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Terry's eyes fixed on the single white lily. Like a baby's cheek, the petals. |
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She had smelled the smoke before the sirens began to wail. Though it was always a membrane away from her conscious mind, the thought never occurred to her that this time they were wailing for her. It wasn't until she saw the faint glow reflecting in the clouds above the trees that the night loom of her mind began to weave together the vague strands that, over the course of one mad hour, brought to inexorable completion a tapestry of horror culminating in that single white lily resting on the casket of her son Matthew Adam Hazzard. |
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For the second time in a week, she had run into the woods to rescue him. But this time police and firemen stopped her before she reached the smoldering remains of TopTree. What there was of Matty had already been taken to the morgue. |
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Terry had fainted on the spot when the police sergeant told her that her son had apparently fallen asleep when the Coleman lamp tipped over, and had died when the tree house went up in flames. Later, when it no longer mattered any more, she would learn how firefighters had to resort to portable extinguishers because truck hoses couldn't reach so far into the woods. Because of the recent dry spell and the kerosene, the tree house was engulfed in flames in seconds. Matty had been burned beyond recognition. |
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When she regained consciousness, she was on her own bed, and for a moment it all seemed just a hideous dream, but as she focused on Calvin, his face red and swollen, it all came back. Hysterical, she pounded Calvin's chest to tell her it wasn't true. |
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