of nothing but the job at hand.
When she reached the window, she grabbed the frame and straddled the sill, feeling her way with her foot. She could feel the wood’s heat through her gloves, but there was no flame showing inside, only the dense, oily smoke.
“Okay,” she said as her foot found solid floor. Swinging her other leg over, she inched forward, testing the surface with the toe of her boot. She kept hold of the window frame with one hand and groped outwards with the other, exploring the darkness like a blind person in an unfamiliar room.
She’d expected, if there had been someone at the window, to find them crumpled beneath it, but she felt only the solid floor. Bryan climbed in behind her, bumping against her as he crouched and steadied the hose on his knee. He gave two bursts of the jet, and this time she felt the temperature drop.
“Anybody here?” Bryan shouted, his voiced muffled by his mask.
Rose listened, her senses straining, hearing nothing but the hiss and crackle of the fire.
Rising, Bryan pulsed the hose again, then stepped forward. Rose felt a sudden vacuum beside her, heard an exclamation cut short. She swung her arm out wildly, towards the spot where Bryan had stood a moment before, and almost lost her balance as she encountered only air.
“Bryan!” She fell to her knees and inched forward, her hands sweeping in an arc through the smoke. When her knee touched something solid she gasped in relief, but her exploring fingers felt not a leg, but the round shape of the charged hose.
“Bryan!” she shouted again, panic rising in her throat. She felt along the hose until she touched the nozzle, then swept her hands across the floor in front of it. He must have caught his foot on something, fallen, but she could find him, she could get him out.
She tried to think calmly, to regulate her breathing. She couldn’t afford to use up all her air. Keeping one hand on the stationary hose as a guide, she crept forward, her free hand patting the floor. Vaguely, she heard a voice shouting into her headset, but she shut it out. Her world had narrowed to the tips of her gloved fingers.
Then, the floor disappeared beneath her hand. She jerked back instinctively, then felt again. Nothing. She ran her hand sideways, touched the hard edge of the floor, then she reached forward again. Nothing. The other side was the same. The floor dropped away in front of her, as far as she could reach.
“Bryan!” she screamed, but only her own voice echoed back inside her mask.
She kept calling, gripping the edge of the pit, until strong arms came round her from behind and pulled her away.
15
Oh, Captain Shaw!
Type of true love kept under!
Could thy Brigade
With cold cascade
Quench my great love, I wonder!
GILBERT AND SULLIVAN
WHENEVER HARRIET CLOSED her eyes, the darkness seemed to press against her eyelids with a smothering weight, so she stared at the paler patch of dark she knew was the window. She had no idea how long it had been since nightfall; she’d lost all perception of the passage of time.
She shifted slightly on the narrow bed but kept her left arm tight against her chest. She thought her arm was broken, but not badly. Her mum had told her about fractures – with a compound fracture the bones might stick right through the skin, but a simple fracture was just what it sounded, a clean break.
Her forearm was swelling, and it hurt to move it, but the skin wasn’t broken and nothing felt jagged when she probed gently with her fingers. Still, she felt feverish and nauseated, and miserably thirsty.
At last, in spite of her discomfort, her eyelids fluttered, and she drifted towards the edge of sleep.
Harriet jerked awake, gasping, her arm throbbing from the involuntary movement. Slowly, she eased herself up until she was half sitting against the wall. After a bit the falling sensation faded away, but she couldn’t stop the images replaying in her mind.
She had stood up, and smiled.
The lady had paused, a slight look of surprise on her face, then she’d carried on into the room and set the tray she carried on the low chest.
“It’s warm in here,” Harriet managed to say, even though her heart was thumping. “Could I – could we – could we have the window open a bit, for some air?”
The woman had turned and gazed at her with a very strange look, as if she’d forgotten Harriet could speak. Then she had stepped to the window and touched one of the fogged panes, her fingers lingering on the glass in what seemed almost a caress.
“It doesn’t open,” she said, her voice rusty. “It hasn’t opened for years. You’ll have to live with the heat.”
Harriet stared at her, then at the books, and at the narrow bed, and a dreadful knowledge filled her. “This was your room,” she whispered. “These were your books. You wrote in them. You wrote-”
“Only when I was bad,” said the woman. She smiled. “But then, I was bad quite often.”
“But why did you – How could you bring me here, when you knew…”
“I didn’t intend to, not at first.” The woman frowned as she spoke, as if it puzzled her. “But your father…” Her eyes fixed on Harriet, sharper now. “Your father was going to leave, and he never thought of taking me with him… I don’t think he’d have even bothered to tell me he was going if he hadn’t needed my help…”
“But-”
“I couldn’t have that, you see.”
Her dad didn’t know, then. He didn’t know where she was. Harriet felt a rush of relief that he hadn’t put her in this place, then a cold fear as she realized what that meant. Desperate to keep the woman talking, she said, “No. No, you couldn’t. It was selfish of him. My mum’s always saying he’s selfish.” She flushed with shame at her disloyalty, but she had to go on. “I’m sure he’s sorry. He should have known better.”
“Yes, he should.” The woman looked pleased at Harriet’s understanding.
“If he’s learned his lesson,” Harriet said carefully, trying to keep her voice level, “maybe you could let me go.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the woman said, as if she’d given it long consideration. “Because then I’d be in trouble, and I don’t want to be in trouble.”
“I wouldn’t tell.”
“Yes, you would.” Her face hardened, and Harriet knew her deception wasn’t going to work. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the door, not quite pulled shut. She had to take her chance, but she needed a distraction.
“Are those your cards?” she asked, nodding towards the chest. “I saw them, the playing cards, in the drawer. I could play with you, if you like.”
There was a softening, a flicker of pleasure, perhaps of memory, in the woman’s eyes, and then she glanced towards the chest. In that instant, Harriet dived at the door, yanked it fully open, and plunged down the stairs.
The steps were steep and hard, the carpeted runner worn thin as tissue. Harriet skidded on the first step and tumbled, crashing down, and the woman came behind her like a fury. She’d fallen on Harriet, pinning Harriet’s
