City of Ash (35 page)

“Did something fall on you back there? Are you all right?”

Impatiently, she said, “I’m perfectly fine.”

We’d been through hell, and I was almost too tired to think. She had to be the same. “I think you should go home,” I said as gently as I could. “We’re both tired. Go home. Sleep in your comfortable bed. Kiss your husband. No doubt he’ll be glad you’re alive.”

Her head jerked up as if I’d hit her. “The very last thing I want is to see Nathan.”

That surprised me.

“I’ll leave him to you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To have him all to yourself?”

I laughed; there was so much smoke in my lungs it turned into a rasping cough that went deep; it was a while before I caught my breath.

She asked harshly, “What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? I nearly died in a fire and I’ve lost everything I own, and now you’re telling me you don’t want to see your husband, and by the way, take him if you want. Frankly, Mrs. Langley, the question is: What’s wrong with you?”

Calmly, she said, “Mrs. Wilkes, I would like you to do something for me.”

I frowned at her. “What?”

“I want you to find out if my husband is alive.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for you to find out? All you have to do is go home and—”

“I don’t want him to know I’ve survived. Not yet. This is why I need
you
to ask about him. And why I need you to say that you haven’t seen me since before the fire.”

The way she said this … just so flatly, as if she were discussing the weather. It made me shiver. I was growing to hate that I knew the Langley name at all. I knew already that whatever this was, I did not want to be involved in it.

She went on, “I suppose someone from the troupe might know if Nathan survived.”

“If they survived it themselves,” I said—and damn if the smoke in my lungs didn’t catch, so I couldn’t help but choke a little. “I suppose I’ll look for them in the morning.”

“Can I count on your help, then?”

“No, you can’t,” I said sharply. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, I don’t want any part of it.”

Her expression went hard as stone. “Mrs. Wilkes, I am in a position to reward you quite handsomely for your cooperation.”

You know, there were times when I hated that I cared so much about money, and this was one of them, because suddenly I was all attention, and I knew better. “How much?”

Oh, that look of haughty distaste! So perfect—I memorized it for the future, for the next time I played an arrogant, bossy, supercilious character. “Would two hundred dollars be sufficient?”

Would it be sufficient? I would have walked naked through the streets for that kind of money, and she must have known it. “Two hundred dollars? And all I have to do is find out if Nathan is alive and pretend I haven’t seen you?”

“That’s all. Does it meet your mercenary standards, Mrs. Wilkes?”

“I prefer to call it pragmatic. And yes, it does.”

She took a deep, obviously relieved breath. “Do you think you can find the company?”

I lay back on the grass, jerking a little in pain when my elbow hit the ground. I thought of my fellow actors. I thought of Sebastian. I stared up at the eerie northern lights. “If they’re still alive, I’ll find them. In the morning.”

“Perfect,” she said.

Around me I heard the mutterings of other people, someone sobbing, a dog barking. Her sigh. “No stars tonight,” I said softly, more to myself than anything.

“But it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she answered.

I
n the morning, I was stiff all over, my lungs tight from smoke, tasting ash on my lips. It was barely dawn, and hot, what was left of the city hazy through a lingering fog of smoke. Charred telegraph poles sheared of their stanchions poked through the haze like long black fingers. Beside me, Mrs. Langley was curled on her side, her face buried in her arms. Her bustle poked into my hip.

I peered at two uniformed figures who emerged through the haze, the Washington National Guard, their rifles over their shoulders, brass buttons glinting in the filtered sunlight. They crossed the street and came up to me as I sat, and the young and handsome one said, “Good morning, miss. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Hungry and thirsty, but all right.”

Mrs. Langley stirred beside me. The militiaman nodded to her and said, “She a friend of yours? Is she all right?”

“We’re both fine,” I said.

“You got somewhere to go?”

“I don’t know. Is there any part of the city left?”

The young man frowned. “Nothing to the south, and most of the piers are gone or damaged. To the north it got to University. Most of the business area looks like this.” He gestured vaguely. “Most of the houses are all right.”

“And … did anyone die?”

The militiaman glanced at his partner, who shrugged and said, “We don’t know. A few people missing, but other than that, it’s too early to tell. They’re planning to open relief tents in the next day or so.” And then hesitantly, as if he felt guilty for having to leave us unprotected, “They should be able to help you and your friend out then.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

When they left, I looked down at Mrs. Langley. “They’re gone.”

She groaned and sat up, pushing at her bustle. It was riding lopsided and bent, and I said, “I think your bustle’s ruined.”

She rubbed her face, streaking the soot on her skin. Her dark hair was mostly fallen from its pins, tangled in a mass over her shoulder. She peered into the fog, frowning. “I don’t recognize anything.”

“The Regal was there.” I pointed to a block of nothing but ash piles and the charred and leaning telegraph poles, and—very strange—a streetlamp that looked untouched except that its glass globes were gone. Yesterday morning if I’d been sitting here, I wouldn’t have been able to see past the buildings across the street. Today, I could see clear to the harbor. I rose. “I’m going to see if I can find Lucius and the others.”

She sat there like a statue.

I found myself offering, “You still want me to see about Nathan?”

“I would like nothing better.” She was almost violent when she said it. Something else to wonder about, if I wanted to wonder, which I didn’t.

I nodded shortly. “Very well. I’ll see what I can find. I’ll be back in … I don’t know. However long it takes me to find someone in this mess.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Wilkes.” She was stiff as a dowager, as if she wasn’t used to thanking anyone for anything, and I admit I liked her discomfort. Or maybe it was only that she disliked being grateful to me. If so, that was even better.

But best of all, I liked leaving her.

I walked away from her and that yard, into the city, and it was worse than I’d thought, worse than I could ever have imagined. The city I knew, nearly every building, was gone. Just … gone. The streets were lined with ash and piles of brick, smoldering ruins; here and there a wall looking ready to tumble down, and militia everywhere, and I didn’t know how anyone could have survived it. Someone I knew had to be dead; I was certain of it, and that certainty grew with every step I took until my dread choked me along with the smoke that burned my eyes and made it impossible to breathe, and all I could think was
please not Sebastian. Please not him
.

I stared at everyone I passed, looking for someone familiar, and when they looked back at me, I saw my desperation reflected on their faces, the pause, the stare, trying to look through soot and dirt, then the disappointment, the sigh, the moving on. Twice someone came up to me holding a photograph. “Have you seen this woman?”

“Have you seen this boy?” and I shook my head both times and asked, “Have you seen any of the actors from the Regal Theater?” and got confused looks and sorrowful no’s. I had no way to even ask about Sebastian, because what would I say?
Have you seen the playwright from the Regal?
when no one even knew there
was
a playwright, much less what the hell he looked like. I would have given almost anything for one of our posters to show people, to be able to point to Jack or Aloys or anyone else. In the pictures, we were all in costume as characters, but it would be easier than what I did now, trying to describe an elaborate waxed mustache, a Vandyke beard, a handsome blond.… There was nothing to say that made them different from anyone else. But the only paper I saw was the proclamation from Mayor Moran that was nailed to every charred telegraph pole:

At least there wouldn’t be drunks making everything worse, which I supposed was a good thing, though it seemed to me there would be plenty of people needing the solace of a good drink. There were soldiers everywhere, watching, waiting.

The landmarks I did recognize were so ruined I couldn’t quite countenance the fact that they had once belonged to anything I knew. What brick buildings remained were gutted: only brick walls and arched doorways were left of the Post Building, of a nearby bank there was nothing but a shell and a safe and a man guarding it, and that became a familiar sight too, big black boxes sitting in the middle of nothing, with men angling their chairs back against them as if they were sitting on a porch enjoying the morning sun.

I’d hoped to find Lucius or someone else near the ruins of the Regal, but there was only Mr. Hesse, who owned the saloon on the corner, spraying the smoking ashes of his building with a hose hooked to a fire hydrant. There was plenty of water now, it seemed. When I went up to him, he stared at me for a moment and then said, “Mrs. Wilkes,” in that dead tone I was beginning to hear too often. It brought my worry into a lump in my throat, and I said, “Have you seen Mr. Greene? Or … or anyone else?”

He shook his head. “Not yet,” and then, “They’ll be fine, Mrs. Wilkes,” but it was a hollow platitude and I didn’t believe him, and that lump just stayed as I walked on, my eyes stinging as I tried to peer through the smoke. The horsecar tracks were twisted and melted as if some giant had squeezed and knotted them in his hand and then thrown them down again. There was nothing left of the docks but for hundreds of pier logs, only a few still with crossbeams, blackened and sticking out of the water like broken teeth. The train tracks crisscrossing them sagged and warped, and great cogs lay about the mess of wood and metal, still too hot to go near.

I’d been walking for an hour before I saw the tent. Some business had sprayed down the ashes and erected canvas on the gritty mud, and I stopped, startled, because in spite of the fact that it was just a tent, it looked so damn
normal
. A big sign out front, written on a board burned on one side, announced it to be a hardware store, and it was crowded, people going in and out as
if everyone in the city had been drawn to it, and I felt that draw too, because it was such an everyday thing to do when you felt so helpless and upended.

There were barrels out front, and big coils of rope, and a man stood there calling people in: “Builder’s Hardware! Still alive! Still selling! Come on in and see what we got!”

And there, leaning against one of the barrels in front, was someone I recognized.

I screamed, “Brody!” and he looked up and we ran into each other’s arms so quickly we both stumbled at the impact. I kissed him hard and said, “Am I glad to see you!”

He hugged me until I thought my ribs would crack. “Damn, Bea! Where’ve you been? We’ve been looking and looking—I was scared to death you’d been caught in the fire. We all were.”

“We? You’ve seen the others?”

He stepped away. His clothes were stained with what looked like blue paint, and I realized his hands were wrapped with dirty bandages. “Yeah. Aloys is fine. So’re Jack and Mrs. Chace and Susan, though Jack’s hands are burned too.” He held up his hands wryly. “That’s what comes of being a good samaritan. I’ll know better next time.”

“A good samaritan?”

“Well, I had to help, didn’t I? And Galloway nearly got crushed by a beam, so me and Jack had to pull him out. He’s burnt up pretty bad, and his back is all messed up, but the doctor’s got his eye on him.” Brody’s grin widened. “You were the missing one. And Mrs. Langley. And DeWitt.”

I swallowed hard. “Mr. DeWitt is missing?”

“No one’s seen him. But he wasn’t at the theater when the fire broke out, so I guess he’s probably all right.”

“It wasn’t just the theater that burned.”

Brody laughed. “No kidding. Damn, you ever seen anything like this?”

I shook my head. “How did it start?”

“Hell if I know.” Brody shrugged. “Maybe a cow and a lantern like Chicago. Or maybe Celestials setting off fireworks—that’s what Jack thinks. Where were you?”

“Downstairs in the greenroom. Getting ready for the performance.”
Part of the truth, but not all of it. But it was none of Brody’s business why I’d arrived early, or that the heat and my near-sleepless night had conspired against me, and I’d fallen asleep in the greenroom and had only just woke up when I ran into Mrs. Langley coming down the stairs. “I nearly died in there. But for—” I remembered the promise I’d made to Mrs. Langley just in time. “But I made it out.”

“You didn’t see Mrs. Langley, did you?”

“No,” I lied, maybe a little too quickly, but Brody didn’t seem to notice.

“Lucius thought maybe she was still in the Regal when the fire hit, but I swear I saw her go when rehearsal was over. I guess she’ll turn up eventually. Her husband’s looking for her.”

“So he’s alive?”