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Preface

So ht I can’t see who stands there, looking atthe door anddown the corridor, toward my father’s roo inside

We smell the smoke As we ray ht spills fro through gray whorls--and the shadowy for, but their e we can’t see

Then I aain

The watcher leaves, followed by one of the men They pause outside to lock the front door I hear the click of the lock and lurch away, trying not to breathe I’ from the fire I keep s Then coled in my throat before they can be spoken

As I wake fro--a pri within me

My ?"

She sits on the edge of my bed, lifts and cradles me in her arms "Tell me"

Why do we tell our dreaible even to the drea is a vain attenificance where likely there’s none

I tell my mother the dream

"You were back in Sarasota," she says Her voice is ht of the fire"

"Who were they?" I ask

She knows I ures "I don’t know"

"Who locked the door?"

"I don’t know" My mother holds me closer "You had a bad dream, Ariella It’s over now"

Was it a dream? I wonder Is it over?

A few days before lass coffin, a chaen therapy to treat smoke inhalation On another floor of the hospital, my father recovered inside a similar device

The third person rescued by the Sarasota firefighters was Malcolencya driver’s license in his wallet But when their van reached the hospital, the stretcher was eators said the fire had been caused by ethyl ether, a highly flammable liquid They found an empty canister in the kitchen, but they weren’t able to trace its source

Those are facts that others have told me When I think about the fire,up in the hospital Then I recall the day before the fire--Malcol rooy that he’d killed my best friend

The experience of the fire itself? I don’t knohat I recall is a memory, or only a bad dream

ONE

In My Mother’s House

Chapter One

It was the year of disappearances The honeybees were the first to go

The stacks of old white cabinets kept near the herb gardens were eerily still Normally the air around the froain, and as I approached, a scout or tould fly out to meet me, hover over my forehead, their buzz barely audible above the others’ collective hum The bees knew me and could smell that I wasn’t afraid Sometimes I closed my eyes and stretched out my hands, felt the air around s, even felt the brush of wings against the hairs on ust, no scout approachedof saw palmetto leaves down by the river When I drew closer to the hives, I saw a dozen or so bees, walking in erratic circles Others lay on the ground, dead

I lifted the cover of a hive and pulled out a fraolden co the cells, as if it hurt thes The honey looked dark and sn of the queen