Under Wicked Sky: 11. The Fire (Patreon)

Clarissa

I figured the next morning was the start of a banner day, because I didn’t wake up in absolute terror when the griffins screeched their morning wake up call. Just the normal sort of ‘freaked out’. It only took a few minutes for me to fall back asleep on a comfy piece of carpet. I guess you could get used to anything.

When I woke again, I had kicked the single blanket off, and it was mid-afternoon. No one else stirred in the house. Ben, curled up on the loveseat above me, was snoring loudly.

At least that hadn't changed. I used to be able to hear him through the wall separating our bedrooms back in the apartment.

No, don't think about the apartment. Or Mom. Or my friends... I was supposed to go shopping in Reno with Darcy next week...

I sat up and rubbed at my face. Only then did I register the smell of smoke in the air. It wasn’t the acidic burn of charred food, but spicy wood scent. I’d grown up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I knew the smell of a forest fire.

Padding across the living room, I parted the window blinds to look out. The air outside was thick and gray with low-hanging smoke. Not good.

There was no point in waking Ben or the others. Not yet. Instead, I made my way up the stairs and to the attic.

Through the porthole window was more of the same: Gray haze so thick I couldn't see more than a hundred feet in any direction.

Yesterday, the billowing smoke had been pretty far off and blowing away from the house. The direction of the wind must've changed. Or, more likely, the fire did.

What am I going to do?

Dylan and Lilly had said the casinos at Stateline had been burning. I hadn't let myself think on that very much, mostly because I didn't want Ben to see me break down. 

Our mom was gone. Either turned into a monster, or died in a fire. I hoped she was a griffin and had chosen to fly far, far away. She never liked Lake Tahoe, and always talked of figuring out a way for us to move back to the town where she'd grown up in Texas. She didn't deserve to die here.

And what had happened to all my friends? Darcy, and Laura, and MacKenzie, and her stupid boyfriend with the frosted hair. It's not like I could call them, but most lived near the casinos just like Ben and I.

Between the griffins and the fire, the city would be Hell on Earth.

My fists clenched. I knew this was a stupid, unproductive track for my thoughts to take. But now I had a moment to myself, it was like a dam breaking. All my piled up fears and doubts had become too much. What would my friends think about my new feathers? It wasn’t like a cool tattoo, or anything. Real feathers were growing out of me, and they were freaky. And if the forest fire didn’t get us, would my griffinitis? 

Tears ran down my cheeks. I couldn't stop them. 

Alone, in somebody else's attic, without Ben to worry about seeing me, I put my head in my hands and cried.

* * *

Of course, crying didn't help anything. It didn't even make me feel better. After my tears dried, I was thirsty and had a headache. Plus, my face was puffy. I was an ugly crier.

That's how Merlot found me. 

"Oh." Merlot paused in surprise at the top of the stairs. Baby Jane dozed in the crook of her arm. "Clarissa, I didn't know you were here. I thought you and Ben slept in the living room?"

I shook my head and turned a little away to hide my face. If she noticed my cheeks were all blotchy from crying, she didn't say anything. "No." I waved to the window. "I was just checking if I could see anything out there."

Merlot walked over and peered out the window to the gray haze. "Oh, yuck. I'm glad we’re inside. I don't want to be breathing that stuff."

I almost laughed, then realized she was serious. ”The fire probably changed direction. That's why we’re in the smoke right now."

Merlot's pimply face went slack with shock. I guess I couldn't blame her. Three days ago, forest fires were something other people worried about. They were annoying, ruined mountainside views, and could be a little scary if one burned close to your house. But you were never in any real danger. There were evacuation notices and firefighters to stop the flames from getting close. 

Now, there wasn't anyone around to tell us when to leave, or where it was safe to go.

"Oh my God." Merlot put her hand to her mouth and looked from me to the window and back again. "You mean, it's coming this way? What do we do? How long do we have?" Her voice ended on a squeak.

"I don't know," I said. “We’ll probably be able to see the fire again once it gets dark. The flames will stand out."

She shifted baby Jane around, who was looking more awake. Maybe she was picking up on Merlot's fear. 

"Well, we can't stay here. We’re in the middle of the forest! Oh, my God." Merlot looked to the smoke again. "My family has a home right outside Carson City. We can go there. It's a nice big house, only about forty minutes down the hill—"

She was getting worked up. "All we know is the wind changed direction." I tried to keep my voice soothing. “Going to Carson City is not a good idea. It has a lot more people than South Lake Tahoe, right? That means more griffins.”

“But we wouldn’t be in the middle of a forest!”

She had a point. Carson City was in a high desert. Not many trees around. “Which means we’d have a lot less cover to hide in,” I replied, but I could hear a little bit of annoyance in my voice. I didn't plan to stand around and do nothing, but we couldn't act until we knew more. Plus, I wasn't going to risk going out in daylight, even with all the smoke. Who knew what griffins could see, or smell?

Hot frustration built in the pit of my stomach. I hated feeling trapped. I also didn’t like Merlot voicing the same fears I was trying to keep at bay.

I let out a breath and tried to let it go. I used to be more patient than this. "No matter what, we can't travel anywhere until the sun sets. I'm sure we’re okay right now. The flames were pretty far off yesterday."

Merlot cast another nervous glance out the window. But at that moment, Jane began to whimper. Much to my relief, she turned her attention back to the baby. 

"Why don't you take care of Jane," I said. "I'll wake up Terry and the others, and we’ll figure out what to do together, okay?"

Merlot still looked nervous, but nodded.

* * *

By the time I knocked on Terry's bedroom door, Baby Jane started wailing, which woke up the entire house. Soon, everyone had gone up to the attic to look at the smoke. 

We were all worried, but Terry pointed out that we couldn’t go anywhere in the daylight, anyway.

What happened to those kids in the caravan was fresh in my mind. From the looks everyone exchanged, I wasn’t the only one thinking about them. 

It was still a few hours until dark. Hungry and bored, I went searching for something to eat. We’d forgotten to hook up the large stainless steel refrigerator in the kitchen to the generator. The spoiled food inside was starting to stink. But the meat downstairs was still frozen. 

After sorting through the white butcher-paper packets (I was quick about it just in case, but didn’t feel spacey like yesterday) I tried my hand at cooking ribs. The oven was gas-powered, and Lilly knew how to kindle the pilot-light with a lighter.

I put the ribs in the oven, seasoned with salt and pepper, and hoped for the best.

A couple hours later, the ribs were black on one end, so I figured they must've been cooked in the middle. I gave it an extra twenty minutes just in case. Food poisoning was the last thing we needed. 

Then, I realized we didn't have any barbecue sauce. So, ketchup it was. Also, I forgot about cooking potatoes or another side dish. For some reason, noodles and salad didn't sound great. There were some canned peas in the cupboard which I poured out into a bowl, where it sat untouched in the middle of the table. 

I’ll admit it: The dinner sucked. We all managed to saw through the tough ribs, but the mood was grim. No one spoke much. 

I had tried my best to reassure Merlot, and Terry had said his part, but were were trapped in the house. No one knew if we were about to be surrounded by a rampaging wildfire. More than once, I caught Ben glancing out the window.

The sun finally set, along with the griffin’s goodnight screeching. Smoke, or no, it sounded like there were plenty of them around. Their cries bounced all through the smoke with an effect that made it impossible to tell where one began and the other ended. Straight out of horror movies.

Terry found a deck of cards and tried to get Merlot and Ben to play Go Fish.

I stood from the table. “I’m going up to the attic.”

Ben threw down his cards and came immediately to my side. Everyone else followed us up.

It was barely after dusk, but the gathering darkness allowed the flames to stand out from the smoke. I caught my breath as I looked out: A bright yellow and orange ribbon stretched from one end of the Tahoe basin to the other. It didn’t look super-close, but it was hard to tell for sure.

"I was thinking... the smoke’s low to the ground," Dylan said. He hadn't spoken much today, I noticed. He was the type to be quiet and observant.

"So?" Lilly asked.

He shrugged a heavy shoulder. “Mean’s the wind isn't actually pushing the fire along. It’s spread a lot, but I think it would've been a lot worse if there was wind kicking up. That might be a good thing."

"A good thing?" Merlot squeaked. "Do you see that? What if it comes this way and we can't get out in time? Let’s go to my house in Carson City."

"She's right," Terry said.

I turned to him, surprised. "Are you insane? We can't go to Carson City."

“No, not about that.” He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Merlot. No, running to a bigger city isn’t a good idea.”

Merlot jutted her chin out. "Well, I'm going."

"Don't be stupid," Lilly snapped. "You can't drive, and even if you could, the fire might be across the highway by now. Fires fall trees. You'll be trapped, and you will burn alive. That baby, too."

Merlot went pale.

"Lilly, that is not helpful," Dylan said.

Lilly flicked dismissive fingers at her brother and turned back to the window, uncaring. “Sorry, not sorry. She needs to stop being an idiot.”

"But we’ll burn up if we stay here!" Ben turned to me. "Clarissa, I want to go home. Do you think the fire has reached our apartment yet?"

The pleading look in his eyes broke my heart. "I think it might have,” I said softly, speaking as much to him as Merlot. “Our best chance is if we stick together."

Merlot was stubborn. "But we can't just stay here!"

“For the love of—” Lilly started.

Terry raised his voice to drown out Lilly. "What I mean is, we have a boat in the garage. We can use the Land Rover’s hitch to back it down to the dock. That fire won’t be able to cross the lake."

"Are you kidding?" Lilly demanded, which was almost the same thing I was thinking, except fewer curse words. "Do you know how far sound travels over water? And we will be kinda visible to anything that’s watching the lake—"

"The griffins don't seem to care unless there’s light," Terry said. 

"You don't know that for sure!"

She and Terry started squabbling. I turned back to the window. Agreeing with Lilly made my stomach feel queasy, but what was the expression? Even a stopped clock was right twice a day.

The griffins had ignored houses so far, but they liked moving vehicles. And they’d have no problem flying across a lake to get at us.

I didn’t know what to do. All my life, other people made the hard decisions. It was part of being a kid, I guess. I didn't get to choose where I lived, if I had to get up for school, what to do if a natural disaster happened—which it never did. There were firefighters and policeman, a president to make important announcements over the TV, and the radio to turn to for National Weather Service information during blizzards. 

For the first time, I realized I had lived a pretty sheltered life.

Just sitting in place and hoping the fire didn't come wasn't an option. Running away to Carson City was probably impossible, and a really bad idea once we got there. Sure, there would be stores stocked with food in a city, but they might be on fire, too. 

Crossing the lake in a boat might be suicide.

I stared out at the oncoming fire, then to the night-black lake. The shore on the opposite side wasn’t visible even on clear days. Lake Tahoe was huge. I said aloud, "I wish I knew how far it’s spread. It might be just as bad across the lake.” What we need is a helicopter, or a drone with a camera or something."

"What we need is a whole company of firefighters," Dylan said. He also had turned away from the squabbling. Standing with me, he gazed out the window. "I'd give a lot to know if there was a natural fire break out there."

Wait.

I turned to him. "How exactly do firefighters fight wildfires, anyway?" I’d seen shows about them saving pets and kids in houses, but you couldn’t squirt a hose at a forest fire. “I know they have cargo planes full of retardant, but what else?”

He shrugged. "Firebreaks. Cutting bare patches in the forest. Setting backfires to eat the fuel ahead of time. Stuff like that."

Setting more fires seemed to be a bad idea. "Could we, like, hook the generator up to... a pump or something? Wet everything down around the house so it doesn't burn?"

"Yeah!" Ben said. “I saw a garden hose outside!"

Lilly must have overheard. She turned from her cousin to us. "We don't have a pump. We have city water, just like everyone else here. Besides, you can’t fight a wildfire with a hose," she added snidely to Ben.

"We have a whole lake outside!" He pointed at the dark watery mass, and then stuck out his tongue at her.

Dylan was kinder. "We do have the lake, but the garden hose isn't big enough. I don't think we can get it even to spray to the roof. But..." His eyebrows knit.

I thought I knew where he was going. "Could we figure out a way to make a break around this house—like a clear patch of ground where the fire can't cross?" 

"We aren't firefighters," Terry said.

I turned to him. "But why won't a firebreak work?"

To my surprise, Lilly jumped in. "Actually... That's not a bad idea. Not around the house, that’s stupid," she added, reverting immediately back to her normal self. "We can’t let the fire get that close. But this whole subdivision is on a tiny peninsula that sticks out into the lake. We are already surrounded by water on three sides. The highway goes across and kind of acts like a break of its own." She pinched her thumb and forefinger close together to make a U shape in the space between. “The road connects here, with that mountain ridge on the other side.” She laid a finger of her other hand across the tip of her pointing finger and thumb. "All we have to do is expand it around both sides of the road. Make it wider."

"And if the wind kicks up at all, the embers will fly right across," Terry said. "Then we will be trapped here, which is why the boat is the best idea."

“We could at least try,” Dylan said.

Terry pointed out the window. "Do you see that? That fire is completely out of control. It's stretched almost across the entire basin. There are six of us, including the baby. We can't take it on ourselves."

I turned to him. "We don't have to. All we have to do is clear an area big enough so it doesn't cross. We don't know if the other side of the lake is just as bad. There might be fires all over the place for all we know. I say we try this."

I turned to the others. I didn't want to do something as corny as ask for a vote. Ben would do whatever I decided. Dylan was on my side, too. Lilly was nodding along with me. That left Terry and Merlot. The baby didn’t get a say.

Dylan, of course, stepped in to play peacemaker. “Why don’t we do both?” he said, sounding excited. "We drive the boat out to the launch and stock it with food, just in case we have to run. Then we work on the firebreak. Clear out some trees and brush and stuff. Father has—had a couple chainsaws in the garage. We can fuel them with the generator gas...” 

Dylan trailed off, and then slumped. Lilly and I exchanged a look, realizing the problem at the same moment.

“You’re worried about a noise a little boat will make out on the lake, and you think running chainsaws in a forest full of griffins is a good idea?” Terry asked his cousin coldly.

“Well...” Dylan looked out the window, frowning. “I guess I just assumed... and shovels won’t be enough, will it?” He looked to me. I reluctantly shook my head.

It reminded me of those times the electricity went out in the winter. I’d get bored of being outside in the cold, come in, and turn on the TV only to remember there was no power. So, I’d automatically head for the computer, not thinking. Electricity was always just there, and it was hard to wrap my mind around times when it wasn’t.

No, of course we couldn’t just start a loud chainsaw in the griffin-infested forest. The world had changed. Now there were now hungry predators everywhere.

Lilly, Dylan, and I stared at one another, feeling like idiots.

Terry ran his hand back through his hair and let out a long sigh. “It’s dark enough by now the griffins are asleep. Dylan, go get the Land Rover and drive it up here. You know how to hitch the boat?"

"Yeah."

With a last look at me, Dylan left. 

Terry followed behind him. Merlot trailed after, holding the baby close.

“Too bad,” Lilly said, still looking out the window and tapping in thought on the windowsill. Her delicate face twisted in a frown. “I really think that could have worked.”