Kitty fetched my father while I lay curled on the floor of her bedroom, covering my head with my hands.
“Temple, tell me what you’re feeling,”my father had said.
I’d tried, but I didn’t understand what was happening. Kitty had answered for me.“I think it’s the storm.”
“He’s only five years old. You didn’t forge that strong of a connection with the house until you were ten, and that was early.”
“It hurts,” I said again.
“We’re almost there.” Jenny squeezed my hand.
I hadn’t meant to speak out loud. Flesh and brick, present and past, it was all swirling together.
“Hold my hands,”said Kitty.“Imagine you’re in my room.”
“Iamin your room.”
“I know, but I need you to visualize it. See yourself here, surrounded by these walls, protected by the ceiling. Concentrate on the things you can hear and smell and feel right here. My hands. The carpet. Our voices.”
My father placed his fingers on my forehead. I smelled the mint mouthwash on his breath.“Repeat your name.”
“Temple Finn.”
“Good,”he said.“Names have power. Make yours a mantra. Repeat your name. Use it to anchor yourself to this body.”
“Temple Finn,” I whispered. “Temple Finn.”
“What’s happening?” asked Ronnie.
I felt the stinging pain of the hail as strongly as I felt the slashing heat of the flames. But slowly, the pain eased, just as it had that night almost a century before.
“Well done, Temple,”said my father.“You too, Kitty.”
“Temple, can you hear me?” Jenny touched my cheek, then waved her fingers in front of my eyes.
“Yes, I can hear you,” I snapped. I was ninety-nine years old. I hadn’t needed that mantra since I was a child. “Can’t a man lose himself in memories of his dead father and sister in peace?”
“And he’s back,” said Annette.
We turned onto our street. People had begun to gather on the other side of the road. Sage had moved back as well. I both saw and sensed him standing on the sidewalk near the crowd but separate. The siren of an emergency vehicle screamed in the distance.
The fire was centered on the porch in front of the door. The door and the walls were blackened, but so far, the house’s protections had held. The flames couldn’t seem to get a grip. They’d jumped to the rose bushes, though, and those were burning brightly.
As soon as we stopped, I climbed from the van and hobbled toward the house. Some of our neighbors rushed toward us. Annette and Jenny intercepted them, thankfully. Ronnie took my free arm, helping me hurry closer.
Painted shutters blistered from the heat. Oily smoke clung to the brick wall and the underside of the roof. I felt the fire beneath my skin, and I fought to keep it from breaking loose.
“Temple Finn,” I whispered. “Temple Finn. Temple Finn.”
A fire truck came to a halt in the middle of the street. Flashing lights made the scene feel otherworldly. Two people jumped down and began connecting a hose to a hydrant. A third shouted, “Is anyone inside?”
“That’s our house,” said Jenny. “It’s empty.”
The flames appeared normal, but they were edged in blackness that was difficult to see at this time of night. None of the onlookers appeared to have noticed. The house’s magic encouraged people to overlook such strangeness. Though for all I knew, that layer of protection might be failing along with everything else.
The color narrowed the possibilities to eldritch fire, ghost fire, or the flames produced by certain species of djinn.
“Margaret, tell me what you see.” A ghost’s senses were different from ours, duller in most respects but not all. “Describe the fire.”
