THE FIREWEEPER
by
K.A.
This novel is copyrighted, Feb 11, 2010 and may not be reproduced for profit.
Prologue
Something was wrong. Nancy smelled smoke. She hurried out from the barn to find its source. "Oh no..." she gasped. The field was on fire and the wind was quickly blowing it towards the house.
"Mirabelle! Mirabelle, where are you?" Nancy shouted, running from the barn.
She ran inside the house, frantically searching its rooms for her daughter.
"Mirabelle!" she called out in vain and then looked out of a window towards the field. The fire was advancing with ferocious speed. "Where is she? Where did I last see her?" Nancy thought desperately. As she searched her memory, hopelessly, Mirabelle materialized into view. She was outside and walking towards the fire. Nancy opened the window and shouted, her voice strained with fear for her daughter.
"Mirabelle!" she cried.
The young girl paid her no attention. With her long, blonde hair billowing in the wind, she sat herself down midway between the fire and the house. Looking out at the dancing red and orange flames, she felt no fear for she had only known fire as a friend.
Nancy turned from the window and ran out of the house. The fire would soon be upon Mirabelle and she would undoubtedly be burned. Mirabelle wouldn't move. Even though she was already nine years old, she still had no sense of danger. She was fearless to the point of recklessness and was so naive. Nancy often thought her daughter spent more time fantasizing than in learning to deal with reality. Her little girl was fascinated with nature and Nancy knew that Mirabelle would be too spellbound by the fire to move before she suffered a nasty burn or worse.
"Mirabelle!" she screamed.
Mirabelle could hear the cries of her mother but to her they seemed hardly to exist. They were like the whispers of some dream that echoed through the mind upon first awakening. Calls from another world that, no matter how hard you tried to grasp hold of, slipped away inexorably. All that existed for Mirabelle were the crackling, leaping, wispy flames of the fire: Fire she had always loved, fire that was always alive with magic.
Mirabelle knew the fire wouldn't hurt her, for she had always had a kinship with natural things: especially fire. When she was younger she'd often spend hours talking to the candle flames that lit up her room in winter. She'd imagine they were little angels eager to play. Mirabelle would ask her tiny glowing friends, occasionally, to dance for her bemused family. "Move left. Move right," she'd say to the flames and to the astonishment of onlookers they'd do just that. Her mother and father thought it was an odd coincidence and her brother thought that Mirabelle was just plain weird, but Mirabelle knew that fire was her friend and would never hurt her.
"Mirabelle!" screamed Nancy in hopes of rousing her daughter. She was too far away to do anything else. Unfortunately, her actions were of no avail.
The fire was almost upon Mirabelle. Her mother continued to run towards her, horrified as she watched the little girl's figure shimmer like an illusion in the heat.
Mirabelle knew she had to save the house. What would her family do if it were to burn down? With the fire steadily encroaching upon her, she closed her eyes and searched inside herself for the deep peace she felt when she was alone with nature. As she grew calmer and quieter, she felt the distinction, the distinctiveness between her and the fire before her disappearing. Mirabelle felt it's burning, it's intensity, it's destructiveness. She pleaded with it to stop, to save her house. Her eyes welled with tears and they ran down her face--rivulets of water emerging from her sapphire blue eyes. The raging fire felt Mirabelle's pleas and compassionately began to die down. It could not be angry with one so innocent and sincere. It wouldn't hurt someone who loved it.
Nancy stopped in mid-stride. She couldn't believe what she had seen. The fire was only a yard away from Mirabelle when it suddenly and mysteriously died. The breeze that fanned it continued to blow towards the house so it could not have turned back upon itself... so what happened?
Nancy walked up to her daughter and seeing the tears streaming from her eyes, clasped her in her arms.
"Oh, Mirabelle, darling are you hurt? Are you burned? You frightened me so much," Nancy said as tears began to fall from her eyes.
"I'm okay Mommy. I'm not hurt. I had to save the house. I knew the fire wouldn't hurt me," Mirabelle said holding her mother with her small arms.
"Mirabelle. Don't ever do a crazy thing like this again. You could have been badly burned. You could have even died. Promise me you'll never do anything that could hurt you ever again. Promise me Mirabelle. Promise," Nancy said to her daughter.
"I promise Mommy. I won't scare you again," Mirabelle said and solemnly swore to herself she'd never do anything crazy ever again.
