Three Million Acres of Flame by Valerie Sherrard

Author:Valerie Sherrard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000, JUV016160
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2007-11-26T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Mr. Cullwick!” Mrs. Chapman sputtered. “But I thought ...”

Cullwick stepped inside and sat down at a bench beside the table. He looked so weary and discouraged that Skye almost felt sorry for him.

“It seems that any accommodations as would be fitting for a gentleman such as myself are completely occupied,” he said. “Therefore, I have been compelled to return to your home. But I’ve made up my mind! I won’t have you worrying over the discomforts I may suffer here, for I am determined to bear them with equanimity.”

“Perhaps another day,” Mrs. Chapman said, trying to hide a sigh.

“Another day?” Cullwick repeated.

“I only meant that you might have better luck another day. In finding a situation more suited to your station.”

“Yes, perhaps,” he agreed. But the truth was, Cullwick could not face the thought of another day like the one he had just been through. What misery, trudging from home to home only to be told that there was no place for him. The experience had left him feeling rather insulted and more than a little sorry for himself.

As if she was expressing the general feeling over Cullwick’s return, Elizabet Susan chose that moment to wake and make it well known to one and all that she was quite ready for her next meal.

Collin Haverill lay awake on the floor near to his nephew, Tavish. He longed for sleep to come, to give him a few hours away from the pain that filled his every waking moment, but even that door of escape seemed closed to him that night.

The days were easier, in spite of everything, for they had become filled with backbreaking work. It was work that Collin welcomed. The relentless motions involved in clearing debris and digging through the ugliness the fire had left behind helped deaden the ache in him just a little.

But when daylight had slipped away and the darkness outside seemed to match the bleakness of his spirit, images crept back in.

As soon as he closed his eyes the faces of his wife and sons drifted before him. As painful as that was, he could have borne it — except for the sounds! They rose unbidden in his head; he could not push them away.

It always began the same way — the laughing shouts of his children at their chores or at play, the soft tone of Susan’s words soothing him after a hard day’s work.

But then it changed. It always changed. The boisterous voices of his children and the gentle voice of his wife grew distorted. They slowed down, sped up; they took on tones and tempos he had never heard from their mouths — and yet, he recognized their voices as surely as if his ears had really heard and recorded those sounds.

Over and over, Collin Haverill heard the shrieks of terror, the cries of pain and suffering, as the fire closed in around his family. The sounds chased away everything else and left him paralysed with the horror of their last moments.

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