Kathryn

They burned his house in Carlsway to the ground. He'd seen the flames from The Old Coach at Craw and had run across the fields with Ted and the others arriving in the garden breathless, desolate. There was nothing to be done, the house was a wall of angry white fire, the hottest it would be. Everything was lost.

Beyond the house to the north, they could see a line of lanterns floating up the hillside through the forest back toward the town. Held aloft by dark invisible hands, their light cast quick and sharp shadows through the trees like a clashing of swords.

In front of the burning house the group had moved back a safe distance and they remained in silence for some time sitting among the swirling smoke and watching the fire decimate the timbers. Beside them in the lake everything was mirrored and when the blackened and precarious skeleton of the house eventually lurched and collapsed to the ground it sent a heralding cascade of burning ash into the air. As they looked the reflection burst across the water like a dying amber star.

As the house fell, the men felt the air sucked from around them with a low whooshing sound, as if the fire were gasping for a final lungful of oxygen to keep it alight. Daire looked upwards to the night sky through a galaxy of cinders and whispered a prayer. 

Ted was first to speak, putting a hand on Daire's shoulder. 'Well it's done now. You'll not be worrying at least. Waiting for it to come'.

'She was going to leave Ted.' Daire's face was mottled black from the flying ash and patches of his skin glowed from the heat of the fire which still licked around the pile of debris that once was his home. Ted saw how Daire's tears had dissolved lines down his cheeks, saw the hurt in his eyes.

'I know Daire,' Ted paused, then looking over to his son Martin he added, 'You'll be staying with us now.' 

Martin joined in enthusiastically looking back at Ted as he spoke, 'That's right Daire, we've plenty of room with the little ones sharing a cot.'

'That'll be good,' said Daire. 'Until things are put right at least. Thank you, really.' He looked at them both.

Ted nodded. 'You're welcome as long as it takes Daire, you know that.' Ted looked towards the smoldering remains of the house. 'It's a terrible thing they've done. A terrible thing.'

Bill Mahey came over from Dirnham with a machine a few days after the fire and together he and Daire began the work to clear the house remains. They separated what could be reused, Daire would rebuild the house in time, but there was precious little. A few shingles here and there from the roof, and the back room window frame was largely unscathed. Everything else they buried in a pit dug away at the edge of the forest.

In the garden, Bill and Daire looked at the sign erected the night of the fire.

'They've not done this for a while Bill,' Daire said.

'Aye Daire, and I can't say I ever thought I'd see it again. You'll not be taking it down now. I wouldn't even touch it if I was you. They'll be coming for it in time.'

'We'd made the plans Bill. She had her family out to the west; an aunt and cousins. Ted was bringing a horse down for her, did you know that?'

'I did Daire, but they couldn't let her go. You understand? Not out there on her own. It wouldn't be good for the village.'

'But how would they know Bill? She'd have been careful, travelling at night and all.' 

Bill chose his words carefully, mulling them over and hearing how they sounded in his own head before finally speaking. 'Daire. Everyone knew. The news of this travelled long ago away from Carlsway, on all points to the sea I don't doubt. It's the way of things.'

'She was sick Bill, I know, but not this.' Daire's eyes led Bill's to a willow coffin which sat a dozen or so feet away on an area of grass the fire hadn't reached. Beside it was a small mound; Kate's body. Bill bowed his head.

Daire had found her in the tangle of the house and had carefully removed her as soon as the fire had abated. They had cut her throat thank God and here over her charred body he'd laid Sweet grass and Dog roses from the garden. Daire walked over to Kate and after kneeling over her for a while, carefully and tenderly, lifted her up. As he held her, the grass and roses slipped away to the ground and they shared one final gruesome embrace before Daire lowered her naked twisted body into the coffin.  

Daire had been to the forest to collect Kate's favourite White spotted orchids and these he placed upon her chest, closing her buckled and blistered hands around them. As he closed the lid he realised that leaving her would be the hardest thing he could imagine doing and even though it was too soon, he knew all that is born must return to the earth in time. Beauty is given back to god. 

Bill watched from a distance. Presently, he looked up and spoke quietly. 'Kathryn was a fine woman Daire.' 

'Aye, she was,' said Daire and he looked again at the sign. It was made of wood. A stake around six feet high had been driven into the ground and near the top, a rough timber board had been nailed to it. Painted on the board in the deepest red, were two broad stokes that formed an unmistakable cross.

By Darren Seeley