Page 81 of The Goat Next Door

I hit the steering wheel with the heel of my hand, the horn letting out a short, frustrated bark into the dark woods.

I can’t wait for the state crew. I can’t even wait for Fred to bring Pumper Two up the mountain.

If the fire clears the railway spur before I get a line down, it’s going straight into the hollow road, and the first house in the path of the draft is Emmy’s place.

I jump into the cab, slam the lever into first, and drive the truck deeper into the old logging trail, toward the upper ridge line where the secondary firebreak is supposed to be. The wind is screaming through the cab now, tearing at my collar, the sky above the hemlocks turning into a violent, bruised purple.

When I round the final bend near the old cedar mill, the world ceases to be dark.

The surface of the earth has split. The wind has ripped the moss crust right off the peat bogs, and three hundred yards of timber floor are glowing with a dull crimson that looks like a map of veins under skin.

It isn’t a forest fire yet—there are no sixty-foot walls of flame—but the heat hits the windshield of the truck with a sharp, heavy thwack that makes the safety glass groan.

A cluster of old hemlocks at the edge of the clearing suddenly explodes into sound—not a crackle, but a deep, hollow whoof as the gas from their dry roots catches the draft. The whole cluster goes up at once, an orange tower that throws a cloud of black, burning pine needles straight into the path of the northern gale.

I reach for the gear shift to put the truck into reverse, my boots bracing against the floorboards, but before my fingers can lock around the plastic knob, the ground beneath the front tires gives a sickening shudder.

The old timbers of the abandoned railway platform, hollowed out by thirty years of rot and the heat of the peat beneath them, collapse into the empty space below.

The truck drops violently to the left, the front axle snapping with a sharp, metallic crack that echoes through the trees. The dashboard lights flicker once, twice, and go completely dark as the nose of the vehicle slides three feet down into the smoking gray ash of the collapsing bog.

The heat against the driver’s side door is instant.

I try to force the door open, but the frame is twisted tight against the collapsed timber wall of the loading dock, locking me into the cab as the black smoke from the hemlocks begins to boil over the hood.

I reach for the radio mic on the floorboards, my fingers slick with sweat and grease, my throat closing up as the first thick wave of carbon cuts through the dashboard vents.

“Station One,” I choke out into the plastic casing. “Davis… Fred… if you’re on the frequency…”

The windshield glass lets out a long, splintering ping as the heat from the hemlocks hits the seal.

Outside, the wind roars down from the lake, carrying the burning embers straight over the ridge toward the valley floor, where the single yellow light of Emmy’s kitchen is completely swallowed by the dark.

21

Ember

“Daddy says adults fix things.

But Emmy fixes moods too.”

— Sophie

“Once upon a time, in a penthouse so high it poked the clouds, lived the Grand Duchess of the Upper West Side,” I begin. “She had everything a duchess could want: velvet slippers, a collection of antique spoons, and a diamond necklace that sparkled like the stars on a clear night.”

I pace the small circle of the kitchen, the flashlight beam bouncing against the cupboards.

“But one Tuesday, while she was busy practicing her royal wave, the necklace vanished. The royal jewelry box sat empty, save for a single, suspicious dusting of crumbs. Naturally, the Duchess called for the butler. He was a very tall, very nervous man. He insisted he was innocent, but the Duchess was suspicious because he had a habit of hiding his snacks in the silverware drawer.”

I pause, letting the flashlight hover over a patch of shadows.

“She paced her parlor, her silk robes swishing, trying to solve the mystery. She checked the cupboards. She checked the secret passage behind the bookshelf. She even checked inside the grandfather clock. Nothing.”

I look toward the bedroom door, keeping my voice just loud enough to carry through the quiet house, weaving the absurdity of the story to keep the darkness at bay.

“The Duchess was just about to declare a royal emergency when she noticed something strange by the balcony door. A trail. Not crumbs this time, but something shiny—a single, tiny link from her necklace caught on a potted fern. She followed the trail, her slippers silent on the marble floor, until she reached the velvet curtains of the study. And then,” I say, lifting the flashlight beneath my chin so the beam casts long shadows across the ceiling, “the Grand Duchess of the Upper West Side realized that her diamond necklace hadn’t been stolen by the butler at all.”

Sophie sits on the middle of the kitchen table, her small denim-clad knees pulled all the way to her chin, her eyes tracking every movement of my hands.