September 4, 1666 London, England
It’s been two days, and London still burns. The acrid scent of smoke clings in Beatrix’s nose, stings her eyes, and claws at her throat, even inside St. Paul’s. The sky outside the rose window is dark, the false dusk of an ash-laden sky.
She sits inside one of the stone archways, out of sight.
Lines of people scurry down the walk, hushed and serious and nothing at all like the raucous crowds that have been her refuge over the years.
Even at the height of the plague, St. Paul’s bustled with activity.
Not so jovial as her earliest days, but there was an undercurrent of understanding among those who strolled that aisle, a camaraderie.
The king abandoned his city to the disease, but they did not.
But the plague was an invisible enemy. They can see the fire coming.
The fear is tangible, nearly as thick as the smoke choking the city.
The printers and booksellers from the nearby streets carry what they can manage down to the crypts: stacks of paper and books, crates of inks, barrels of glue, trays of type. Some even lug their printing presses through the crowd, desperate to save their livelihood from the encroaching flames.
They aren’t the only ones. Citizens from all over London fill the church and its yard with the most valuable pieces of their lives.
The stream of people is never-ending, and Beatrix wonders if the crypts have all been stuffed full.
She has nothing to hide away for safekeeping.
She marvels at the people who do. How do they decide what is worth saving and what to let go?
The people stay, milling about the walk or finding a quiet corner to rest. The cathedral is the safest place to seek refuge from the fire, with its walls of stone and wide-open yard to keep the flames at bay. No matter what happens in the rest of London, St. Paul’s won’t burn.
Except it does. The fire starts on the roof, with a single ember borne on the wind.
Beatrix flees the cathedral with the others, silent in her disbelief.
St. Paul’s can’t burn. It is being repaired, already wrapped in wooden scaffolding as workers prepare to restore it to its former glory, just like the night she first set eyes on it.
It was going to be saved. It was meant to be saved.
Outside, Beatrix stands as close as she dares.
Ash from the rest of London drifts on the wind like giant flakes of snow.
The fire licks up the stone walls, follows the path of the scaffolding up to the leaden roof.
Up to the heavens. Sparks drift in the darkness, a fleeting replacement for the stars she can no longer see through the smoke.
The heat is unbearable. She backs away and away and away, but she can’t leave, can’t abandon the church. As if she is standing vigil.
The scaffolding burns to ash—kindling spent—but the cathedral is already alight.
Flames dance against the colorful glass of the rose window.
Liquid lead pours down the walls, all that is left of the cathedral roof, trailing like molten tears down the rough stone, filling the yard and the streets beyond with a river of silver.
Flames race through the cathedral, hungry and wild. They consume every book, every scrap of paper, every loved and cherished thing. Everything the people of London have tried so hard to save—had thought would be safe—gone.
The rose window cracks. A spiderweb races out from the center of the glass, the perfect whole breaking apart into pieces again. It shatters, rains colored glass down on the yard with a blast of heat. Black smoke pours from the gaping hole into the night. A mortal wound.
Something in Beatrix breaks then, cracks and shatters like the rose window. The cathedral has stood for centuries. Far from perfect, damaged, and broken; in desperate need of repair. But still standing. It gave her refuge on her first night in London. Now it is a ruin.
How can it just be gone?
Sometimes everything is still, and she is moving. Sometimes everything is moving, and she is still. But not here. There is no time in the forest.
A spark drifts into the air, dances through the branches silhouetted against the darkening sky above her. Beatrix watches it, bright and free and gone. Escaped.
She pulls her wool shawl closer around her shoulders; the air has grown chill with the setting of the sun. She breathes deep, inhales the scent of woodsmoke and damp night. Everything is still, and she is still.
You will live to regret this moment.
She stares into the dancing flames of her campfire.
Imagines that she survived that night. That she held her daughter, rocked her to sleep.
That she had shown her how to weave crowns of flowers for her own unruly hair.
That William had whittled her an entire farm of animals and taught her to climb the apple trees behind their home.
And then you will keep on living.
She could spend the rest of her endless life wondering what happened to William.
Wondering what kind of life her daughter lived without her.
Wondering if she should have turned back that night.
If she should have returned to Lancaut on every one thereafter.
Or she can forget them. Bury the memory of them deep in her heart and build a wall around it, strong enough so they can never hurt her again.
Was that what William did after he exiled her with their baby in his arms?
You will live to regret this moment.
She stares into the flames until they are only glowing embers, until they are barely lit ash. She is not so far from London, less than a day’s journey south on the back of a farmer’s cart. But swallowed by the dark, she could be anywhere. Any when.
She imagines she is waiting for William. That he will emerge from the shadows among the trees, look at her with that glimmer in his eyes, and ask her to dance. That she will place her hand in his. That he will pull her close. That he will never let her go.
And then you will keep on living.
She thought, after the Great Fire, she’d be numb to change, but London isn’t the same city she first set foot in.
Sometimes she wonders if anyone else in the city cares, if anyone else even notices; if any of them worry that they could stay put and still become a stranger there.
Until she remembers. No one else in the city—in the entire world—has seen London the way she has.
She still can’t bring herself to look at the new cathedral, slowly rising from the ashes of hers.
Still scrutinizes the faces of women in the street, as if she might recognize the foundling baby in them.
You will live to regret this moment.
She thought, after the Great Plague, she’d be numb to death. She still falls asleep to a litany of the lost running through her head, most nights.
Lost. As if she has only misplaced them. As if she can find them again. As if they are more than bones in the ground.
And then you will keep on living.