her with a blank idiocy that suddenly infuriated her. She gave it a furious kick, launching it in a crippled roll across the carpet.

God … oh dear God … how, in all this madness, was she supposed to find her daughter? Rachel imagined her huddled in the corner of an upstairs room, helpless against an advancing wall of flames—and was seized by a panic so huge and mindless, she was momentarily paralyzed. Shaking with terror, she stood rooted to the carpet while the smoke pried at her with greedy, phantom fingers. Then the ghastly thought struck her:

What if Iris doesn’t WANT to be rescued?

She gave herself a vicious mental shake. No, she mustn’t think that way. It would only slow her down, and already she felt weak and sluggish, as if this were one of those nightmares where you run frantically but never seem to make any progress. She had to get a grip on herself.
Now.

“
IRIS!
” Her cry, which seemed to be coming from somewhere outside of her, was like a sledgehammer smashing through a wall, freeing her to dart into the next room.

Long table. Chairs. A carved buffet. She was in the dining room, where as a child she’d sat through so many formal family meals. Something glinted at the far end, through swirling rafts of smoke—the polished brass handles of the French doors that opened onto the garden. She felt her panic subside a bit. If for some reason she couldn’t get to the front door in time, she could always escape out back.

But not without Iris.

A thumping noise overhead, like a heavy piece of furniture being dragged. Or frantic footsteps.
Iris?

With a muffled sob, she lurched forward, arms extended stiffly in front of her as she felt her way along the wall, retracing her steps. Her thoughts whirled like bits of colored glass in a kaleidoscope.

Where
was
everybody?
Where was Mama?

A vivid picture formed in her mind: Mama, in the upstairs nursery, rocking four-year-old Iris on her lap. Mama’s mouth was moving, but her words were swallowed by the roaring flames. She was trying to warn Rachel. Something awful was about to happen. Just like she’d tried to before she—

Then Rachel remembered: Mama was dead.

Her heart plummeted.

Don’t think. Don’t remember. Just keep moving.

Rachel staggered past the gaping socket of a marble fireplace in which a pair of logs stood perfectly stacked, complete with crumpled newspaper, all ready to be lit. The irony of it struck her, causing a hysterical giggle to erupt.

In her mind, once again, she was seeing blood. Everywhere. Smeared across the tiles over the tub. Puddled on the bathroom floor like some macabre practical joke. And Iris, in the midst of it all …

Dear God, what could I have been thinking all these months? How could I have ignored the signals?
She
had
abandoned her family.

Another thump overhead, then a crashing noise. Hot. It was so HOT. And she couldn’t breathe. Sweat dripped in rivulets down her face, stinging her eyes, making her blink hard.

Every selfish instinct screamed for her to turn back, run for safety … but she couldn’t just leave her daughter to die.

Stairs. Go. Now. Before it’s too late
…

“Rachel? Rachel!”

Rose’s voice.

“
Rachel!
”

Rachel stopped short of the staircase and swung clumsily around. Not more than a dozen feet behind her, Rose’s familiar figure wavered, ghostlike, behind a gently rippling scrim of smoke. She stood near the entrance to the living room, hands clapped to her mouth, her head swiveling back and forth in wide, almost comical arcs—like a parody of someone lost at sea. Her face was smudged, her dark hair a mass of damp, skewed ringlets. One of her high heels had come off, and as Rose caught sight of her, and began limping toward her, Rachel felt a crazed impulse to laugh.

“You can’t go up there!” Rose yelled, stabbing a finger in the direction of the stairs. “You won’t make it. You’ll be killed.”

“Have to,” Rachel gasped. “She’s up there. I
can feel
it.”

“But you don’t
know
that.”

“You … said so … yourself.”

“I could be wrong.” Rose coughed. “And even if she
did
set the fire, she wouldn’t have stuck around. That would be …” She stopped, her face a stricken white smudge amid the gray smoke.

“Suicide?” Rachel shouted, lightheaded. Her voice rose on a shrill note of hysteria. “Maybe … but this time I’m going to DO something about it!” Rachel lurched toward the staircase and grasped the banister.

“No!” Rose dashed after her.

Thunder boomed overhead. At the top of the stairs, something bright and noxious bloomed. Rachel looked up as a great comber of black smoke rolled back from the landing to reveal the flames just beyond. She jumped, her heart in her throat, and for a split-second, hung back. Then, as if in a trance, she started up the stairs. She kept her eyes down, kept herself from looking at what lay ahead. There were only the polished risers, one after another, and the Oriental runner anchored with brass rods and finials that gleamed dully amid the smoke.

She was halfway to the landing when she felt a hand seize her forearm.

Rachel blinked, and looked down … at Rose’s white-knuckled fingers on her sleeve, at the sooty smudges they’d left. Damn her. She tried to shake free, but was coughing too hard. Struggling weakly, she wheezed, “Get … the … fuck … OFF… me.”

“You’re crazy!” Rose shouted, holding her pinned against the banister. Rachel could feel its smooth curve digging into the small of her back.

“What the hell do you care? She’s not your daughter! You
wanted
to be rid of her!” She gave a great, hacking sob.

Then, pushing against Rose as hard as she could—an effort that sent her lurching to her knees—Rachel managed to free herself. She grasped the carved rail and hauled herself upright, staggered up two more steps. Several yards above her, the solid banister shimmered behind a glassy wall of heat.

A hand clamped around her ankle. Fingers like talons that tightened the harder she tried to shake them off. Yanked off balance, she crashed onto the step below, a sheet of pain flaring up through her hip. With a cry of shocked fury, she twisted around to stare at Rose, crouched at her feet, wild-eyed, holding on to her as if for dear life. Rachel began to thrash furiously, kicking at Rose.

“Goddamn you! Let me GO!”

“No. I won’t let you die!”

“What do you …
care
?” Rachel gasped.

“Maybe I don’t,” Rose snarled through gritted teeth. “But our mother didn’t raise you—
I
didn’t go without—just so you could throw your life away. Damnit, Rachel, it has to count for something!”

Only two words penetrated the madly whirling kaleidoscope in Rachel’s head:
Our mother.

Blindly, she began to claw at Rose. The grip on her ankle loosened. Rachel gave a hard kick that caught Rose in the stomach, and heard her grunt with pain.

Something exploded against Rachel’s cheek. Her head struck the wall, and pain shot from her teeth up through the back of her skull. A shower of red rained down behind her closed eyelids. Rachel thought with dull surprise:
She hit me.
It was her last thought as she slipped from consciousness.

Rose thought: Dear God, what now?

She hadn’t meant to
hurt
Rachel, only to stop her from doing something stupid. Now she was out cold. Rachel lay sprawled on her back like a rag doll, one arm outflung, in a pose that was almost ridiculously cinematic. No, not a doll, Rose thought with an oddly detached, eye-of-the-hurricane calm. If she were a doll, she’d have been easy to carry.

Rose stared down at Rachel’s slack white face streaked with soot. Minus her take-no-prisoners gaze, and the determined set of her jaw, she looked young, almost unnaturally so—like a child suffering the consequences of playing where she’d been told not to. Her light-brown hair was separated into dark clumps, and one of her gold hoop earrings had come loose. It hung crookedly from its wire post, for some reason making Rose think of a phone left dangling off the hook.

In a moment of dreamlike fusion, it occurred to Rose that once upon a time it had been Sylvie in almost the exact position she was in now. She could picture it clearly, the scene she’d imagined so often—the ancient hospital linoleum hot against Sylvie’s bare feet as she raced toward the nursery; the fire escape down which she’d inched, a swaddled newborn clutched to her chest; the upturned faces far below, glowing like a ring of lanterns.

Rose felt a surge of new strength, followed by a burst of clarity.

She could
drag
Rachel, couldn’t she? Rachel would be bruised from head to toe, but it was better than staying here until they were
both
unconscious. And the way Rose felt— head swimming, lungs and throat burning—it wouldn’t be long. Sucking in as deep a breath as she dared, she grabbed hold of Rachel’s ankles … and pulled with all her might.

It was a moment or two before she felt Rachel’s dead weight dislodge, then jerk free, to bump down several steps. Rachel stirred slightly but didn’t come to.

Rose tried not to think about Iris … who might at this very minute be suffocating upstairs. But there was nothing more she could do. It was too late to do anything but save Rachel—and herself.

“
Help!
” Rose shouted.

Why didn’t someone come? Where the
hell
were all those firemen she’d seen out front? So much for paying taxes. After this was over, Rose swore, she’d head straight over to City Hall. She’d demand a thorough investigation of both the police and fire depart—

Stop that.
A voice cut through the madness in her head.
Stop it right now.

She gave a hard tug, throwing all her weight into it. She thought she heard Rachel moan as she half-slid, half-bumped her way downward … but with the roaring in Rose’s ears, and the crackle of encroaching flames, it was hard to be sure.

At the foot of the stairs, Rose paused again, gasping for air through the smoke that was like a fist rammed down her throat. She felt lightheaded, sick to her stomach.

Remembering the first-aid class all the girls at Sacred Heart had been required to take, she sank onto her belly, pressing her cheek to the floor. The smoke was a little less suffocating this close to the ground, but not much. She’d have to hurry.

Rose thought she heard voices nearby, but they might have been coming from outside.

“Help!” she cried again.

No answer. The front door, buried somewhere in all that smoke, couldn’t have been more than a dozen feet away, but it might just as well have been a million miles.

An earsplitting crash shook the floor. Lifting her head. Rose watched in horror as a huge gout of smoke exploded from the sitting room, just up ahead to the left, swirling with sparks and flaming bits of wreckage.

It was just the spur Rose needed. Tightening her hold on Rachel’s ankles, she began crawling in the direction of the front door. Her heart banged against her ribs like a loose shutter in a storm. Dark specks danced before her eyes. She coughed, bringing up a gob of blackened phlegm.

Lord. If only she could see where she was going.

Not that way
—
you’re heading into the wall.
Sylvie’s voice, which seemed to be whispering in her ear. Rose felt her scalp tighten, as if she were wearing a cap that had suddenly shrunk two sizes. Then she heard it again.
Face forward at two o’clock. That’s right. You’re directly in front of the door now. You’ve got to move quickly, though.…

Rose felt a weird calm settle over her. It was crazy, she knew, but she could actually
feel
Sylvie beside her, as if her mother were guiding her, gently
pushing
her, as she crawled toward the door, dragging Rachel with her. Not an angel, like the illustrations of winged seraphs in Catechism readers, but a real, almost solid presence that almost seemed to
lift
both her and Rachel.

Time slowed. She was acutely aware of each bruising inch of the hallway’s tile floor against her knees, each labored breath. She heard the crazed tinkling of a chandelier … followed by a jangling crash.

You’re almost there. Just a few more feet.
There it was again, the nearly palpable pressure of invisible hands on her arms, actually
propelling
her. Was she dreaming this?

No. The sensation was too real. Despite her dizzying terror, she felt perfectly focused. And look … up ahead … the door.

She gave a low cry, and began to weep.

Don’t worry
—
you’ll be safe. I’ll take care of you.…

Tears she hadn’t known she was holding back flowed down Rose’s cheeks.

With a last burst of strength, she jerked Rachel the last few feet to the door … and into the blessedly clear air on the other side.

As she collapsed onto the wet stoop, it struck her in a moment of crystalline clarity that the way her life had turned out hadn’t been a mistake after all. It had all come together exactly as it was meant to. For, had Sylvie acted differently on that long-ago night, she, the woman the world knew as Rose Santini Griffin, would not exist. However damaging her childhood, however difficult the challenges she’d overcome, they had shaped her, made her who she was: a woman who could handle almost anything.

And how could she be sorry for that?