Hellfire

toward the blaze. Clouds of steam mixed with smoke, and the roar of the inferno suddenly dissolved into a furious reptilian hissing, a dragon in the final throes of death.

Now, at last, the crowd came to life. It stirred, murmuring softly to itself, drifting closer to the dying monster.

It eddied around Phillip Sturgess as if he were a rock dividing a current. He stood alone as the mass of humanity split, passed him by, then merged once more to flood into the street.

And then, finally, he was alone, standing silently in the night, facing the ruin that had once been the cornerstone of his family’s entire life.

Carolyn stood on the terrace with Hannah, watching the flames slowly die back until all that was left was an angry glow. She could see the black silhouettes of people, looking from Hilltop like no more than tiny ants swarming around the remains of a ruined nest.

It should have happened a hundred years ago.

The thought came unbidden into her mind, where it lodged firmly, until she finally spoke it out loud. For a moment Hannah remained silent; then she nodded abruptly.

“I expect you’re right,” the old woman said softly. Then she took Carolyn’s arm in her gnarled hand, and pulled her gently toward the house. “I won’t have you standing out here in the night air, not when there’s nothing you can see, and nothing you can do.”

“I have to do something,” Carolyn objected, but nevertheless let herself be guided inside. She followed Hannah into the living room, then sank into an overstuffed chair.

“You just stay there,” Hannah said gently. “I’ll put some tea on so it will be ready for Mr. Phillip when he comes back.”

Carolyn nodded, though the words barely penetrated her mind.

Slowly, she relived the short time since Phillip had left the house.

She’d followed him downstairs, the strange book she’d found in Beth’s room still clutched in her hand. Only when he was gone had she taken it into the living room, and read it through carefully.

Just as she had finished, Hannah had appeared, to tell her the mill was burning.

Even before she’d gone out on the terrace to look, she’d come to the certain realization that both Beth and Tracy were dead. And in the numbness following the first overwhelming wave of grief for her daughter, she’d also come to understand that there was a certain unity in what had happened.

It was as if the tragedy that had occurred in the mill a century ago — a tragedy that had never been fully resolved — was finally seeking its own resolution, and exacting a terrible revenge on the descendants of those who had for so long avoided their responsibilities.

Except for Beth.

For the rest of her life, she knew, she would wonder why Beth had had to die that night.

Now she sat alone in the living room, waiting for Phillip to come home, trying to compose her thoughts, preparing herself to explain to her husband what had happened in the mill so many years ago.

At last, just before three, she heard the sound of his car pulling up in front of the house. A moment later the front door opened and closed, and she heard Phillip calling her. His voice sounded worn out, defeated.

“In here,” she said quietly, and when he turned to her she could see the anguish in his eyes.

“The girls—” he began. “Tracy — Beth—”

“I know,” Carolyn said. She rose from her chair, and stepped out of the dim pool of light from the single lamp she had allowed Hannah to turn on. She went to her husband, and put her arms around him, holding him tight for a moment. Then she released her grip, and drew him gently into the living room. “I know what happened,” she said softly. “I don’t understand it all, and I don’t think I ever will, but I know the girls are gone. And I almost know why.”

“Why?” Phillip echoed. His eyes looked haunted now, and there was a hollowness to his voice that frightened Carolyn.

“It’s in the book,” she said softly. “It’s all in the little book I found in Beth’s room.”

Phillip shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s a diary, Phillip,” Carolyn explained. She picked the small leather-bound volume up from the table next to Phillip’s chair and put it into his hands. “It must have been your greatgrandfather’s. Hannah says she’s seen it before. Your father used to read it, and Hannah thinks he kept it in a metal box in his closet.”

Phillip nodded numbly. “A brown one — I never knew what was in it.”

“That’s the one,” Carolyn replied. “Hannah found it in Beth’s closet right after you left.”

“But how did it—?”

“It doesn’t matter how it got into Beth’s room. What matters is what was in the diary. It … it tells what happened at the mill. There was a fire, Phillip.”

Phillip’s eyes widened slightly, but he said nothing.

“There was a fire in a workroom downstairs.”

“The little room under the loading dock,” Phillip muttered almost to himself. “The one behind the stairs.”

Carolyn gasped. “You knew about the fire?”

“No,” Phillip breathed. “No, I’m sure I didn’t. But one day I was down in the basement with Alan. We were looking at the foundation. And right at the bottom of the stairs, I smelled something. It was strange. It was very faint, but it smelled smoky. As if something had burned there once.”

“It did burn,” Carolyn whispered. Now she took Phillip’s hand in her own. “Phillip, children died down there.”

Phillip’s eyes fixed blankly on his wife. “Died?”

Carolyn nodded. “And one of the children who died there was your greatgrandfather’s daughter.”

Phillip looked dazed, then slowly shook his head. “That … that isn’t possible. Tracy is the first girl we’ve ever had in the family.”

Carolyn squeezed his hand once more. “Phillip, it’s in the diary. There was a little girl — your greatgrandfather’s daughter by one of the women in the village. Her name — the child’s name — was Amelia.”

“Amelia?” Phillip echoed. “That … that doesn’t make sense. I’ve never heard of such a story.”

“He never acknowledged her,” Carolyn told him. “Apparently he never told a soul, but he admitted it in his diary. And she was working in the mill the day of the fire.”

Phillip’s face was ashen now. “I … I can’t believe it.”

“But it’s there,” Carolyn insisted, her voice suddenly quiet. “Her name was Amelia, but everybody called her … Amy.”

Phillip’s face suddenly turned gray. “My God,” he whispered. “There really was an Amy.”

“And there’s something else,” Carolyn added. “According to the journal, Amy used her mother’s last name. It — Phillip, her name was Deaver. Amy Deaver.”

Phillip’s eyes met hers. The only Deavers who had ever lived in Westover were Carolyn’s family. “Did you know about this?” he asked now. “Did you know all this when you married me?”

Now it was Carolyn who shook her head. “I didn’t know, Phillip. I knew how my family felt about yours; I knew that long ago they’d lost a child in the mill. But who the child’s father was — no, I never heard that. I swear it.”

“What happened?” Phillip asked after a long silence. His voice was dull now, as if he already knew what he was about to hear. “Why didn’t the children get out?”

Carolyn hesitated, and when she finally spoke, her voice was so quiet Phillip had to strain to hear her. “He was there that day,” she said. “Samuel Pruett Sturgess. And when the fire broke out, he closed the fire door.”

“He did what?” Phillip demanded.

Carolyn nodded miserably. “Phillip, it’s all in the diary, in his own handwriting. He closed the fire door, and let all those children burn to death. Even his own daughter. He let them burn to death to save the mill!”

“My God,” Phillip groaned. He was silent for a moment, trying to absorb what Carolyn had just told him. The story was almost impossible to believe — the cruelty of it too monumental for him to accept. And yet he knew it was true — knew it was the secret that had finally driven his father mad.

Even his mother, at the end of her life, had discovered the tale, and accepted its truth.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said at last. “I never have. I never will.”