Page 82 of Backwoods
“No.” Amiya touched his head.
“Come on now, son,” Grandpa Lee said, crouched next to him. He coughed, the smoke growing thicker. “It’s not your time.”
Nick breathed—and gagged. Amiya cradled his head in her hands and helped him to sit up.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I’m so sorry, Nick. I didn’t want to hurt you but?—”
“It’s okay.” His voice was raspy. “Think we ought to get out of here, guys.”
Amiya and Grandpa Lee helped Nick stand. The house was falling apart around them. Timbers collapsed from the ceiling. Draperies billowed and snapped with flames. Clouds of black, suffocating smoke wafted through the rooms.
Nick hung his arm across Amiya’s shoulders. Grandpa Lee helped to steady his grandson, and turned away from them.
“Hey,” Nick said. “Grandpa?”
“I’m taking on the burden, son,” Grandpa Lee said. “You kids get on out of here now.”
“Wait!” Amiya said.
But Grandpa Lee ignored both of them. He raced to the staircase. He picked up the branding iron from where it had fallen onto a step.
Amiya didn’t know if the churning smoke had distorted her vision, but once he put his hands on that terrible tool, he was no longer the beloved grandfather who had been so sweet to her. He transformed, in an instant, into the fearsome Overseer.
And she saw huge, distorted faces gathered around Grandpa Lee, their features formed from the billowing smoke and flames,their hungry mouths open in shouts of an unknown language, demanding final payment in exchange for freedom.
The ancient, evil entities, a primitive part of her mind whispered, and cold, raw terror came over her.The powers behind it all . . .
She tore her gaze away and looked at Nick, and from the fear flashing in his eyes, she realized he saw them, too.
Grandpa Lee looked back at both of them, once, and it was an image that would be seared in Amiya’s brain for the rest of her life: a man of two minds, one of love, one of hate.
He pressed the branding iron against his own chest.
And, roaring, he charged into the flames.
60
The entire estate was on fire.
Amiya at his side, Nick leaned against Grandpa Lee’s truck a safe distance away from the flames and watched Westbrook burn. Raven and Ossie were nearby, as were many others—the captives who had wanted to escape. Not all of them had taken the opportunity to leave.
Like his granddad, some had willfully remained inside.
“I don’t understand what happened.” Amiya sniffled, wiped tears from her face with the heel of her hand. “For a while, you werehim, that terrible man, and at the end it was your grandfather. How?”
Shaking his head, Nick pulled in a ragged breath. “I barely remember any of it. It’s like a dream that you mostly forget when you wake up. You can recall only fragments of it. All I can clearly remember is . . . I wanted to help my granddad.”
“And he wanted to help you,” Amiya said softly. She squeezed his hand as if sensing he needed reassurance. “He wanted to help all of us.”
The burn above Nick’s kidney would be a permanent reminder of his grandfather’s sacrifice. The pain was severe andwould require medical treatment, but he was in no hurry to leave.
He needed to mind the fire.
The flames had spread to the plantation’s supporting structures: the barn, warehouse, and other buildings. All of it needed to burn, Nick had realized. Grandpa Lee, in his wisdom, had known that the only way to start anew was to destroy it all.
Soon, Raven and Ossie wandered over. Both of them wore tentative smiles, and appeared hesitant to speak, as though they feared the answers to their questions.
Maybe they’re afraid of me, Nick thought. They must have seen what he had become, though as he had told Amiya, he recalled only bits and pieces of the experience.
