Prologue — “That Night in the Fire”

Vivienne Langford | First Person POV

They said it was a miracle I survived the fire.

I remember the way they said it — not out of awe, but pity. As if my life were a consolation prize being handed out by an unkind god. The paramedics found me curled beneath the old piano bench in the parlor, smoke-blackened, lips blistered, whispering to someone who wasn’t there.

I never told them what I’d seen before the flames came.

Not because I couldn’t.

But because no one would have believed me.

They blamed faulty wiring. An electrical surg by the electric company. The kind of thing people say when they need the truth to sound clean. When they can’t blame the victim( fire girl).

But fire doesn’t move like that.

It chooses.

It follows.

It waits.

I was twelve. I didn’t cry during the interviews. I didn’t speak. The investigators asked the same question again and again, trying to piece together the sequence.

Where were your parents?

Did you smell anything?

Who lit the first match?

I watched their mouths moved, hammering me with questions over and over but i couldn’t quite understand. They had a psychological analysis on me by a professional; saying I was still in shock.

Eyes-dead!!!

Body motionless, but i couldn’t stop the dissociation even if I wanted to, I had no control over my body .

A ride, I had to take even if I wasn’t prepared for it.

But I had already slipped into the quiet by then. I didn’t respond. My voice had burned away with the rest of the house.

They sent me to therapy. Then to a home. Then to silence.

That silence lasted two years.

The first thing I ever drew after the fire was a museum.

Not any museum I had been to — something imagined, surreal. Long halls. High ceilings. Marble staircases that looped into themselves. Every room contained a painting of me. Or rather, a girl who looked like me. Watching from behind glass. Always alone.

I don’t know why I drew it. Or why I kept drawing.

But years later, I built it.

With Edward.

Now Edward is dead.

And the museum is the only part of my life still standing.

But someone had opened the door to my memory I sealed shut long ago.

And they’ve slipped something inside.

A photograph. A shadow.

A question: How much do you really remember?

Enough, I think.

Enough to start burning things down.