~.~

Chapter Fourteen

~.~

Edward had been in the midst of a pleasant dream in which he and Bella lay in a massive bed, the curtains pulled closed. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire in the grate and the pattering of raindrops against the leaded glass windows.

Their voices murmured softly, and Edward trailed his fingers through Bella's soft, dark hair. She lay in his arms, dressed only in her light lawn shift, the fabric so fine he could see the shades and contours of her skin beneath. He appreciated the view, but he merely toyed with her hair, content - so content - just to lay within her arms and breathe in her scent as the rain fell outside.

Edward particularly enjoyed these dream-memories of the Duke of Cullen because he didn't suppose he'd ever have the leisure time in this life to idle in bed all day with his wife just because it was raining.

"Fire!" Someone hammered on their door, and shouted the word again.

Edward sat up before he was even fully awake. The word reverberated in his mind and it was as though he had been drenched with a bucket of cold water. It was a word that every colonist dreaded. Saving a home that was on fire was almost always impossible - they could only try to keep the blaze from spreading through the town. A fire meant not only a horrific loss for the owners of the house, but could end up endangering everyone if it could not be contained.

Outside, Edward could hear other voices raised in alarm and the sound of fist pounding on the neighbor's door. Standish's men would be going from door to door, waking the households, and all over town, people would be rising from their beds to come and help. A fire was everyone's business.

"Hmm?" Bella sat up beside Edward, her eyes half-closed in sleep. Her hair tumbled over her shoulder, tousled loose from her braid.

"There's a fire." Edward slipped from the bed and reached for his clothes. Behind him, Bella slipped on her nightgown and tiptoed over to raise the tapestry covering the window. She pushed open one of the shutters. "The whole town is in the street, carrying lanterns and pails. They're running toward the gate."

"I should join them."

"We," said Bella.

"We." Edward sighed. "Dress warmly."

Women's clothing was much more complicated than men's and he was dressed before Bella had even finished donning her petticoats. He hurried out of their bedroom door and bumped into Alice at the head of the staircase. Quickly he reached out to grasp her shoulders and steady her before she could fall. Alice, too was wearing a nightgown - gift from Bella - buttoned up to her throat. Her nightcap was askew and her braid hung down over her shoulder.

"Edward, what is it?"

"I'm not sure, but I think you should stay behind to watch the children while Bella and I investigate."

"As you say, brother." Alice stepped back to let him pass, but he could see the growing fear in her eyes. "Should I take the children to the fort?"

Edward felt a sudden pang of pity for her, for the unenviable position of women usually left behind to wonder what was happening, and worry about those who had run out to face it. "No, I don't think the town is under attack, but I'll leave it to your judgement. Should you feel unsafe, run there at once. I'll look for you there."

She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a swift, hard hug. "Be safe as well, Edward. And keep Bella out of trouble."

He gave her a small smile. "If I can."

Bella emerged, wearing a heavy brown wool gown, its cuffs and wide collar covered in dark brown velvet. It was another of her seemingly endless inventory of gowns, one he had not yet seen. He thought the velvet looked like her eyes.

She and Alice embraced quickly and then she followed him down the stairs, her embroidered leather slippers whispering on the treads. Edward handed her her cloak and bonnet, which she put on right over her nightcap, the messy braid presumably crammed up inside.

He paused to grab their bucket before they ran out into the street, to join the crowd headed for the gate.

"What is it?" Edward shouted to a man who knocked into his shoulder as he passed.

The man turned around. It was James, Standish's man, the one who had expressed an interest in Alice. "I'm sorry," he said, not sounding a bit sorry about it at all. "It's Carlisle's house."

Edward stumbled and almost froze in shock, but Bella grabbed his hand and pulled him along, darting between slower-moving people as they ran through the gate and down the path toward Carlisle's house beside the marsh.

Edward felt sick, his stomach churning and his mind repeating a single pair of sentences to the rhythm of their footsteps, Not father. Not Esme.

As they approached Carlisle's little house, he could see that the facade was sheathed in flames. Fire poured from the open front door, arched up toward the roof. The crowd had formed bucket lines from the marsh and well, filling up buckets and passing them from person to person until the last threw the contents on the fire. It was a painfully feeble effort, but there was little else they could do.

Carlisle struggled with someone near the front of the bucket line, frantically screaming his wife's name between wracking coughs. He wore only his shirt, his bare legs protruding below, barefoot in the snow. Jasper held him, one arm looped around Carlisle's waist, the other hooked over his shoulders, fighting the older man with all of his strength to try to hold him back.

"What happened?" Bella shouted as they skidded to a halt at his side.

"I saw the flames," Jasper gasped out over his shoulder at her, and she saw that one side of his face was badly swollen, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. "Carlisle must have woken at about the same time. He stumbled out, coughing, and realized Esme wasn't behind him. He turned to go back in. I had to drag him away."

Carlisle tried to pry Jasper's hands away, still screaming Esme's name, and Bella saw his knuckles were split and swollen.

Bella grabbed Edward's shoulder and turned him away from the awful spectacle toward her. She had that hard, determined look on her face, one he had come to dread. It was the same look she once had when she wore a clabbered-together suit of armor on the field at Tilbury.

"Esme is trapped inside," she said to Edward. "Do what you can to keep anyone from going around behind the house."

"What do you mean? Bella?"

"I have to go after her," Bella said.

"Bella." Edward bent to speak close to her ear. "She's probably ... already gone."

"No, she's not. I can hear her."

All Edward could hear was the shouts of the people trying to fight the fire and his father's ragged cries of agony.

Bella's large, dark eyes shone up at his, twinkling in the firelight. "Do you remember what I said about not allowing someone I love to be in danger if I could save them?"

He grasped her hand, holding it up between them. "I know, Bella, but how could I allow you to be endangered?"

"I won't be," she said, and pulled away.

"Wait, Bella -" It wasn't only physical danger she risked. But Bella had gone. His hand hung in the air where she had been.

In front of him, Carlisle let out a ragged moan and tried to fight off the hands that held him back from running into the inferno.


~.~

Bella edged back into the crowd, slowly weaving herself behind the bodies of the few people who stood gawking at the fire instead of joining the bucket brigade. They weren't paying attention to her. Their eyes were on Carlisle, a pitiful, broken man, moaning his wife's name. Some of them tutted in sorrow for him, some of them prayed, but none of them paid any mind to Bella. Keeping her movements slow, as not to attract notice, she moved toward the marsh, and then ducked into the reeds.

It was the quickest way to get around to the back of the house without being seen, but it was also the most unpleasant path she could have taken. Grimacing, Bella held her dress up as she slogged through the icy mud. She had to pile her skirts up around her shoulders as she sank up to her thighs. As she pulled up her leg, one of her shoes and stockings was sucked off by the thick mud, but there was no time to dig it out. Even with her preternatural strength, it was hard going, but she slogged around toward the back of the house. On dry land again, she dropped her dress back down, keeping low to the ground as she darted for the house, faster than the eye could see.

The wind had driven the flames toward the front of the house and the back was not conflated yet. Bella dug her fingers into the chinking and made her way up the wall, kicking her skirts aside to dig her mud-covered toes into the tiny crevices. The one slipper she wore made it more difficult, but she didn't pause to kick it off. The cries she had heard were becoming fainter, broken up by weak coughing.

When she reached the roof, she pried off shingles, flipping them up with her hands until she had large enough of a hole to look down inside. Smoke poured out, and inside, she heard the whoosh of the flames feed upward, fed by the air from the hole. She didn't have much time.

Bella held her breath as she tried to wave it away enough to see. Her eyes stung and watered as she peered down into the small attic Carlisle had built over the first floor. It was little more than planks laid over the trusses, but it had created a little storage place that Esme had stuffed full of their winter provisions. And now, she cowered between the bags and barrels, apparently having scrambled up the ladder to get away from the flames in her panic. Esme pressed against the wall, her chemise pulled up to cover her nose and mouth, cringing back from the flames that had already begun to devour the other side of the attic.

"Esme!" Bella shouted. She pulled away more shingles. "Over here!"

But Esme couldn't hear her. Maybe the roar of the flames was too loud or maybe she was too panicked for Bella's voice to break through.

Bella wriggled through the gap, falling with a graceless thud to the attic floor. She scurried over across the rough floorboards to where Esme was cowering, her eyes wide and blank as she shook with fear. She didn't hear Bella the first two times she called her name. Bella had to seize her arms and practically shout into her face before Esme's eyes focused on her.

Esme blinked at her in confusion. "Bella?"

"Yes, it's me. Come, I know a way out."

"But what are you doing here?"

Bella didn't answer as she hauled the unresisting woman to her feet and half-dragged her over to the hole, but Esme merely stood there and looked up at it, that dazed light still making her eyes unfocused and muzzy. Bella gave a small sigh.

Englishwomen lived extremely unathletic lives. It was why Mistress Bradford had drowned when she fell overboard from the Mayflower before she could be pulled out. And it was why it didn't occur to Esme to jump and try to haul herself upward. Bella had to hop up first and reach down to grasp Esme's arms and pull her up through the hole onto the roof.

Smoke was pouring through the shingles now, and the wood where they sat was growing hotter every instant. Bella looped Esme's arms around her neck. "Hold on," she ordered. "Don't let go."

She swung over the roof and Esme let out gasp, gripping Bella so hard around the throat that Bella saw stars as she started to climb down, but almost immediately, Esme's grip loosened. She simply wasn't strong enough to hold on.

"I'm falling!" Esme cried. Her hands slid down to dig painfully into Bella's shoulders, but lost their hold.

Bella gripped the eaves with one hand and swung around to catch Esme's forearm as she dropped with a faint cry. "Esme! Esme, listen to me."

Esme clawed at Bella's arm trying to climb back up, but lacked the strength to pull up her own body weight. Her face was twisted with panic. Her chemise belled out as her legs flailed, a white circle above the snow.

"Listen to me!" Bella snapped.

Esme stilled, her eyes huge in her pale face.

"You're only a few feet off the ground." Bella kept her tone calm and steady and gave her a soft smile. Esme's panic eased enough for her to smile back. "Look down. You'll see."

"I can't," Esme whispered, and squeezed her eyes shut. The panic began to come back into her features.

"Never you mind," Bella said. She gave Esme's hand a squeeze and Esme opened her eyes again. Bella smiled, a warm gentle smile, as though her fingers weren't scorching on the hot wood. " 'Tis of no import. All you have to do is trust me. I'm going to let go and you're going to drop a bit, but you won't be harmed. I promise. I'd never let you come to harm. You know that, don't you?"

Esme nodded.

"All right then. I'm going to count to three and then let go." Slowly, steadily, Bella counted and then released her grip. Esme closed her eyes as she dropped and landed in the snow an instant later, unharmed as promised.

Bella dropped down beside her, checking Esme over for any signs of injury from the fire, but except for a cough, Esme seemed unharmed.

"Carlisle," Esme cried, as her mind began to clear of the initial panic and she started thinking clearly once again. She flipped over to scramble to her feet.

"He's unharmed." Bella took Esme's face in her hands to hold her attention. "Listen to me. You must say you got out on your own."

"But ..." Esme's face crumpled with confusion.

"You must!" Bella gave her a little shake. "You must. This is my life in your hands. Do you understand? You must say you got out on your own."

Dazed, Esme nodded.

"Run around that way." Bella pointed to the corner of the house furthest from the marsh. "Go on, now."

Esme nodded again and clutched her chemise closer around her as protection from the biting cold. She stumbled in the direction Bella had pointed.

Bella turned and ran back for the marsh, slogging through the mud, trying to hold up her skirts to keep them clean. She groaned as she felt her other shoe being pulled off by the muck, but she had to laugh a little, imagining someone finding them someday long from now, lodged in blocks of peat.

She made it out and dropped her skirts at the edge of the bank, hoping the heavy cloth would obliterate her trail in the snow to it. She realized she hadn't thought about footprints at the back of the house, but it was too late now. Hopefully, the heat of the fire would melt them, or the snow would be so trampled by people helping to fight the fire and no one would notice.

Bella made her way through the knot of townspeople, who had temporarily given up on firefighting to surround Esme with cries of joy and prayers of thanksgiving. Edward had laid down his cloak for her to sit on. Esme shivered and tried to pull her chemise around her to conceal her legs with the thin cloth.

"Get back," Carlisle barked at the people who craned over his wife, though he was practically crushing her with the vigor of his embraces. "Give her some air."

Bella took off her own cloak to drop over Esme's shoulders. Esme smiled up at her in thanks, but blessedly said nothing. Bella stood and slipped back to Edward's side, taking small steps so her skirt didn't swing to reveal her bare, muck-covered feet. She took his hand into hers and smiled up at him.

Edward looked down at his father - who was thanking God with tears streaking his face as he squeezed Esme so hard she squeaked - and then back up at Bella.

"You?" he whispered.

She gave a small nod.

He looked her over quickly. "You are unharmed?"

Bella smiled. "No harm done except that I lost my shoes."

Edward looked aghast. "You can't stand in the snow!" He glanced around, as if for a solution. His face lit up as an idea came to him, an expression that she loved. His eyes twinkled and his lips quirked up in an almost boyish glee. She hadn't realized how much she missed that look on his face. He always used to get it when he suddenly figured out a way to trick Bess into thinking his plan was her idea all along. Seeing it again made her heart warm and ache all at the same time.

"Faint," he whispered.

"What?"

"Faint, so I can carry you."

"Oh." She had to think about this. Selkies were honest creatures by nature and deception didn't come easily to them. It made them poor actors. Bella took a deep breath. She brought the back of her hand up to her forehead as she gave a loud moan, wobbling on her legs for a moment before collapsing downward. Edward caught her and swooped her up in her arms. Bella kept her eyes shut and her body limp. Too limp. Edward struggled to hold her up as she lolled in his arms.

"Is she unwell?" a woman nearby gasped.

Bella heard Mistress Bradford next. "Is she with child?"

"I think it was just too much excitement for her," Edward said. "I should take her home. Father, Esme, you should both come with me. There is naught you can do here, and we need to get you some warm things to wear."

"Oh yes, let us get them inside."

"Father, please take my boots." Edward bent down and tried to free one arm to take off his boot and nearly dropped Bella. He quickly righted himself, clutching at her sagging shoulders, and simply stuck his foot out toward his father.

"Son, I couldn't."

"Pray, do," Edward said. "These stockings Alice knitted for me are so thick, they're nigh to impermeable. They'll see me home."

Carlisle hesitated, but accepted. His feet had to be freezing at this point. He reached out and tugged on Edward's foot and Edward nearly fell over. Jasper grabbed him by the shoulders to hold him steady as Carlisle plucked off one boot and then the other. Bella heard the rustling as he donned them.

"What about Esme?" someone asked.

Bella was glad she was still in her "faint" or she might have to explain she didn't have any shoes to offer Esme. Lauren Mallory stepped forward to offer.

"It's unnecessary," Jasper said. "With your permission, Mistress Masen, I'll carry you home."

"Oh, I don't ..." Esme sounded flustered.

"If things had transpired differently," Jasper said softly, "I might be calling you 'mother' now."

"Aye, that's true," Esme said. There was a long silence.

"Hop up, Esme," Carlisle said. "We'll all freeze before you decide if it's proper."

And so it was with laughter that Jasper scooped up the woman who might have been his mother-in-law for the trip back to Bella and Edward's house.

"Thank you for taking us in, son," Carlisle said. His voice was still a little unsteady and hoarse from all of his shouting.

Edward shrugged, and Bella almost tumbled from his arms again. She flung an arm around his neck before she remembered she was supposed to be unconscious, but no one seemed to notice. "There is no need to thank me, father. My home is always open to you."

"Our home is gone," Esme said suddenly. "Everything. Gone." The last word wavered in the icy air.

"Not everything," Carlisle said. "I still have you. Thanks be to God, Esme. The house could bun ten times over and I would still praise God that the most precious thing of all was spared."

Bella felt tears sting her eyes at his words, and she fought to keep a smile from her face.

~.~


The dawn was just beginning to break in the eastern sky when Bella came down the stairs. Alice was still asleep on the long bench near the fireplace. She had given up her room for Carlisle and Esme, insisting they needed a soft bed after their ordeal.

Jasper, too, was sleeping near the fireplace, sewn tightly into a bundling bag which Esme had swiftly constructed from a bedsheet, humming as she whipped the seams shut with heavy linen thread. Bella had struggled not to laugh as Jasper was stitched inside with only his neck protruding, but Jasper had accepted it with aplomb, just happy to be allowed to stay, regardless of how he had to sleep.

Alice had brought down a pile of cushions, and he had clumsily hopped over to lay down on them, so he'd have a comfortable night's rest, a few paces away from the bench where Alice curled up. Bella had heard them talking late into the night.

Bella tiptoed past them and opened the front door. She found Carlisle sitting on the front step, watching the sunrise with a tankard of warm cider in his hands. He turned to smile at her.

"Bella, good morn to you."

"And to you as well." Bella lifted her skirts and sat down on the step beside him. He offered her the tankard, and she took it to be companionable, taking a sip of the warm, spicy brew. She sighed in pleasure and handed it back to him.

"I need to thank you, Bella," Carlisle said.

A frisson of alarm went through her. "Thank me? For what?" She prayed Esme had not strayed from the story she had told, that she had noticed some shingles were loose when she crawled up into the attic, and managed to push her way out of the burning house. It hadn't been questioned at the time, with everyone rejoicing her miraculous survival.

"For everything." Carlisle gave a soft laugh and took another drink. "For saving my life, in truth. For you opened my eyes and allowed me to find joy again. Without you, I might have spent my days in anger and misery, a life wasted, more dead than alive."

He handed her the mug again and Bella took another drink.

"Do you remember the day you lost your temper with me and called me a ... what was it? A 'clout-headed fool'?"

Bella laughed and handed him the tankard. "Aye, that was it."

"You told me to look at my wife and tell her she was pretty. It seems so strange now, but that was the first time I had looked at Esme. Really looked at her. And when I did, I saw that she was pretty. Very pretty. The blush of her cheek, the sparkle of her eyes, the soft curve of her smile ..." Carlisle's voice trailed off and he stopped for a few heartbeats, staring into space. He shook his head and then turned back to Bella. "Everything changed in that moment. I have never been so deeply grateful to be called a fool."

Carlisle refilled the tankard from a small stoneware jug sitting on the lower step. Steam rose from the cup as he poured, billowing up around his face. She noticed then how young he looked. He must be in his late thirties, at least. Past middle age for a man of his time, but he looked younger, the skin of his face unlined and his hair still ungrayed.

Maybe, she thought, it was some of the life returning again to his eyes which had taken away some of the premature age that had settled over him like a dark pall.

"Has Edward told you much of his mother?"

Bella shook her head. "I think he finds it a painful subject to speak of. He's told me a little of your life in Holland."

Carlisle took a deep breath and sat back. "We should have stayed there in that little house in Stink Alley. We were poor, but we were happy. And now I think, 'What of it if the boys had picked up some Dutch ways?' But at the time ..." He stopped and shook his head. "Well, as you said it, I am a clout-headed fool."

Bella took the tankard from his hand and took a drink of the warm cider. "We all are, at times."

"Aye, but I may have more to repent than most."

The sun was up now, painting the snow-covered street with golden-pink light. In the distance, the icy waves crashed against the rocky shore, and above, a few seabirds called as they searched for their breakfast. Behind the wall of trees, a smudge of smoke still rose from the ruins of Carlisle's house, but it couldn't mar the beauty of the winter morning.

Carlisle took the mug from her and took a drink before he spoke again. "I married Edward's mother, Elizabeth, when I wasn't much older than Edward is now. My father arranged the match, but the moment I laid eyes on her, I was smitten. It was a feeling that only increased as the years went by. The Scripture says Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. And I did rejoice. Elizabeth was a Godly woman, but she was ..." He shook his head and gave a small laugh. "I don't have a word for it. Maybe one does not exist that can convey all that she was. Loving, kind, joyful ... she was my everything."

Bella nodded. That she understood, because Edward was her everything.

"But I was a clout-headed fool, and I listened when the elders said our children were being influenced by the Dutch. The colony sounded like God's plan for us, building a shining city on the hill, a perfect Christian land. None of us understood what we were headed for." Carlisle laughed again, but the humor was gone. "I don't know if we expected to come over here and find a little village ready for us to move into, a new little England of farms and roads, just empty of people ... But I do know that none of us realized what it really meant to live without all of the comforts of civilization. We didn't understand what it would take to carve a settlement out of this country. And that's why so many of us died. Including my beloved Elizabeth."

"I'm so sorry," Bella said. Elizabeth's loss had left a gaping wound in her whole family that was only beginning to heal.

Carlisle sipped the cider. "Together, she and I were so good. When I buried her, it was like I buried everything that was good about myself, as well. It wasn't until that moment you shouted at me I realized what I had done, the terrible wrongs I had committed. I've been a terrible husband, and a bad father."

"To Edward and Alice?"

"Yes, and to Emmett."

Bella blinked in surprise. As odd as it might sound, she sometimes forgot Emmett wasn't her own child.

"But I can work to remedy that, to change my path, to try to remedy the hurts I caused." Bella saw Carlisle's fingers tighten on the tankard until his knuckles were white. "Emmett looks like her. My Elizabeth. He has her eyes. Those bright, shining eyes. And her laugh. Every time he giggled, it was like hearing a ghost, and it reminded me again of all I had lost. God forgive me, but I made my house a place devoid of joy so I wouldn't have to hear it. I robbed my children of what Elizabeth wanted most for her family, because of my own selfishness. While God may forgive me, I think the forgiveness of my family may come slower."

"You may be surprised," Bella said. "Alice has come to an awakening of her own and shed all of her anger and bitterness."

"I had noticed relations between her and Esme had warmed."

"And I know Edward loves you." Bella stood and held out her hand. "Come. It's a new day, and your family is waiting for you."

Carlisle seemed to want to speak, but could not find the words. So he smiled, and took her hand. They went through the door together and found everyone in the main room. Edward was working to slice apart the stitches that held Jasper in his bundling bag, and Alice helped Esme load breakfast on the table. Carlisle watched them for a moment. Esme seemed to sense his gaze because she paused in stirring the porridge pot to turn and meet his eyes. A soft smile passed between them.

In his tender, Little Emmett laughed and his father looked down at him, smiling, with tears in his eyes.

~.~


Notes:

- There was a bad fire in Plimouth Colony in the winter of 1623 that burned seven houses before it could be contained.

- "Bundling." Some believe the colonists picked up the tradition of bundling from the Dutch. It may be related to the Dutch courting custom known as queesting. In areas where young men might travel long distances to visit the young lady he was courting, it was a way of preserving the young couple's virtue during his overnight stay. However, given that 30% of brides in the Colonial era went the the altar were already expecting their first child, the seams might not have been as secure as the parents hoped. In some places, bundling was reported as late as the mid 19th century.

- Carlisle offering Bella a drink from his cup. Sharing drinking cups was a very common in the era before germs were understood. It was common to see a cup or dipper tied up at the town well that everyone shared when they were thirsty.