Chapter 18: The Fire

Everyone ran.

Torsten was through the garden door first, with Edgar a step behind him.

The cook and two of the housekeepers came out of the kitchen wing and stopped on the terrace with their hands over their mouths.

The new guard shouted into his radio.

I ran across the frozen lawn in my good heels and didn't feel it.

The old guesthouse was a stone building with a slate roof, and the roof was burning.

Fire showed in the upstairs windows, and smoke poured out of the eaves.

"Fire department's coming!" the guard yelled.

"Ten minutes!"

"That's too long," Torsten said.

He pulled off his coat and threw it on the grass.

Behind us the garden door banged.

My mother came across the lawn at a dead run, barefoot, in her green dress.

I had never seen her run in my life.

"Ingrid!" my father shouted from the terrace.

She didn't turn.

"Her things!" my mother cried.

"Kerensa's room! I kept everything in there!"

She passed me close enough for me to feel the wind of her.

"Mother, no!"

She went through the guesthouse door and into the smoke.

Torsten swore once, hard.

Then he went in after her.

I started forward, and Edgar caught me round the waist.

"No," he said.

"You can't."

"Let go!"

"He'll get her. He's the only one of us who knows that building."

I stood on the lawn with my brother's arms locked around me, terrified.

A long moment passed before the upstairs window burst.

Glass rained on the grass.

I screamed Torsten's name.

Then, through the smoke, he stumbled out the door.

He was bent double, and his sleeve was on fire.

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