She brushed her hand over some young bracken ferns starting to sprout in a shady spot beneath a flowering plum tree. No doubt someone would have them in their salad soon. They were edible while they were young fiddleheads but only ornamental when they got larger. The pink plum flowers seemed to float above her head as she looked through their open branches at the clear blue sky.
It had been a perfect day to collect the sunflowers. The area needed rain badly, but she was glad it had held off for another day. When it started raining, the ditch where the sunflowers were growing was going to be even more of a muddy mess, swimming with young snakes and turtles. The turtles she could get along with. It was the snakes she wasn’t crazy about. She knew they had their place, but they gave her the shivers.
Once when she was a child on her family’s farm outside Charleston, she’d pulled down a big piece of moss hanging from a live oak to give her mother as a present. She found a cottonmouth curled up in it. The snake hissed at her. She dropped it and ran back to the house. She was lucky it didn’t bite her. But she never forgot how scared she was that day, looking so closely into the snake’s eyes.
It made her shiver just thinking about it. Her hands were cold when she knocked on Darmus’s front door.
There was a peculiar smell coming from the house. She thought it was something cooking at first. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to taste it! Darmus had a habit of making all kinds of strange foods he liked to share with his unsuspecting guests. She decided to plead exhaustion if he wanted her to stay. She was filthy and tired. She couldn’t possibly—
Then Peggy realized she wasn’t smelling food. It was natural gas or propane. The scent was very strong. She tried the handle, but the door was locked. “Darmus!” She pounded on the door, then moved to the window to try to see inside. “Darmus!”
2
Milkweed
PEGGY COULDN’T TELL if Darmus was inside, but since his car was in the drive, the chances were good that he was. She ran around the back of the house and shouted his name over and over again, hoping he might answer from outside. There was no reply. She couldn’t find him in the yard.
She tried the back door, but it was also locked. She pounded on the door and screamed his name. Finally, unsure what else she could do, she called 911 and reported a possible gas leak. If she was wrong, she’d feel like a fool. But if she was right . . .
Peggy put the phone away, and anxiously listened for the sound of sirens.
She couldn’t recall what created sparks that could start a fire. Was it static? Could a door opening do it? If she threw a brick through the window, could that cause an explosion? She looked around and noted the closeness of the other houses. If Darmus’s house caught on fire, it could endanger the homes of his neighbors.
She took out her cell phone again to call and see what was keeping the rescue workers. As if it were a signal, an explosion rocked the house. The windows blew out, sparkling glass shattering everywhere. The door beside her blew off its hinges and went flying past her into the yard. If the explosion had occurred just a few minutes ago, when she was knocking on the door, it would have taken her down with it.
Flames started at the roof and roared through the open windows, where oxygen fed them. Smoke billowed out of the opening where the door had been.
Peggy knew she had to see if Darmus was inside. There wasn’t time to wait for the fire department. She got down on her hands and knees and started crawling through the house, shouting for him. The black smoke billowed above her head as she crawled quickly across the floors, unmindful of the glass and other debris, glad she was still wearing her gloves to protect her hands.
“Darmus!” she yelled and coughed as she went from room to room. “Darmus, are you in here?”
Then she saw him. He was in the kitchen, lying on the floor beside the stove. She could see his face and arms were badly burned. He wasn’t moving. He was probably unconscious. She was going to have to stand up to drag him out of the burning house and pray she wasn’t overcome by smoke trying to do it.
First she visually located the back door so she knew where to go. Flames seemed to be everywhere by then. Black smoke made breathing difficult, even on the floor. She saw a huge hole in the roof with flames burning up into the blue sky.
Desperately she grabbed Darmus’s hand. It was cold to the touch. She dropped it when the crisped flesh moved under her hand. She was going to do too much damage that way. “Hang on! I’m going to get you out of here.”
Peggy took a deep breath and held it. She grabbed the back of Darmus’s shirt, stood up, and was immediately pounded by the heat and smoke. She put her head down, held her breath, and narrowed her stinging eyes as she dragged him across the vinyl floor, keeping her gaze focused on the doorframe where the screen door hung by one hinge at the top.
Darmus was a small, slight man, barely five feet, but it was difficult for Peggy to pull him. The smooth floor helped, but toward the end, she could see it starting to crack and buckle from the heat. She could hear sirens now and someone on a loudspeaker instructing people to stay back.
