June Weymouth was running, Not the jovial, frolicking run that she had done in her youth but a hard, flat footed sprint, her cornflower blue dress flew back behind her like a lazuli parachute as her bare feet trampled through the sea of sprouting corn. The chestnut brown braid that draped down her back swinging like a horse's tail swatting at flies.
With each and every inch that passed she began to feel the dumb, numbing aches of her own body's limits, slowly growing like the tidal floods of the mighty Mississippi. Her only saving grace was the mild weather, surprisingly mild for that time of year. The air was still with only the slightest whisper of a wind and clouds were only small grey wisps on the starlight black sky.
Of course the clouds and stars were of little concern to June. Her only thoughts were to run and to not stop, that was until a shrill scream cut through the quiet stillness like a hot knife through lard.
As the sound of the scream fully passed through June's ears her forward momentum came to a sudden halt, her bare feet digging pits in the dry earth beneath them. Spinning around she could see what had made the sound, the sound now echoing through the hallow night. One hundred feet behind her, in an outcropping of pushed down cornstalks, lay a figure. This huddled mass was hard to see in the eerie darkness but June knew exactly what it was.
Laying on the ground was the face down figure of a woman, This Woman was dressed in a sunburst yellow dress that was splayed out on the brown earth beneath her, The Woman also had brown hair like June's with one major difference. The length, while June's hair only came down to just below her shoulder blades the Woman on the grounds hair fell to the small of her back and now lay in a chestnut waterfall around her, if there had been sunlight June would have been able to see the stark contrast between the Woman's hair and her dress.
The Woman lay screaming, her face still buried into the ground. June wanted with every fiber of her being to run to her aid, there was only one thing preventing her from going and helping her dear sweet mother off the ground and finding out why her screams were turning into sobs.
The fire.
A quarter of a mile behind where June and her mother were laid their families home. It was a modest two story, white painted farmhouse. Not the biggest nor the smallest in their small community in North Western Kansas. It suited the four members of the Weymouth Family nicely.
June, her younger brother Joshua, her mother and her father had lived in the two story white house in the cornfield for as long as she could remember. A solid home, on solid land. They were farmers as were most of their neighbors in Monroe. While June never knew the specifics of the family's finances, she was only fourteen after all, she did know that they must be doing well. They had a supper of meat every day and a good beef roast every Sunday.
The Weymouth's even had a maid that lived with them, not everyone could say that in Monroe. Father would have the other heads of households over and they would all gather in the sitting room and smoke their pipes, play cards, and discuss politics or crop yields or a dozen other topics that June and Joshua did not quite understand. Her mother would have the ladies of those same households for lunches and sewing circles and the discussions of more delicate matters than their husbands, even though every so often Mrs. Weymouth or Mrs. Young or whoever felt the urge would bring up topics normally deemed unladylike.
The women of Monroe would still discuss them regardless of their taboo nature, June and Joshua would play with the other children from the community, games of tag or hide and seek were very common. That was how life had always been for the Weymouths and for Monroe.
Except on that night, June Twenty-Fourth in the Year of our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Eighty. Weymouth's home was on fire.
June had seen fire before, inside the fireplace or the wood burning stove. She had always been captivated by it while at the same time being scared of it. For as long as she could remember her mother always warned her that, " Fire is a gift from the Almighty to his Children, while at the same time being the weapon of the Devil." Fire was not a toy but a tool.
Unfortunately for June she learned the true lesson of fire on her own. During her fifth winter June was cold one night and she knew that her mother always placed her down in front of the fire when she would come in from the snow and the fire would warm her up.
As she lay in her small bed with a pile of blankets on top of her and her small body shivering she knew how she could warm up. She needed to bring the warmth into her room like the warmth in front of the fireplace. The difficulty was how to bring the fireplace into her small bedroom at the bottom of the stairs. Whenever she had seen her father carry fire from one room to another he always held something in his hands, what was it? Her small brain struggled as she tried to remember what her father used to bring fire, after a few moments the thought stuck her.
Matches!
Her father always kept a box of matches on the mantle for when he lit the fireplace. With her means of fire making decided she softly crept out from under the chilled warmth of her blankets, when her feet touched the cold wooden floor it felt like needles being shot up her legs.
She had to scramble the short distance into her slippers or else she would not be able to walk for long on the icy surface. Gently opening the wooden door she slinked her way out into the dark and empty common room. The windows were covered in soft white film of early frosting with the hollow sounding howl of the wind passing outside the white painted wooden walls.
Even though it took a moment for her eyes to adjust in the dim light, she was still able to move across the living area skillfully, her brain tracing out the internal map of her home.
Reaching the far side of the room just as her surroundings came into focus. The grandfather clock ticked endlessly in the far corner, mortared bricks jutted out from the wall with a deep hearth, laying in front was the red rug her father had given his wife as a gift to celebrate the birth of their first child, June.
The rug had once been a brighter color red, like the first petals of a poppy coming into bloom but over the years it had taken on a more muted almost brown hue. That was the color of the rug when June slipped off her slippers and felt the worn fabric under her feet, it was a comforting feeling.
For a moment she closed her eyes and just took in all of the senses that surrounded her in the living room. The sounds of Old Man Winter just outside trying with earnest effort to take up residence with the Weymouths, the heavy masculine smell of her fathers pipe that still lingered even hours after he had smoked it, the plush worn softness of her mothers favorite rug, and the monotonous ticking from the clock. Letting the last breath of her relaxing moment escape from her small lungs, June walked towards the fireplace and to the wooden box that lay on the stone mantle.
At first she was not sure she would be able to reach them and her whole adventure had been in a vein, finally after several strained attempts her small fingers were able to find purchase on the corner of the box and slide it just far enough that it fell from the high mantle. The cardstock box landed softly on her mothers rug with the faintest of thumps.
By this time June's heart was beating in her chest, she could hardly believe what she was doing! She should be in her bed, fast asleep. If one of her parents came out she knew she would be in trouble, more trouble than she has ever been in her short and uneventful life. Even with the specter of punishment hanging above her head the overwhelming desire for warmth held more strength over her small childish mind.
Reaching down she grasped the rough textured box that held her salvation from the cold. The box had a flip top lid which revealed layers of stacked interwoven matches. A new hitch in her plan began to materialize in the back of her mind, how was she going to light the match?
Standing there on the once red rug her small, delicate face began to scrunch in thought. How had she seen her father like the fire? How did her mother set the fire in the morning?
These were activities that affected her daily life but she had never taken to memory how they happened. Fetching water from the hand pump, the rhythmic preparation of hoe cakes for her breakfast, or her mother reading from the Bible every evening before bed. All of these were functions and routines she could recite step by step without a moment's hesitation, but starting a fire? She knew that it was possible, she knew that it was a quick process compared to so many other daily acts but the steps seemed to not want to formulate in her mindseye.
With her eyes still adjusted to the dark she began to look around near the fireplace for any signs of how her folks would light their matches. Rubbing along the bricks that made up the front of the mantle she noticed there were two channels that seemed to have been dug into the brick and mortar. Feeling inside the channels, June could feel the roughness as the tips of her fingers scraped down.
That was it!
Her still developing brain had a eureka moment, whenever she had seen anyone light the fireplace they always used the space between the bricks and with a downward swipe lit the match! Her heart suddenly began to race with a strong anticipation of the warmth that was soon at hand and also a slight twinge of pride in herself for figuring out a grown up problem all by herself!
Pulling one of the matches from the box June pulled it down the channel, holding her breath for the whole length of the mortar. No fire. Tightening up her grip on the match she pulled it down again. No fire, the only outcome was that the match snapped under the pressure of her hand. Drat!
She pulled out another match but with this attempt she not only grasped it tighter, she also swiped it down fast. Woosh! Instantaneously the match burst into a bright flash of orange, almost blinding her as its light cut through the darkness. She did it! She was going to have warmth!
She made fire!
Standing there on the faded red carpet that her mother loved so dear, with the sound of the Winter's wind still beating against the wooden wall of her home, her full attention became drawn into the sizzling flame that she held in her hand. Never in her few short years had she ever taken the time to look into fire. Why hadn't she? It was beautiful, the dance of reds, oranges, and yellows was captivating. It could have been a side effect of her lack of sleep or just the curious part of brain coming to the forefront but she began to lose herself into the flames in her hand. She began to make out shapes from the flames.
A wide smile spread across her face as the dance trope of color did a jig just for her. June lost any idea of time as the ticking sound from the clock in the corner became muted. All of the world just melted away, 'Melt. That's a silly word!' June thought.
As much as the dancers in the flame brought so much joy to June it was not topping the warmth, the whole reason that she had slipped out of her room and crept onto the once red carpet and lit the match. The match that felt so warm in her hand.
Thinking about it her hand did feel really warm all of the sudden, almost like it was burning. Burning!?
The match was burning her, the soft tips of her fingers were already becoming bright red when the panic began to set in. June's firm grasp that she had on the match fell open, burning globs of phosphorus seared through the cool living room air like a thousand meteors falling from the heavens.
The only exception was that meteors burned in the sky before making landfall, the phosphorus stayed burning and bright until it reached the once red carpet. As soon as those burning embers made contact with the dry red carpet, June's panic grew into full fear.
Any attempts she had made to be quiet had fully disappeared as the carpet suddenly turned into a stage for the dancers in the flames. "AHHH!" June screamed as loud as her lungs were able to muster. Her scream with the only reaction her body produced, she was frozen in place.
Fear's cold fingers cinched their way around her, even her scream began to be choked out as the fire began to spread on the once red carpet.
Everything around June became a blur, she did not even notice that her father had come barreling out of her parent's bedroom in nothing but his long underwear on and his hunting rifle in his hand.
"WHAT THE DEVIL IS HAPPENING!" Her father exclaimed, the fog of sleep still layering his mind and eyes. By this time all but one corner of the once red carpet was fully engulfed in flames. June was still in such a state of shock that she did not even realize that she was finally warm, the whole reason she had come out from her room.
"Damnation!" Her father said as the gravity of the situation became apparent to him. Dropping his rifle on the ground he quickly grabbed one of the piled blankets in the corner and began to beat down the flames as they licked their way closer to the soft wood of the floor. With each woosh of the blanket coming down June began to come more and more to her senses. All at once her surroundings flooded back into her mind, the grandfather clock ticking its eternal song in the corner, Old Man Winter still knocking at the door hoping to be let in to suck the warmth out of the home, and the once red carpet which now was nothing more than a blackened field of ash contrasting the light white pine of the floor.
June's pulse was still elevated and her breathing was ragged, short breaths. Before she was even fully back into her own body her father grabbed her around the upper arm and jerked her forward. "What did you do June Abigail Weymouth?!" His normally calm and collected blue eyes now raged like an angry ocean. "I….I….Co..Col…" June stammered out, her mind not even fully collected and the net of fear cast on her once again, a new fear she had never felt her fathers anger. She was unable to look at him so she looked over his shoulder and saw something that brought on a new feeling, sadness.
Standing back in her parents door was her mother wrapped in her brown shawl, June could not see in the darkness but her mother had tears welling in her eyes.
Looking down at the charred remains at the most expensive present her husband had ever given her, she began to feel overwhelmed. Making matters worse than just a destroyed rug was that her daughter, the light of her life and the reason she had gotten the carpet in the first place was the cause of its destruction. Warm droplets of salty tears began to roll down her cheeks as her husband still tried to get their little Junie to explain herself. "Did you start this fire?!"
June found her voice, "I 'as cold! I fought a fire like mama puts me by." Tears streamed down her rosy cheeks as she stammered out the words. Her mother walked into the room fully and stopped just at the edge of the once red carpet moving her puffy eyes from her daughter to the ashen remains on the floor. Disappointment was drawn across her face in bold lines.
A strong silence fell over the Weymouth house only broken by the occasional sobs from the littlest member of the family. After sometime the shock and panic of the situation began to wear off and June's eyes began to clear from the salty water of tears and she could take in everything that happened in the last thirty minutes.
Just as she fully began to reconstruct every step she had taken she felt a searing pain in her right hand, the worst pain she had ever felt in her entire life. The silence that had fallen over the home was pierced on again by the high pitched shrillness of June Weymouth's cries. On instinct she clutched the wrist on her right hand which only caused her to cry louder. Her father, seemingly frustrated with the lack of light, went and lit the lantern that he kept on the mantle piece. The astringent fumes of magnesium once again filled the room as the soft orange glow of the lantern brought everything into focus.
Still crying June could finally see the right hand that was causing her so much pain, as her eyes cast down on it she felt a sudden wave of nausea welling up in her. Her right hand which had been soft and white with a pinkish hue now resembled something more akin to ground meat. She was not the only one who had noticed as her mother, still with disappointment drawn across her stern face, came to June's side and examined the grotesque appendage. June could see that her mother was talking to her but the words were not registering in her mind, all of her senses were filled in the spasms of pain that danced up her arm.
A sudden wash of dizziness crashed against June's small mind and her ears filled with the hollowing of Old Man Winter beating at the shutters. The world went black as she fell down to the floor, the last image in her eyes was the burnt remains of the once red carpet.
Standing in the field of just sprouted corn, June's right arm began to feel twitches of pain. While in the almost ten years that had passed since her middle of the night expedition for warmth she had been able to regain all function in her burnt right arm there were only two lasting changes.
First was in appearance, while no longer covered in blisters and pus her arm was still covered in raised ridges and pits of scar tissue and was left with a permanent discoloration of pink. The second last effect was that whenever she felt major emotional changes a recurrent pain like needles would dance from fingertips to shoulder. Her arm was not the only part of her that was left scarred.
Since that night June had become afraid of fire. It had taken years for her to even be able to be in the same room as a fireplace with its open flame always ready to reach out and lick the world. It had taken almost five years for her to not become catatonic with her eyes fixed on the fire as if looking away from it would cause some horde of the devil to fly out and burn her again.
Standing there in the field she suddenly began to feel that familiar feeling again. Bright orange flames engulfed not just her family home but the barns and outbuildings as well. If she had been able to look away she would have also noticed that in the distance all of Monroe was a roaring inferno.
Time stood still as she watched the orange and red flames paint the white walls of her family's home into their own bright shades. A thought formed in June's mind she had not had since that night all those years ago with the once red carpet. Fire was beautiful. Wild and untamed, dancers in orange and red performing a ballet right in front of her. The dancers' arms reaching out to you as the heat they generated warmed you. For the first time in so many years June was not afraid of the fire, if truth be told she wanted nothing more than to stand and watch the show that its dancers were putting on just for her. A smile began to spread across her delicate face, everything else became unimportant.
June was suddenly pulled out of her personal ballet, the crushing reality of her situation becoming abundantly clear once again.
Her mother lying on the ground at her feet had reached out and grabbed ahold of June's ankle. "June! My foot is caught, please help me up?" Her mothers voice twinged with tears. Dropping to her knees June looked for where her mothers foot was stuck. The burning fire of their home caused the night to be lit as if it was mid day so it took no time for her to find. During their rabid sprint away from the inferno her mother's left foot and ankle had fallen into a prairie dog hole.
Reaching down, June grappled for a grip, each time she touched near her mother's foot she would wince in pain. "Don't mind me Junie, just keep going at getting it out." After several more fruitless attempts and stifled screams her mothers foot was able to come free.
Both of them sitting there on the hard early summer ground was her mothers first chance to see the bonfire that raged behind them. " Oh Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. I pray to you almighty God, forgive my family and my friends for whatever sins we have committed that cause you to bring the fires of hell unto us." June's mother had always been pious, she had taught her children that all things in creation are part of His 'Great Plan'. June did not know how the burning of her family's home, their livelihood, was the work of God but she knew better than to question her mother. So there they both sat, her mother praying and quoting the Bible and June trying once again to see the dancers in the fire.
No dancers appeared to her anymore, instead she began to see different figures in the fire. Snarling jaws of wolves, great horned beasts gashing at the walls with scythes, and a pair of eyes that seemed to be scanning the fields. Her mother must have seen the eyes as well for suddenly her prayers stopped and she reached out for Junes.
The eyes in the flames began to grow larger until they stood larger than the house itself. "June, we need to go now!" Her mother said in a haggard tone. June scrambled up to her feet, the air around her began to feel cold. Not the typical cool early summer nights but cold like the first winds of winter. Goosebumps began multiplying on her exposed arms as the eyes in the flames locked on to her. She could hear her mother struggling up from the ground, prayers once again escaping her lips.
Somewhere in the direction of their burning home June and her mother heard a wolf's howl. "Mother, I'm scared." June said as the inky tendrils of fear wrapped around her. "Have faith in the Lord and you shall fear no evil for He is….AHHHH!" Her mother fell back down to the ground. June rushed to her side, "Mother! What happened?!" June said with a quiver in her voice. Her mother reached down and felt at the ankle that had gotten stuck in the prairie dog's hole.
"I can't stand Junie, Oh Lord Jesus!" She reached out and grabbed June's hand and with a glazed look in her eyes pulled her closer. "Oh my beautiful daughter, protect her oh Father. My sweet Junebug, you must go. Run! The Devil is here in Monroe, I feel his presence. Run June! Do not look back! Just as the Lord our God commanded to Lot you must go and never look back! Our Father give strength to this lamb of yours, allow her to be free from the talons of the demons and devils. I pray this in the name of you, the one true God of Heaven and Earth! Go now child! No matter what, do not look back, do not stop, trust in your Faith and He will protect you!" With the last words her mother pushed June away.
June stood in confusion. She could not understand why her mother was asking to be left here in this field of sprouting corn, why the flames were making eyes that felt like they penetrated into her very soul. A voice began to speak in her mind that was not her own. "Do as your mother says, child. Obey thy Mother." The voice was no one that June had ever heard before, it was commanding but not angry. It was soft but hard edged.
She could not determine if it was a man or a woman or some combination of both. Without thought she felt her legs begin to turn her away from her mother and the burning wreckage of her home. 'Why am I moving?' June's own voice thought as she began to gain speed on the hard ground, 'How can I abandon my mother when she needs me?' The other voice answered, "You are not abandoning her, Child. Her fate has already been decided, yours has not. No matter what you hear, do not look back!"
The last instruction was not difficult to follow. By that time June was sprinting so hard the sound of the wind masked all other noises of the night. If she had been able to hear what was happening behind her she would have certainly stopped and run back to her mothers side.
Laying there Cady Weymouth heard in her mind the same voice her daughter had heard. 'Rest now my child. You will feel pain and you will suffer but know that I am here. Your pain will pass and you will be welcomed into the Kingdom.' It did not take long for Emily to know what pain the voice was referring to. Walking up to her she could see the same of a man, flanked on either side by two large dogs.
The man walked up to her with a crooked smile and a shimmer in his eyes. He spoke in a cool voice, "Are you hurt, Mrs. Weymouth?" She gave him a short reply, "I have no words for you Satan!" At this the man laughed, "I am not the Devil Mrs. Weymouth. That is an insult to what I am." He squatted down and sat on his haunches, stroking her hair. "It's almost a shame that you have to die, Cady. Having to waste such beauty. Goodnight Mrs. Weymouth."
Cady, disgusted by every ounce of the man in front of her, used all of her strength to slash at him, her nails found their mark right under his left eye. Her nails dug trenches in the soft flesh under his eye, cutting the skin and causing him to be stunned backwards. He reached up and could fill the slight tracts of blood that were beginning to form. "You Bitch!" He exclaimed as he swung a punch at the side of her face. She was knocked flat on the ground as the sound of air escaped her lungs.
As she lay there flat on her back gasping in breaths as the world around her spun, she heard his whistle. Just as the three floating images came back into one the two dogs were upon her. Before she could utter a single sound their sharp fangs began to tear at her skin. The last image Cady Weymouth saw was the blood flowing down the man's face, seeing that gave her satisfaction and with a smile spread on her own face she fell into eternal slumber.