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“If Orla made Amanda come over after dinner, she’d have taken the conversation to her office. I'm sure Lily was thinking the same thing. You stay here." Sam looked at the staircase filled with smoke and coughed. "I'll run up there to see. It's our best bet.”
The pleading look turned into a glare on a dime.
“Like hell, you’ll go alone. Let’s go.”
Magdalene took off with Sam hot on her heels. They entered the winding hallway side by side, and Sam pulled Magdalene to the left, going by memory since there was almost no visibility now as the smoke got thicker. On the floor above them, the burning wood cracked and they could hear pieces falling near and far. The whole building was moaning like a wounded animal and Sam, who had raged at this very entity standing in the way of her happiness, for being the priority in Magdalene’s life just yesterday, felt her heart ache for the old girl.
Several long minutes of wandering in smoke and darkness and Sam was coming to understand that neither her memory nor the handkerchiefs—that Magdalene had produced from somewhere—hastily tied around their mouths were of much use. They were lost and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
“Get on your knees!” Magdalene pulled on her arm and Sam—despite the horrible circumstances—wanted to crack a joke, especially when she saw the way Magdalene’s eyes went wide, realizing what she had just said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Sam…” The long-suffering sigh was interrupted by coughing and Sam decided to roll the dice and picked a direction. Just as she was about to start crawling, a small voice and coughing from the opposite side drew her attention.
“Teach, teach, here, she’s here somewhere.” Lily’s silhouette in the smoke was like a beacon and Sam pulled Magdalene towards it. The girl was crouching by the long line of faculty offices. Sam felt relief flood her system, they were not lost after all. And Lily, the stubborn little troublemaker, was okay. More than okay, the girl had probably saved Sam and Magdalene’s behinds, since Sam had been about to lead them in the opposite direction and probably straight into more danger. Now it was a matter of finding Orla’s office.
On their hands and knees, all three of them coughing more and more, as they slowly passed one door after another, Sam knew they’d better get out fast before the smoke did all of them in. She was about to say as much when she felt more than saw a familiar macrame wall hanging. For once, she was thankful Orla had never quite gotten over the 70s. The knotted monstrosity had decorated the entrance to every office the former headmistress had inhabited for as long as Sam could remember. In the smoke and dark, Sam knew that they were extremely lucky to have found it.
Fumbling with the handle, the door opened laboriously into a dark room with the fire that was tearing down the adjacent wing illuminating the space through the window and revealing a silhouette sleeping in the visitor’s chair in the corner. Lily was a hairbreadth ahead of Sam, already gently shaking her girlfriend.
“Amanda! Wake up, sweetheart, wake up!”
Coughing violently, the girl staggered to her feet, only to be pulled down into a crouch, where she proceeded to throw up and cough again.
“What’s… happening?”
“Sweetie, the school is on fire.” Magdalene’s voice was warm, gentle, and so calm. She might’ve been discussing Sunday morning brunch.
“Amanda, where is Professor Fenway?” Peering around herself, Sam was fairly certain there was nobody else in the office. Amanda tried to say something, but a coughing fit interrupted her and she resorted to shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders, leaning heavily on Lily whose tears of relief were streaming down her face, leaving tracks on her soot-covered cheeks.
“You don’t know, okay.” Looking around for the last time, Sam had to get at least some facts on the situation before they got the hell out of Dodge. “Has she been here with you at all?” Another shake of the disheveled, blonde head and more coughing. Definitely time to get out.
“Amanda, sweetheart, can you walk, or crawl? We need to get out of here and quick.” Lily’s voice was tender and unhurried, belying the tremor in her hands.
The moment they stepped into the hallway it became abundantly clear that the visibility had decreased even more and they would probably get lost within seconds.
“Sam, do you think you can get us out of here?” Magdalene’s voice, while determined and resolute, held a slight note of fear. As Sam was about to answer that she’d do her best, though she could not guarantee any results since they were as good as blind, she was interrupted by high-pitched meowing.
“Oh my god, Willoughby!”
Sam laughed in spite of the situation and Magdalene scowled. “Seriously, did absolutely nobody take the evacuation training seriously? It’s about running out of the damn building, not running into it.”
The cat had indeed run barreling into them and was now twisting and turning around Magdalene’s crouched figure, circling in place as if hurrying them up, clearly determined to show them the way in the smoke.
They made their way down the same pathway they had crawled through before, guided by Willoughby who was darting back and forth. It was on the stairs, half dragging Amanda with them, that they heard something above them collapse. The noise, the rage of the fire, felt like Dragons was screaming around them, wounded, tortured, dying. Sam knew that the tears streaming down her face were not all from the smoke and ash. Her heart was just as wounded, for this building that was getting more and more decimated by the second.
In hindsight, perhaps she should have saved her sympathy because a second was all it took. She was already almost on the ground floor when she heard the treacherous sounds—the low moan of the wood reaching its stress point. In one breath she pushed Lily and Amanda ahead of herself–into the safety of where Magdalene had been, anxiously trying and failing to grab a reticent Willoughby—away from the danger and away from whatever would come next.
When thatnextdid come, Sam did not have a chance to feel it. A section of the staircase above her caved in, the old wood no match for the fire as the banister came crashing down, burying her beneath the debris.
* * *
Later she’d say she was probably in and out of it since she could remember only bits and pieces. Mostly she recalled being under something heavy and her head hurting a lot, but still struggling to reach for Willoughby, whom she could hear meowing just inches away. Later still, Joanne would tell her that, when the volunteer firefighters started to remove the chunks of wood, hastily summoned by a hysterical Magdalene—who was tearing at the rubble underneath which Sam was buried with her bare hands—found Sam curled protectively around the cat who was hissing at anyone who dared approach them. So that part wasn’t new at all. Willoughby had been true to himself. Still, despite a hurting head, Sam had kept mumbling throughout her rescue that the cat would be having tuna a lot, once she was back on her feet.
She’d also kept trying to open her eyes, but it felt like her face was covered in something wet and sticky. When it had proven too difficult, Sam remembered resorting to simply calling Magdalene’s name. It felt important to say it, to hear it, to hope that she was okay, that she’d indeed been too far from the falling staircase, and that she’d gotten Lily and Amanda out.
She could occasionally feel someone’s cool hand on her face, trying to wipe away the wet and the sticky. When she was finally able to open one eye, she could tell she was on the ground, Magdalene kneeling over her, her face covered in grime, with tear tracks in sharp relief on pale, dirty cheeks. And her hands were bloody. Sam opened her mouth again only to be shushed.
