Chapter 22 - The Iron In The Orchard
The air froze in my lungs.
"What did you say?" I demanded, descending the porch steps until I stood directly over him, the heat of the approaching fire painting our silhouettes in flickering crimson.
"Vanessa... she left Maya locked in the guest cottage near the pump house," Daniel sobbed, his shoulders violently shaking. "She took the keys to the rental car and sped off down the back fire road. She said if you didn't hand over the deed to the commercial frontage by midnight, the fire department would be too busy saving the main house to check the cottage."
The mother in me didn't hesitate. The grandmother in me didn't feel fear.
"Get up," I snapped, grabbing Daniel by the collar of his coat with a strength that surprised both of us. "Get up right now, Daniel! If a single hair on that little girl's head is singed, you will answer to God and Arthur, not to me!"
He scrambled to his feet, shame and terror choking him. Together, we sprinted down the winding gravel lane toward the orchard.
The heat hit us fifty yards out. The pump house was completely engulfed, a roaring pillar of flame shooting twenty feet into the night air. The wooden water tower beside it was groaning under the thermal strain, its ancient cedar planks blistering and smoking. Just thirty feet away, thick grey smoke was pouring out from the eaves of the small stone guest cottage.
"Maya!" I screamed into the haze, pulling my woolen scarf over my nose and mouth.
"The side door is deadbolted from the outside with a master padlock!" Daniel yelled over the roar of the flames, coughing violently as the thick diesel smoke clawed at our throats. "Vanessa put her own lock on it two days ago!"
"Then break it!" I roared.
Daniel threw his shoulder against the solid oak door of the cottage. The wood shuddered, but the heavy steel latch held fast. He hit it again, his shoulder dislocating with a sickening pop, sending him sprawling into the dirt with a scream of agony.
Through the smoked glass of the bedroom window, I heard a faint, terrified wail: "Daddy! Nana!"
"I'm here, baby! Nana is right here!" I yelled back.
I spun around, spotted the heavy cast-iron spigot handle Arthur had welded to the decorative stone bench twenty years ago, and wrenched it free with the pry bar Daniel had dropped on the gravel. With both hands, channeling every ounce of maternal fury in my veins, I swung the iron bar into the cottage's small window.
The glass shattered in a violent spray. Smoke billowed out into the cool night air. I reached inside, disregarding the jagged shards slicing into my forearms, found the window latch, and shoved the sash upward.
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"Maya! Reach for my hands!"
A tiny pair of trembling arms reached through the smoke. I grabbed my seven-year-old granddaughter by the wrists, pulling her small, coughing frame through the frame just as a deafening *CRACK* echoed behind us. The wooden water tower collapsed into the burning pump house, sending a tidal wave of sparks and burning timber raining down across the orchard.
