Flames Came Rushing//Part 3

Flames Came Rushing//Part 3

First there was the penny. Now there are the beetles. Hundreds and thousands of beetles. Neve hears them before he sees them, a faint click and clatter as continuous as waves on a beach. Like pebbles falling, or the beaded curtains his mother has hanging in the kitchen doorway. The thought awakens a growl in his stomach until he puts the torch close to the wall and sees a boiling, seething mass of insects. They range from the size of his pinky to as long as his thumb, and come in dozens of earthy colors. Some are iridescent, shimmering faintly in the firelight, while others have dark, brooding spots like eyes.

"Marten—"

"I know. Cool, huh?"

"I guess," says Neve, who is torn between fascination and revulsion. "What's making them gather here, you think? Is it, like, something in the stone?" Glory Elementary School is made of brick and every year at the same time attracts swarms of ladybugs. They crawl all over the outside of the building for a week and some even make it inside, to the students' delight and the teachers' dismay. That's what Neve is thinking of now.

Innocent thoughts of an innocent time.

Something stirs in response. The beetles cease their scurrying and turn to make a mass exodus towards the darkness ahead. Neve doesn't notice because he's too preoccupied with the torch, which has suddenly dimmed considerably. The once-large branch has burned down almost to his hand and is now little more than a stump of burning embers. One small blue flame still licks the very top like a dollop of whipped cream.

He starts to suggest they turn back, but before he can, Marten says:

"We're almost there."

"Where?"

"To her," says Marten, and his normally casual voice takes on a hard tone edged with longing.

Neve has no idea what to say to this. He leaves his mouth hanging open for a question to pop out at will, until he remembers that beetles have wings.

There's a light up ahead. Four slanting bars of gold pierce the gloom and set the tracks agleam. This is where Marten saw her first—through that grate on West Plum Street. This is where she ensnared his heart and mind, so that it ached to think of something so pure and sweet trapped in a dank eternity. His heart aches now, knowing how close they are. He turns off his flashlight and pockets it.

The beetles take flight. Their frantic, beating wings fill the tunnel with white noise and a palpable hum that makes the boys' skin tingle. They're invisible except when flying through the bars of golden light, where their wings turn crystalline.

"Whoa," Neve whispers, and then clamps his lips tightly shut. The torch has started to burn his hand, but he doesn't notice.

Marten thinks, Please, please be real—I saw you again in those flames, and then I saw myself. Am I the one who's supposed to save you? All week he's tried to keep the image of those eyes staring up at him through the grate, tried to keep away the hopeful thoughts that this time, this supernatural, this is the real-deal. Now that he's here, he lets them overflow.

A slender arm appears in the grate-light, and with a gentle gesture brings the beetles to a standstill. A few of the iridescent ones cling to pale, dirty fingers and perch there like living rings. The fingers flex. Legs, just as slight and smooth, appear next. They're splotched with grime and oil and beetles, but underneath that are a pure, saccharine white.

Her movements are slow and syrupy, and her enormous eyes half-lidded by long carmine eyelashes. That's all she has, though, are eyes; the rest of her face is smooth like an uncarved mask of dirty ivory. Ivory—that's what Marten decides to call her.

Though the beetles are no longer in flight, the tunnel still echoes with the hum of their wings. Neve's right ankle is against the railing, and he can feel the tremor. It's the same one, he realizes, that made the penny rattle. From there the hum infiltrates his bones. He wonders if it will ever leave.

Ivory looks at Marten and Neve from under her lashes.

eh? eh?

The sounds she makes are almost too soft to hear, short little bursts of sound that accompany her gesturing. They're pathetic and wring Marten's sympathies. With both arms out and palms open, she seems to be asking for something.

"Do you need help?" Marten says, a bit too loudly. Ivory flexes her fingers and nods, but startles when Marten takes a step forward. When he tries to take her hands in his, she falls back into the shadows with a breathy, moan-like sound. A cloud of beetles explodes between them and Marten is forced to back away.

"I'm sorry," he says, confused.

Ivory calls the beetles back to her, and then slowly rises to her feet. She looks weak, as if her legs can barely support her weight, but she presses onward anyway. Black hair, or something like it, drips from her head to her shoulders and leaves trails of ooze on her already encrusted body. Some drips to the ground. Her frailty is devastating, her delicacy painful. When she starts towards Neve, he reacts as she first did and takes a step backwards.

"What are you?" he whispers.

Tension strings the air for a moment, and then she turns to Marten.

Marten stands absolutely still as she touches his face. The grime makes her hands rough, but the bare patches of skin give the same feeling as silken, sweet cream pie sliding down the throat. He stares into her eyes, just as entranced as he was the first time, but this time sees the sorrow in them.

He also sees fire.

Fire.

Pictures drift before his eyes like afterimages, as if he's been staring at a bright screen for far too long. What begins as empty fields and forests quickly becomes the city of Glory as he knows it. Like a sped-up documentary clip, buildings rise and nature disappears under the hand of civilization.

Last of all the view itself is obstructed as the tunnel in which they now stand is built. The feeling of being trapped makes Marten's stomach clench and his heart race.

When the images clear, Ivory is still watching him. There are sludgy tears running down her face. Marten slowly undoes his checkered blue scarf and uses it to wipe her cheeks. The tears come off but leave tracks, and the original grime remains.

Ivory's eyes widen, and in the same molasses movements, she takes hold of Marten's wrist and moves the scarf to her arm. She makes scrubbing motions.

"You want this stuff off of you?"

She nods desperately, and the two of them get to work.