Chapter Six
From the foot of the wooded hill, Mirabelle made her way through Ponderosa's outskirts. She passed by small wooden houses with white picket fences and reminisced as she watched groups of children at play. Magic was still alive for the very young as it once had been for Mirabelle. With their imaginations, children could be anyone they wished, go anywhere they desired, and do anything they could dream of.
Mirabelle paused in mid-stride to let a group of cowboys and indians chase each other past her. Sounds of little voices imitating gunshots and crying out war whoops echoed in her ears as the little gang of boys made their way past her. Turning her head, she watched them scurry over fences and run through back yards in their continuing imaginary battle.
With the combatants now out of sight, Mirabelle continued on her way to the center of town. As she walked she looked around to see if there were any little girls at play. She wondered if the fantasy worlds had changed for little girls over the years she had grown. Mirabelle found her search rewarded as she was passing by a cluster of holly shrubs: she heard the voices of two little girls in conversation and she stopped to listen for a moment.
"See," a little voice said, "the holly fairies come out after the sun rises and open every one of these flowers."
"How do they do that?" another even tinier voice asked.
"They have magic wands and they touch every flower and they open up and when it gets dark and night comes they touch the flowers with their wands and then they close again," the little voice replied.
"Oh," said the tinier voice.
Mirabelle smiled. She could still remember that as a little girl she believed the same things. "Why did that magic door to another world have to close?" she wondered. It had shut on her without her even noticing. Only a little child could still pass through the gateway and enter into the magical world--Mirabelle and other adults could only reexperience that forgotten realm vicariously, when in the presence of little children.
Mirabelle passed through the outlying residential section of town and made her way to the commercial area. It was mid-afternoon and she planned on browsing through the shops to see what was new. As she came closer to the center of town, her nose crinkled at the smell of smoke. "That's odd," she thought and soon she could see a light, white haze of smoke in the air. Coming nearer to the town center, the smell of smoke and the haze grew. She looked upwards to see if she could find the source of the growing haze. Suddenly, a large plume of black smoke rose from the buildings. "Oh no!" she thought, "That's right by Edward's factory!"
She ran towards the rising column of black, acrid smoke. As she came closer she could see that The Golden Nugget Bar and Grill was on fire and was quickly going up in flames. Edward and his workers stood outside the factory watching, as Wallace Matthews stood paralyzed before his bar, watching his life disintegrate before him.
Breathing heavily, with the smoke beginning to sting her, Mirabelle ran up to Edward and asked breathlessly, "What happened?"
"I don't know," he replied agitatedly. "I smelled smoke and ran out of the factory. The Golden Nugget was on fire. I called the fire department. They should be here any minute," he answered then turned his head back towards the burning shop.
"What's taking them so long," cried Mirabelle, as she watched the fire consume the old wooden heritage building.
Sounds of glass exploding filled the air and were followed by angry plumes of fire as the now freed alcohol leaped into the fire. Wallace Matthews continued to stand dumbfounded before the blaze. He was old, well into his sixties but with his happy, robust contenance and booming, jolly voice, a person never thought of him as old. Now, with the center of his life going up in smoke he seemed old and haggard--as though the many years of his long life had finally caught up with him.
"I don't kno... oh no!!" screamed Edward. Tongues of flames burst out of The Golden Nugget and began to lick the side walls of Edward's equally wooden factory. "I'll be ruined," he cried as he stared at the fire. Before Mirabelle's eyes Edward began to shake uncontrollably.
A shock as powerful as a lightning bolt jolted Mirabelle out of the chaos of the moment. She realized that the livelihood of the man she loved was about to be destroyed before them in seconds. The factory was all that Edward had. She knew he didn't have insurance as he had allotted all his money to the expansion of the business and was planning to move soon, anyway.
She looked at him as he stood quivering before her, his eyes beginning to well up in tears. Where was the fire department? What was taking them so long? Edward turned to look at her--his agony, visibly apparent, burning deeply in his eyes. As she looked at Edward, Mirabelle felt a wave of compassion and love sweep over her. She really did love Edward and truly did care for him. With that in mind, Mirabelle steeled herself: she knew what she had to do.
Confidently, as though the ability had never left her, Mirabelle withdrew into herself in the midst of the crowd of onlookers watching the fire. Although she had long ago rejected her gift, the dire urgency of the situation had rekindled long forgotten memories and summoned parts of herself she had long abandoned.
Almost instantaneously, the feeling of peacefulness and of connection with nature pervaded over her. A deep calmness overtook her and, just as she could in the past, she felt herself becoming one with the raging fire. She felt her spirit growing, expanding--becoming the fire before her that blazed in all its fury. Mirabelle fell to her knees as her eyes began to overflow with tears. Again, she pleaded with her friend, requesting it to stop, to not hurt anyone, to not cause any more damage. She spoke to the fire as though to a part of herself: calming it, feeling the fiery anger mellowing, cooling within her.
Miraculously, the raging fire that had been growing before them was now quickly dying down to nothingness, in spite of the fact that remnants of The Golden Nugget Bar and Grill still remained to feed it. Edward's factory, Five-Star Uniforms, escaped unscathed from the fiery disaster for although flames had swept across the factory's wooden walls they had mysteriously failed to ignite them. The fire continued to die down until only black, charred remains of The Golden Nugget Bar and Grill and rising white wisps of smoke remained.
A siren was heard approaching from the distance. The fire department had finally arrived, however untimely. Mirabelle remained on the ground, her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands. People, unnoticed by her, stared at her in shock and disbelief. The town's lone fire engine came racing through the streets to stop at a halt before the remains of The Golden Nugget. Firemen quickly hopped out from the truck and moved before the crowd.
"What happened?" asked the fire chief. He was dressed in his fireman's gear and he lifted his helmet to get a clear view of the situation. He continued, "We were dealing with an elderly heart attack victim when we got the call about the fire." He looked at the still dumbfounded Wallace Matthews, then to Mirabelle, and then to Edward. Mirabelle lifted her face from her hands to look at what was left of The Golden Nugget and to Edward's undamaged factory. Edward stared at Mirabelle, his face contorted in a visage of terror and horror.
The fire chief spoke as he turned to look at his men, "Guys, go inspect the fire site and check the surrounding buildings for any small fires." The firemen went off to their assigned duties. "Are any of you hurt?" he asked the crowd while at the same time continuing to eye Wallace, Edward, and Mirabelle.
Mirabelle turned to look at Edward. His eyes widened in fear as their eyes met. He could say nothing to Mirabelle--he didn't have to. Mirabelle took one look at the expression of terror on Edward's face then got up and ran home. Her eyes continued shedding their tears as she reached her house and as she closed her front door behind her. Without a word spoken, she knew that her life would never be the same again.
