don’t know.”
The sirens wailed to an earsplitting level as they barreled down the country road.
Beatrice looked at the fire. It was clearly raging now. She was glad the gravel road put distance and a natural fire barrier between her camp and the fire.
Then her mind recognized a figure standing behind a wall of flame on the other side of the road.
“Eli! Eli!”
Beatrice ran into the fire.
BEATRICE HEARD MAISIE scream for her to come back. But if anything happened to Eli or Chris, Beatrice’s life would be over. She’d never handle the guilt or the sorrow.
Smoke filled the air, but the heat was so intense, Beatrice couldn’t smell it. For that she was thankful, because she hadn’t thought to cover her nose and mouth. She hadn’t thought about protective clothing, either. Not even a long-sleeved shirt. She still wore one of her lake-water-blue youth camp T-shirts and the navy shorts that she slept in every night. She was ill-prepared for saving anyone.
“Eli!” she called.
From between a curtain of flames on either side of him, little six-year-old Eli stood frozen to the spot, tears spilling down his cheeks.
“Miss Beatrice!”
“Don’t move, Eli! I’m coming to get you!”
“I’m scared!” He started to take a step.
She kept running, dodging puddles of smoldering pine nettles, hoping her sneakers didn’t melt from the heat. Even if they had, she wouldn’t have stopped. Nothing would stop her. She had to save Eli.
Fortunately, Eli was wearing a long-sleeved sweatshirt. Even in the heat of the day, Eli always claimed he was cold. She didn’t doubt it. He was so thin. The kind of thin that broke her heart and made her want to cook his favorite dish, spaghetti, for him—at every meal.
He also wore jeans and high-top sneakers. Eli never went anywhere without his high-top sneakers. He was determined to become a basketball player in the NBA someday, and though he was of average height for his years, he was the kind of kid who would “think” himself tall.
This was Eli’s third week at camp, which was due to the good graces and hard efforts of Zoey Phillips, the director of Indian Lake Child Services.
Eli and his brother, Chris, who was ten, were new to foster care. Their father had recently been sent to prison for drug dealing. Their mother had simply abandoned them in an upstairs apartment over an antiques store on Main Street. She’d told the boys she was going out for groceries, but three days later, she hadn’t come back. It was Eli who had called the police, hoping they could find his mother.
His brother’s call had angered an already resentful Chris. Chris had an iceberg-sized chip on his shoulder. He’d worshipped his father and copied his arrogance and cocky attitude.
From their first day in camp, Chris had posed one problem after another to Beatrice and her counselors. Beatrice believed the boys needed—craved—attention and caring. Eli was bright and genuinely a good kid. Chris rattled her nerves from breakfast to lights out. She was amazed the two were genetically linked. Bruce had tried to get through to Chris, but Chris had so far only stonewalled him. Beatrice believed Chris’s heart was broken, but she hadn’t the first idea what kind of glue would mend him.
Once the boys left her camp, Beatrice feared she would never see Eli or Chris again once the system sent them to a proper foster home. They’d likely be split up and sent out of the county.
As the flames jumped from tree to tree, Beatrice kept her eyes on Eli and his outstretched arms. She leaped expertly over a burning log, miraculously evading the flames. She kept running.
“Stay still,” she warned as she drew closer to Eli.
The fire had made daylight of the forest. It was hard to imagine that it was night. Flames shot out of forty-foot-tall dead pine trees that should have been felled years ago.
A pine tree about seventy yards away exploded like a cannon. The sound frightened Eli so much that his feet left the ground when he jumped.
“Miss Beatrice! Help me!”
She continued toward him but an enormous branch swooped through the air with a hissing sound and thudded in front of Beatrice.
She slammed to a stop before falling over the branch. The smell of it was pungent. The odors of pine, flame and smoke mingled to form a forbidding fragrance.
Like flaming needles, the sparks from the logs shot into the air and seared the skin on her arms.
She simply brushed them off, not feeling a thing.
Everything about her had turned to ice, except her heart. It was beating through her chest as if it knew she was going to die this night, and had to beat its last moments as hard and powerfully as it could to make up for all the years she would lose.
Eli’s face was covered in tears and snot when she finally reached him. She scooped him into her arms and crushed his face into the crook of her neck. “I’ve got you now,” she said comfortingly. “Nothing bad will happen to you.”
“You promise?” His voice was muffled as he burrowed his head into her throat.
“I do.”
“How can you promise? We’re both going to die.”
“No, we won’t,” she said sternly. “Didn’t you just see me jump?”
“Huh?”
“I was state champion in high hurdles for my girls’ team in high school.”
He hugged her tightly. “I’m sorry for this.”
“It’s not your fault, Eli,” she said. “But you shouldn’t have been out here. That’s why we tell you to stay in your cabins at night. The forest can be dangerous.”
He lifted his face from the shelter of her neck. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.
She looked around. “The fire is getting stronger. You hang on to me and I’ll get us back.”
“I can walk,” he protested.
“No. And I mean it. You stay with me. Understand?” She had him in her arms. There was no way she would let him go. For this moment, she felt in control, though her brain told her that she had just done about the most unthinkable act of her life.
The heat of the flames had increased, and perhaps she was allowing her senses to register something beyond her fears for Eli. She finally felt the burns on her arms, but she willed away the pain. She lifted her foot to start back to the camp when a second tree blew up.
This time she was the one to jump. She rocked back on her heels. Cinders filled the air. Branches
