Chapter 25 | Heather
Heather
B ecky gathered her coat from the back of the kitchen chair, her vanilla scent mixing with the lingering traces of the chamomile tea we'd shared after Bennett walked me home.
Her eyes were kind but tired behind her glasses as she studied my face, no doubt cataloging the tear tracks and emotional exhaustion I hadn't quite managed to hide.
"You're sure you'll be alright tonight?" she asked, her voice carrying the gentle concern of someone who'd witnessed my breakdown from a distance. "I could stay longer if you need me to."
I shook my head, forcing a smile that felt more genuine than it had any right to after the evening I'd endured. "We'll be fine. The children need their routine, and you've already done so much today."
She nodded, but her hand lingered on the door handle as if reluctant to leave us. "Call if you need anything. Anything at all, Heather. Promise me."
"I promise," I said, and meant it.
After her footsteps faded down our front path, I climbed the stairs toward the soft murmur of children's voices drifting from their shared bedroom.
The floorboards no longer creaked, but tonight the silence felt different, more precious somehow, as if the house itself was holding its breath around the fragile peace we'd created.
The children's bedroom glowed with warm lamplight that transformed its worn edges into something magical. Mismatched quilts covered beds that had been donated from half a dozen different sources, creating a patchwork landscape of faded florals and geometric patterns that somehow worked together.
Loubie Lou sat cross-legged on the braided rug in the center of the room, her precious bunny clutched against her chest while she waited with the particular intensity that only three-year-olds could bring to anticipated stories.
Around her, the other children had arranged themselves in a loose semicircle—Tomas with his worn blanket, Dylan still moving carefully after his recent illness, and the others creating a small audience hungry for the comfort that came with our bedtime stories.
I settled onto the floor beside them, pulling the book we'd been reading from its place on the bookshelf.
The leather cover was soft with handling; the pages yellowed at the edges from countless bedtime sessions that had preceded this one.
But as I opened to our bookmark, heavy footsteps on the stairs announced another arrival.
Angus filled the doorway like a friendly giant, his massive frame softened by the gentle smile he reserved for moments like these.
"Room for one more?" he asked, his Scottish accent already warming toward the exaggerated tones he used for storytelling. "I heard there might be dragons needin' proper voicin' tonight."
Loubie Lou clapped her hands together, bouncing with excitement. "Angus! You can be the scary dragon!"
"Scary?" He pressed a hand to his chest in mock offense, settling his bulk onto the floor with surprising grace. "I'll have ye know I'm the finest dragon voice in all of Scotland. Terrifying, but with proper dramatic flair."
I smiled despite the emotional exhaustion that still clung to me like morning fog, grateful for his presence in ways I couldn't articulate.
These moments of normalcy felt precious beyond measure, small pockets of joy carved out of circumstances that seemed determined to steal everything we held dear.
The story unfolded with familiar magic, my voice weaving through descriptions of brave knights and enchanted forests while Angus provided sound effects that made the children giggle with delight.
When the dragon appeared on page twelve, he transformed his voice into a rumbling growl that was fierce enough to thrill, but gentle enough not to frighten the smallest listeners.
"Ye cannae pass through my forest!" he declared in a dragon voice, gesturing with a theatrical grandeur that made Dylan laugh so hard he snorted. "Not unless ye can answer my riddle!"
"What's the riddle?" Tomas asked, leaning forward with engagement that warmed my heart. His selective mutism had been improving since the men had visited regularly, as if their steady presence had convinced him that some adults could be trusted with his voice.
I turned the page, preparing to read the dragon's challenge, when something made my nose wrinkle with concern. An acrid smell, sharp and wrong, cut through the room's comfortable atmosphere.
Smoke.
My hand paused halfway through turning the page as the smell intensified, no longer something I could dismiss as imagination or a neighbor's fireplace.
This was closer, more immediate, carrying undertones that spoke of things that shouldn't be burning, like fabric, and wood, the chemical bite of materials consumed by flames that had no business existing in our home.
Angus must have caught it too, because he stiffened with an alert tension I'd learned to recognize as a precursor to protective action. His eyes met mine over the children's heads, a silent communication that confirmed my growing alarm.
Before either of us could process the implications fully, a scream pierced through the house's evening quiet.
Susie's voice, high and terrified, cut through the comfortable domesticity like a blade.
The sound came from downstairs, followed immediately by the sharp crack of a door slamming with violent force.
The children froze, their faces turning toward me with the kind of wide-eyed trust that made my chest constrict with mothering instincts I didn't know I possessed.
Loubie Lou's grip tightened on her bunny, while Tomas pulled his blanket closer around his shoulders like armor against whatever had frightened their older sister.
"Stay here," I commanded, my voice carrying an authority that surprised me with its steadiness. "All of you, stay right here in this room. Don't move until we come back for you."
I pushed myself to my feet, my heart hammering against my ribs as the smoke smell grew stronger, more insistent.
Behind me, Angus rose with fluid grace despite his size, his presence both reassuring and terrifying in its implications.
If he was worried enough to follow me, then the situation was worse than I'd initially feared.
The hallway outside the children's room had begun to fill with thin wisps of gray that made my eyes water and my throat constrict. The smoke was thicker near the staircase, billowing upward in clouds that danced on the airwaves.
I started toward the stairs, but disorientation hit me like a physical blow. The familiar layout of our home became foreign in the haze. My breathing quickened, pulling more smoke into my lungs with each panicked gasp.
The first step down felt solid under my foot, but the smoke had thickened to the point where I could barely see my own hands. I reached for the banister with blind fingers, trying to guide myself through visibility that had become almost nonexistent.
My foot found empty air where the next step should have been, and the world tilted sickeningly as I pitched forward, my balance completely lost in the gray void that had swallowed our staircase.
I tried to catch myself, hands scrambling for purchase on surfaces that seemed to dissolve the moment I touched them.
The impact came with shocking violence. My head striking the wooden banister with a crack that seemed to echo through my skull. Pain exploded behind my eyes in colors I didn't have names for, and the already-dim world fractured into spinning fragments that made no sense.
I hit the floor at the bottom of the stairs with bruising force; my body curled awkwardly against the wall where momentum had deposited me.
Through the ringing in my ears and the waves of nausea that threatened to drag me under completely, I could hear something that made my blood freeze in my veins.
The crackle and roar of flames eating through the walls of our home, growing stronger with each passing second.
Through the fog of pain and smoke that had invaded my skull, I heard voices cutting through the roar of flames. The words seemed to reach me from a great distance, distorted by the ringing in my ears and the way consciousness kept sliding away from me like water through cupped hands.
Heavy boots pounded across the floor above my head, followed by the sound of our front door exploding inward with violent force.
But these weren't the boots of intruders, no, these carried the rhythm of rescue, of people who knew exactly what they were doing and had no intention of letting anything stop them.
"Get the children!" Bennett's voice cut through the chaos like a blade, sharp with commanding authority that brooked no argument. "Upstairs, now!"
His peppermint scent sliced through the smoke-thickened air, clean and precise even in the midst of catastrophe.
I tried to call out, to let him know where I was, but my throat closed around smoke, and the words emerged as nothing more than a weak cough that sent new waves of pain through my battered skull.
Cole's toffee scent followed close behind, carrying undertones of something clinical. "Heather!" he called, his voice pitched to carry through the growing roar of flames. "Where are you?"
I tried to push myself upright, but the world tilted and nausea rolled through me in sickening waves. The floor felt unstable beneath my palms, as if the foundations of our home were shifting under the assault of fire.
Above me, Bennett's voice continued its rapid-fire commands, organizing an evacuation with military precision. "Two at a time," he ordered, and I could hear the strain in his breathing as he lifted multiple children simultaneously. "Arms around my neck, hold tight, don't let go no matter what."