Her sister counseled her to be patient, though in her own mind she wondered whether a man who had appeared so suddenly out of nowhere wasn’t bound to be off just as quickly.

To pass the time she stayed on and had dinner with her sister’s family and, when she left, told herself Caleum would be there with a good explanation when she opened the door, and all would be well.

He was not, though, for the first time in the year they had been together. She went to bed early that night — but stayed awake until it was almost dawn, listening for his footfall on the stairs. When she awoke and felt the cold space around her again she grew angry, which was very rare for her. It was the first night he had spent away from home since they became a couple, and she grew wrathful at how he had hurt her. Still, he did not come. When she got up from bed and checked his closet she saw his trunk was missing. Her anger then began to dissipate and was replaced again by worry, until she became miserable again. She ate alone that night and, when her sister knocked on the door, she pretended to be out, not wanting visitors.

Nor did she want to leave the house the next day but was forced to in order to buy groceries at the market. As she walked through the stalls, she did her best to avoid coming into contact with anyone she knew. At the produce stand, though, Mr. Miller called out to her and came to her side. “It is so good to see you, ma’am,” he said. “I have some winter squash today at a good price, I think you might be interested in.” She was in no mood to haggle, but took two medium-sized vegetables from him all the same.

“By the way”—he chatted on, as was his nature—“if you don’t mind my asking, where was Mr. Merian going off to the other morning?”

“What do you mean?” she asked thinly.

“Early Friday he was down at the wharf and boarded a ship that left going south.”

“He is only off to visit relatives. Is that a crime?” she answered curtly, then began walking away as fast as she could, forgetting the gourds. Her heart pounded in her chest and she could feel its beat in her throat, as the taste of blood was brought to her mouth, and she hurried to get home.

Her breathing was going rapidly, and she tried her best to control it, but when she arrived back at her house she was drawing in air faster than she could exhale it. She locked the door soundlessly and stood in the hall a long time trying to regain control of her breath. Once she had managed this, she went out to the kitchen and made a cup of tea for herself. She drank it down quickly and was soothed by its warmth.

“So he has gone away,” she said to herself. And no matter what other reasoning she tried to give herself, she knew he would not be back.

When she finished the tea she washed the porcelain cup out in the sink and put it away. She then took a lamp from the cupboard and lit it at the stove. She placed a handful of long wooden kitchen matches in her apron, and set out through the house.

In the living room she torched the curtains, taking a match and holding it steadily, until they began to burn. As they went up in flames she walked to the dining room, then each of the other rooms of the house, setting them all alight. When at last she reached the bedroom she had shared with Caleum, she lay down on the mattress and folded her arms, waiting for the fire to reach and consume her. Nor did she regret it at all, being determined in her plan. She had been cast aside and was without any way to return to her family or anything she had known before. He had left her an exile from his affections and all others as well.

The flames came under the door slowly at first, burning copper and specked with a red the color of old wine. After the door gave way it came for her mercifully swift, and she was waiting for it. Outside the house, though, and as far away as the next three blocks, her cries could be heard — whether from the pain of death or heartbreak or hotness of love no one ever knew. But all who heard her that morning felt an immense sympathy, and any who could have saved her from that fate would have done so, for it was unbearable to hear.

In the street in front of the house the neighbors all gathered, but it was impossible to enter the building. They could only hope to keep the ones around it from burning as well.

When her cries finally died away it was after twelve o’clock and all was silent in that street for a very long time, outside the sound of a dog’s barking, as the building continued to burn well into the day.

Finally they tore themselves away and returned to their lives, taking care to avoid that place as best they could in the days afterward. Those who did walk that street in the days following, and indeed far into the future, claimed to hear the sound of a woman wailing, and it did strike them cold for a moment before they could continue their journeys. The one who caused it, however, never knew any of it, or her final agony, as she lived on in his memory the way he had known her, long into the future and even till his own final days.

six

Winter in the country around Berkeley was unusually dry that year, with no sign nor hint of snow or rain for weeks on end, until everything was desiccated and brittle as ancient parchment. The woodland creatures all burrowed deeper in their earthen hollows, to search out the soil’s hidden moisture, or else moved higher up into the mountains — where the underground streams that usually fed the lakes of the valley still flowed a short distance before disappearing. There was also one summit, remote in the impenetrable wilderness, where water was always plentiful, and those migrating animals that knew of it passed the dry months. The people in their houses were careful to keep well water on hand to extinguish errant sparks from their cooking fires or tobacco pipes and so protect their farms and freeholdings, but all else it was at the mercy of Heaven.

When snow did begin to fall, the week after Christmas, all were happy for it and rejoiced, thinking it would relieve the parched valley and replenish the streams high up above. However, no one counted on what moved in with the snow clouds. Great, measureless branches of lightning cleaved the sky like a celestial Nile as the storm moved over the hill country, illuminating the entire valley each time one of them exploded — brilliant as a harvest moon or star shower. There was nothing passive, though, about its radiance, and when it finally subsided, little fires could be seen burning. Wherever it had touched the earth — either the stubbled ground itself or else massive oaks and pines high in their upper reaches — all was set ablaze.

At Stonehouses, Libbie gathered Rose and the smaller one, called Lucky, around her in the kitchen, and they watched through the small back window as the world outside was made bright by the pale blue light, moving closer and closer toward them. Libbie worried briefly for Magnus and Adelia over in the main house, but there was no way to reach them, and then it was they had all weathered out storms before.

The next time the sky lit up, though, it was not by one of the massive jolts of lightning but three prodigious balls of it, which seemed to sit directly on top of Stonehouses. The entire farm took on a spectral pink and white glow, and when it died away the hill where Stonehouses itself sat looked to be aflame — as did two of the barns on the shore between the original structure and Caleum and Libbie’s place.

Her first instinct was to go over to check on Magnus and Adelia, but she feared leaving her children alone, and it was impossible to tell in which direction the ground fire was moving. Nor did she want to chance being struck by lightning or getting otherwise caught in the path of the blaze. She sat there with her children as the crackling of the clouds continued, knowing that if anything happened while she was there with them she had at least a passing chance of keeping them from harm.