Stuck among them, the Jinni craned his neck, watching. Any moment now, the Golem would emerge from the smoking doorway, the girl coughing in her arms.
Step by step Kreindel pushed her way through the searing heat.
One door, two, three: their apartment. Locked. Her father had locked it behind her, out of habit. She hadn’t thought to bring her key.
She pounded on the door, then threw herself against it, but still it held. She began to sob, picturing her father lying just beyond her reach—or trapped in the bedroom, with the golem they’d worked so hard to build—
The golem. She knew the command to wake him, had memorized it. Would it work, with the door between them? She had to try.
She took as large a breath as she could, bent her mind to the figure lying on the bed, and shouted the command, her voice cracking.
The Golem climbed the stairwell, searching outward with her mind, ignoring the flames that had begun to lick at the treads. Was the girl on the second floor? The third? Too slow, no time for mistakes! There—the fourth floor, where the hallway door stood half open.
She walked through it, and into a roaring kiln.
Instantly her body began to dry and harden. She advanced into the hallway, pushing against a growing stiffness. The girl was ahead of her somewhere. “Hello?” the Golem called, her voice rough with smoke.
A quick flicker of red set the hallway aglow. She saw the faint outline of the girl, heard her shout something above the noise of the fire—
A strange thrill ran through the Golem. Something was waking nearby, and it felt like all of springtime arriving at once. Wood burned all around her, yet she could smell rain-drenched earth. She stepped forward, unthinking, searching for the source—
And then cried out as the floor gave way beneath her.
The Jinni watched the empty doorway, his worry growing with each passing moment. At last he pushed forward, to the cordon line. “Get back, you,” a patrolman called.
“My friend is in there,” he called back—just as, with a great groaning of wood, the staircase inside the doorway collapsed.
A plume of smoke and ash billowed down the stoop and onto the sidewalk. The crowd recoiled, nearly pushing the Jinni off his feet. The orderly cordon dissolved; policemen stumbled into each other, coughing and wiping their eyes.
Stunned, the Jinni turned around. The street was a churning bedlam. Neighbors along the block had dragged their own belongings outside in case the fire should spread, stacking the sidewalks with chairs and suitcases, bassinets and books. A fire engine swept around the corner, bell clanging, spectators jumping clear of the team. Firemen swarmed from the engine’s side, raising ladders, hauling hoses. An axe thudded into the side of the building. Flames belched from the wound.
Standing amid the chaos, the Jinni felt the first true touch of panic.
Kreindel crouched at her apartment door, straining to listen.
Had the command worked? She was growing dizzy, her vision fading at the edges. For a moment she thought she heard a woman’s voice calling out above the flames—but then there was a giant cracking noise, and the hallway shuddered as though some part of it had collapsed.
“Papa!” she screamed. And then, “Yossele!”
A thud of heavy footsteps—and the door was wrenched off its hinges.
He filled the doorway, even larger than he’d seemed on the bed. For a moment, despite everything, she could only stare at him. He gazed calmly back, mismatched eyes glinting in the firelight.
She pushed past him into the apartment, screaming for her father.
He was on the parlor floor, wheezing thinly. He’d been trying to carry the wooden suitcase to the door when the smoke and strain overcame him. The suitcase lay nearby, latches broken open, its contents spilled onto the rug: the five precious volumes and, Kreindel’s heart caught to see, the Tsene-rene.
She crouched over him, crying. He opened his eyes, saw first his daughter, and then, looming behind her, the creature she’d awakened. His eyes widened; he gasped painfully for air.
“Hide,” he whispered.
The light left his eyes. With a sigh, his breath trickled away.
Strong fingers grabbed Kreindel around her waist.
“Wait!” she cried—but for Yossele, the threat to his master was stronger than her command. He lifted her effortlessly, cradling her like a baby, and strode to the door. One last glimpse of her father—and then he was gone.
There was barely any air left in the hallway, and Kreindel struggled to breathe in thin sips. Yossele turned left, toward the front stairwell—but stopped almost at once. Kreindel peered down and saw the gigantic hole in the hallway floor, the flames in its depths. “Other way,” she whispered. “The yard.” He turned around and ran down the hallway, the floor shuddering at each step.
The back stairwell was still mercifully whole. Cinders and ash fell about them as they emerged into the yard. She could hear the sirens and shouts on the other side of the building, the spray of the water-hoses. Yossele set her down and stood, towering over her. His skin was grayish in the moonlight; she could see fingerprints, here and there, in the clay. He watched her with the eyes she’d given him, waiting for a command.
“Hide,” she croaked, echoing her father. She pointed across the yard to the alley, and the construction pit for the unfinished bridge beyond. “There, in the water. Don’t let anyone see you. I’ll call for you when it’s safe. Go.”
At once Yossele turned and ran, the deep drumbeat of his footfalls echoing behind him.
She watched until he’d disappeared, then staggered out to Chrystie and circled the burning building, heading toward the crowd. Her face felt as tight as a grape-skin; her eyes were swollen to slits.
A voice shouted: “You! Girl!”
The man was so tall that at first she thought it was Yossele, come back again. Then he knelt down and he wasn’t Yossele, only a man, his dark eyes full of worry. Bundled in his arms was what looked
