Chapter 6
The hose pulled behind me like it didn't want to go. I remembered the red brass nozzle banging against my ankle and the way the water on the floor made everything shine. The fire was louder now, a low crackle along the back wall where the wood had gone dark. I held my rabbit tight against my chest with my left arm and dragged the hose with my right. The shed door was only a few steps away but the smoke sat low and made those steps feel long.
That was the contradiction that stuck. He was the grown-up and he couldn't move and I was small and I had to. The rope around his torso was thick and knotted and it kept his arms pinned. Sweat cut clean lines through the soot on his skin. I could hear him breathing hard behind me while I stared at the door.
My name is Macy. I was three in that shed and I thought fire needed water more than I needed to run.
I didn't know how close the latch was until I was under it. The door was wood and swollen from heat, set in a frame that had gone gray with dust except where my hand had left a wet print. The black iron latch sat high. Too high. I had to reach up on my toes to touch it. The metal was warm and gritty. I tried to lift it with one hand because the other had the rabbit and the hose nozzle kept slipping in my wet palm. I pushed up and the latch didn't move. I put the nozzle down for a second and used both hands and my rabbit got squeezed between my elbow and the door.
I remember the sound before the slip. The fire popped behind me and water sloshed. My pink sock found the slickest part of the concrete and went out from under me. My bare foot stayed planted but my socked foot slid back a few inches and my knees buckled. I caught myself on the door edge. The wet floor had been pooling since the start and now it was working against me. I steadied and reached again. My fingers were too small to get leverage on the flat iron bar. I tried to hook my thumb under it and lift. It rattled but stayed shut. The smoke was thicker at my height now and it stung my eyes.
He shouted from behind me. "Run!"
He didn't move when he said it. He couldn't. The rope coiled around his white shirt held him against the post and the shirt had torn more at the shoulder from him straining. I looked back over my shoulder and saw his face tight and his mouth open. He leaned toward me as far as the binding would let him, maybe an inch, and then the rope stopped him. He wanted me out and I wanted the latch up and neither one of us could do what the other needed without help.
I turned back to the door and planted my bare foot first this time. I pressed my pink sock foot flat and slow. I hopped a little and got my whole palm under the iron latch. It was heavier than it looked. The black iron had weight and the heat had made it stick. I pushed up with my wrist and not just my fingers. My rabbit's ear dragged against the wood. I breathed once and shoved hard. The latch gave a metal scrape and lifted. It clunked against the top stop.
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The door jumped. It hadn't been locked, just latched, and once the iron was clear the pressure from the heat and the draft pulled it outward. Smoke poured through the gap in a fast gray sheet and then daylight cut through it. That contrast was sharp. Inside was orange and wet and hazy. Outside was pale yard light, washed-out grass, the side of our house, and the garden hose running away from me toward the spigot I couldn't yet see clearly. No mom. I looked left and right through the opening and didn't see her. The yard was empty except for the thin line of the hose disappearing around the shed corner.
The opening was wide now, maybe two feet, held ajar by the wind and the heat lift. Cool air came in low across the wet floor and made the flames along the back edge lean. I stood right at the threshold with my rabbit still in my left arm and the brass nozzle back in my right hand. The hose dragged through the doorway and made a wet track over the concrete lip. Behind me the fire kept going and the rope kept holding him. In front of me the path out was clear. I hadn't left yet. I was exactly on the line between inside and outside, and the water still wasn't running.
