Mom! Mina mentally screamed, then recalled she was at work before she remembered Charlie.
“Oh, heaven help me!” Mina cried out to no one in particular as she ran across the rooftop to the fire escape to climb down. Why didn’t she hear a fire alarm? She knew the building had one; even her room had one, because she often stared at the red light in the dark when she couldn’t sleep.
Black smoke billowed out of Mina’s open bedroom window and rose in plumes into the sky. Grabbing the collar of her shirt, she pulled it over her mouth and nose, and ducked into her bedroom. Her door was shut, and Mina carefully felt the door for heat before opening it and rushing into the hall.
“Charlie!” Mina screamed as she raced into the living room. Flames were running up the walls and creeping along the ceiling. His board game was still lying on the floor, the Candy Land pieces scattered everywhere. Tears stung her eyes as she scanned the area for his small form in case he was hiding. She went to his room and found his bed empty. His room didn’t have a closet, since it was considered a closet on its own, and she quickly checked under his bed. Nothing!
“Charlie, where are you? Make a noise, hit something if you can hear me!” She was crying now as her heart began to race in fear. Mina ran into her mother’s room and cried out when she saw it was as empty as the rest of the house. They didn’t own much furniture; there weren’t that many places to hide in their small apartment.
Please, oh, please let him have gotten out, she thought. Her only hope now would be that he had run out the door at the first signs of fire. Now the smoke was thicker, and Mina had to crawl along the floor. She tried to head out the front door, but when she opened it, fire filled the landing. Slamming the door, Mina rushed back to her bedroom. The fire hadn’t yet reached there yet, but it would soon.
Her hands shook as she flung items off her desk, looking for the key. It had been weeks since she’d locked up the Grimoire, and now she couldn’t remember where she had put the key. A loud, piercing shriek erupted close by, making her jump. The shriek came again, this time closer. It sounded like a siren, so she assumed it had to be the fire department.
If Mina was someone who swore, she would have been swearing up a storm at the moment, but instead she tried to think level-headedly for a sixteen-year-old. But in the face of being burned alive, that didn’t happen.
She gave up searching for the key and took an aluminum baseball bat that she kept in her room for protection against surprise fairy-tale attacks and began to swing at her desk. It wasn’t a sturdy desk, and now that she thought about it, it probably wasn’t the best place to store the Grimoire, since after a few hits to the underside of the drawer it came loose. She grabbed the small book and headed for the fire escape.
Normally, she would take the ladder up to the roof, but now she had to get the ladder to release and go down. It was stuck. She tried kicking it and jumping on it, but it only slid down a few feet. It would have to do. She turned and had started to climb down the rungs when she thought she heard someone call her name.
“Charlie?” She looked up and could have sworn she saw someone walking around up on the roof. The heat was getting intense, and the smoke made her cough. Even knowing it was highly impossible, she felt she had to check. Could she have missed him, and he’d gone onto the roof?
But there it was again, the sound of someone calling. She’d just begun to climb back up the rung when the unthinkable happened. With her added weight, the ladder finally became unstuck and slid down toward the alley. She lost her grip on the rung and fell backward. In a rare moment of d??jà vu, she thought she was flying. No—falling. She tried to scream for help, but her words were lost in a rush of air. She saw the sky grow distant as she fell. Arms wrapped around her, and then her world went black.
Chapter 2
A voice spoke through the pounding of her head. “Are you okay, miss?”
“My b-brother.” Something was covering her mouth, making it hard to concentrate.
The sirens were echoing between the buildings, making Mina wince in pain.
A young man with “EMT” embroidered on his jacket flashed a small light between her eyes, ignoring her attempts to remove the oxygen mask covering her face.
“Miss, do you know where you are? Do you remember your name?”
Mina looked around and saw that she was a few blocks away from her home, lying on a stretcher. Her eyes tried to focus, but it was now dark, and the yellow blazing fire lit up the night sky, distracting her. Was that her home? It sure looked like it was.
“Ch-Charlie?”
“Your name’s Charlie?” he asked.
“No. Where’s my brother? He was in the apartment, and I couldn’t find him.”
More yelling followed as additional firemen rushed past them, toward the burning building.
“MINA!” A frantic woman pushed past the police tape and darted around the EMTs to run to her daughter. Sara Grime’s hair was falling out of her bun; her eyes were puffy and red from crying as she pulled Mina into a hug. “Oh, God! I’m so glad you’re okay. I was so worried! When Mei Wong called me and told me, I rushed over here as soon as I could.” Sara’s words spilled out as she quickly craned her neck back and forth, looking in the other ambulances nearby. “Mina? Where’s Charlie?”
“Mom, I…I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Mina, where’s your brother? How could you leave your brother in there?”
Mina started crying harder. “He was there before the fire, and then once it started I went back in and couldn’t find him.”
Sara dropped Mina’s arms and stood stock-still. Her face paled, and she began to shake. Then she turned and ran toward the burning building.
“MOM!” Mina screamed, and tried to get off the stretcher.
A policeman caught Sara Grime at the yellow caution tape and held her back as she tried to claw her way to the building, screaming out Charlie’s name.
“Ma’am, you can’t go in there. It’s not safe.”
“My boy’s in there!” Sara cried. “He can’t talk. He could be stuck in there, unable to call for help, and you wouldn’t be able to hear him. Do you understand? He can’t talk, and he is in there!”
The policeman shook his head in understanding. “The building is about to come down at any second. The fire has done too much damage. It’s too late.”
“No, no, no! He’s in there,” she argued.
A small Asian woman emerged from the crowd and wrapped her arms around Sara’s shoulders. “Shhhh, shhh, Sara. It’s okay.” Mrs. Wong tried to comfort her.
“Where is he, Mei? Where’s my boy?” Sara crumpled to the street, and Mrs. Wong knelt down with her, whispering and rocking her. Tears covered both women’s faces as they watched their home and business go up in smoke.
Mina got up from the stretcher and made her way over to the women. Sara’s eyes burned brightly with judgment as she looked at her daughter. “What happened? What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything! I don’t even know how the fire started. Do you?” Mina turned to Mrs. Wong.
Mei Wong shook her head. “No, it came fast, appear out of walls and cover ceiling. Never see the likes before. It was alive. Barely had time to get customers out, before poof! Gone.”