“Two?”
She kissed him again, then pulled back and laughed at his expression. “Come on now, John. Your turn to shoot. You’ll be good at it. You’re English. You have the blood of Robin Hood coursing in your veins. Here.”
She gave him the bow. Showed him where to put his hands, kicked at his feet to make him spread his legs.
“You pull the cable to the corner of your mouth, like this,” she said, miming it for him. “Practice without an arrow for a moment.”
He practiced, swaying in the bitter cold, his nostrils red and the rest of his face the color of pale wax.
“How’s that? Do I look like Errol Flynn?”
“You are a dashing motherfucker,” she told him.
She picked an arrow off the rocks, held it in one fist, closed her eyes, and frowned in concentration.
“What are you doing there?”
She didn’t look at him, but felt his gaze upon her and was glad. In that moment she knew she was going to do it. It was like knowing you were going to hit a bull’s-eye before the arrow left the bow.
Harper saw it in her head, the way she would move her hands in sequence to say you and me, babe, how ’bout it, without using any words at all. She saw it all and in that moment she knew how easy it was. You didn’t have to do anything to connect with the Dragonscale. In that way it was just like being pregnant. She felt the song in her tendons and nerve endings, felt it flow like blood, without a sound, without words, without even the memory of words. You and me, babe, how ’bout it?
She lit up. Harper opened her eyes to see the cup of her hand spurt a heatless flame—a blue, mystic flame—all around the arrow, and she cried out in shock and dropped it.
The Fireman snatched at her arm and clapped her hand under his turnout jacket to extinguish the blaze. Red freckles appeared high in his cheeks. His eyes strained behind his glasses.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing? Do you want to die?”
“I—I just wanted to see—”
But he had turned away, his coat flapping, and began to lurch back up the dune.
She caught up to him at the top of the ridge, the highest point of the island. The shed was below, built right into the side of the slope. Moss and sea grass carpeted the roof. She tried to take his shoulder, but he spun around, throwing her hand off him.
He gave her a bewildered, bookish look, eyes straining behind his square glasses. “Is that what this was all about? Get me drunk and make out with me to see if you can trick me into teaching you how to burn yourself to death?”
“No. John. No. I kissed you because I felt like kissing you.”
“Do you know what happened to the last person who decided she wanted to pull a burning rabbit out of a hat?”
“I know what happened.”
“No, you don’t. You have no idea. She turned to cinders.” As he spoke he was backing unsteadily away from her.
“I know she died. I know it was terrible.”
“Shut up. You don’t know anything except I have something you want and you’ll do whatever you need to get it: booze me up, flounce around, fuck me if necessary.”
“No,” she said. She felt she was caught in nettles. She couldn’t struggle free and everything she said was another step deeper into the thorny tangle. “John. Please.”
“You don’t know what happened to her. You don’t know what’s still happening to her. You don’t understand a thing about us.” He threw the bow over the side of the roof, which was when she realized he had retreated out onto the top of his shed. He reeled back another step.
“Get away from me. And never do what you just did again.” He held out his hands. Golden light throbbed in his Dragonscale. His palms became shallow dishes, brimming with flame. “Unless you want to burn like this forever.”
“John, stop it, stop moving. Just stay where you are and—”
He wasn’t listening. He took another step back and spread his arms. Wings of brightest fire spread in a cape from his hands, down to his sides. Black smoke gushed from his nostrils.
“Unless you want to be in hell for the rest of your life,” he said. “Like m-m-muh-muh—”
His eyes widened with surprise. He began to whirl his arms around and around for balance, drawing flaming hoops in the air. His right foot slid out from under him and down the roof. He dropped to one knee, lunged, and grabbed a fistful of grass. For one moment of perfect stillness he hung at a crooked angle. The long tough grass turned to threads of copper and burnt away in his hot hand.
“John!” she cried.
He dropped, banged down the tin roof, off the edge and into the night. She heard him hit the dune with a thud, a thump, a gasp, a soft whump.
Silence.
“Nothing broken!” he called. “Don’t worry! I’m all right!”
He was quiet again.
“Except maybe my wrist,” he said, in a suddenly disconsolate voice.
Harper closed her eyes and exhaled with relief.
“Ow,” the Fireman said.
14
After she popped the lunate back into place—it went in with a meaty thwack! and a shrill cry—and retaped the wrist, she made him drink two ladles of frosty water and swallow four Advil. She forced him to lie down and then spooned against him in his cot for one, her arm around his waist.
“You asshole,” she said. “You’re lucky you didn’t smash in those ribs again.”
He put his injured hand over hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “About what I said.”
“Do you want to tell me about it? About what happened to her?”
“No,” he said. “Yes. Do you really want to hear?”
She thought she already knew much of it, but she squeezed his thumb between her fingers, to let him know she was ready to listen. He sighed—a weary, haggard sound.
“Now and then Sarah and I would paddle out here, you know . . . to the cottage on this little island, to be away from the others. Allie didn’t come with us—she had become almost completely nocturnal by then and slept most of the day, storing up energy for her night runs. Nick tagged along, but usually he’d nod off after a picnic out on the dunes. There were beds in the cottage, but he liked to sleep in the rowboat. He enjoyed the rock of the tide and the way the boat knocked against the pylons. There was a little dock then, out alongside the cottage. Well, that was all right. Sarah and I could have some wine and some fresh air and do what grown-ups like in the cottage.
“We had a sleepy romp in the sheets one day after a meal of cold chicken and some kind of salad with raisins in it. Just as Sarah was dozing off, she asked me if I would check on Nick. I went out in my bare feet and jeans—and saw a little gusher of flame spout up from the boat. I’m sure I would’ve screamed, only I was too scared to get any air. I staggered out onto the dock, trying to shout Nick’s name, as if he could’ve heard. All that would come out was a thin wheeze. I was sure I’d find him ablaze.
“But he wasn’t on fire, he was breathing fire. Every time the boat knocked against the pylons, he’d cough a mushroom cloud of red flame and then laugh a dozy little giggle. I don’t think he was all the way awake or really knew what he was doing. I know he wasn’t aware of me watching. After all, he couldn’t hear me, and he wasn’t looking my way, his entire drowsing attention focused on his work with the flame. By then I had dropped to my knees. My legs had gone all weak. I watched him for two or three minutes. He’d blow rings of fire and then wave his fingers and dash off a dart of flame to jump through the hoops.