Chapter Six
The station was quiet — the kind of Saturday mid-morning lull that usually preceded a sudden, sharp alarm. William worked alongside the other firefighters, the air smelling of floor wax and stale coffee, familiar scents that usually grounded him.
He had been at this station for a few weeks now and felt a camaraderie with the other members of his crew. It was smaller than his old station, and quieter, but the responsibility felt just as heavy.
He glanced at his phone. A text from his mother:
Jake has discovered the mud. Sophie is reading and the others are occupied. Your dad has fixed the kitchen tap and he is out in the garden now; Ethan is with him. All fine here.
Then the shout came through:
“Station 11, special service call. Person trapped in a room at The Gables, Sandy Lane, Brookleigh Bay. No fire reported. Entry required. Time of call, 10:54. Location confirmed.”
“Sandy Lane?” Miller, one of the junior crew members, looked up from the mess table. “That’s right by your new place, isn’t it, Parker?”
“It’s next door,” William said.
A sharp, instinctive pulse of worry hit him. He had left the children with his parents, but the thought of an emergency — even a non-medical one — so close to home made his pulse jump. The Gables. The house with the slate roof he had seen through the trees.
“Right,” he said, grabbing his helmet. “Let’s go. It’s a lockout, but we don’t know if there’s an oven on or a candle burning. Miller, you’re with me.”
The drive was short — barely three minutes with the sirens muted — but William found himself leaning forward in the passenger seat, scanning the familiar turn-off. As the engine rounded the corner into Sandy Lane, he saw his own house first.
His father, Sam, was standing by the front gate, shielding his eyes against the sun as the fire engine rumbled past. William did not look back. He focused on The Gables.
The house was pale stone, beautiful in a neglected sort of way. He climbed out as soon as the engine stopped, his boots crunching on the gravel.
“Hello?” he called, his voice dropping into the steady, professional tone he had used a thousand times before. “Fire Service. Is anyone inside?”
A head appeared at an attic window.
“Up here,” a woman called down.
She looked remarkably calm for someone trapped. Her dark hair was pulled back, and there was a smudge of white paint across one cheek. She leaned out over a newly painted windowsill, her expression more sheepish than scared.
“I’m Lydia,” she said, her voice carrying clearly in the salt air. “And I’ve had a very poor start to my decorating career.”
William looked up at her. “I’m William,” he said, adjusting his helmet. “Is there a way to get into the house?”
Lydia’s eyebrows lifted. “The back door is unlocked. You can get in that way.”
“Don’t move. We’ll be up in a second.”
He turned to Miller. “Grab the entry kit. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
They rounded the side of the house, boots thudding on the stone path. The back door opened easily, just as Lydia had said. The hallway smelled faintly of paint and disinfectant — the scent of a house mid-transformation.
William stepped inside first, calling up the stairs, “Lydia? We’re coming up.”
Her voice floated down, light but edged with embarrassment. “Honestly, I’m not usually this dramatic.”
Miller grinned. “We’ll take your word for it.”
William did not smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched. He took the stairs two at a time.
You have a strange sense of humour, he thought, the silent comment directed upward.
He had spent weeks wondering who might eventually move into the empty house, praying they would be the kind of neighbour his children could trust. Now, here he was, first on the scene to rescue a woman with paint on her face.
He reached the attic landing and saw the door. He did not feel the usual rush of adrenaline from a fire call. This was a rescue without smoke, flames or shattered glass. Yet, as he reached for the useless handle, he felt a quiet, unexpected nudge of peace.