A Strange Fire (Florence Vaine) (20 page)

 Now I’ve got a hundred tiny scrapes leaking drops of blood all over my
ruined jeans. The skin on my knee feels as though someone’s gone to work on it
with an industrial sander. The same goes for the palms of my hands. Shredded.

 Three male figures get out of the black truck, I might not have been
knocked unconscious but my vision is a little bit blurry. One of them grabs
Larry at the same moment the nurse gets there, pinning the old man to the
ground.

 “Get off me! Get off me!” Larry spits as the man keeps him in place.
“That girl! That little bitch!”

 “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” says the nurse, rushing over to me and helping
me to my feet. “I don’t understand what got into him, I really don’t,” her face
is a picture of panic and confusion.

 “It’s – it’s okay,” I manage while grimacing at the stinging pain in my
knee.

 A moment later I’m surprised to see Frank rush to my side. “Florence,
are you hurt? I swear John barely saw you run out in front of the car before he
pulled the brakes.”

 His voice betrays his worry, he’s almost jittery. Frank was in the car?
And John, who – oh right I remember now, John is Frank’s foster dad. John
Danson. The third person in the car had been Alex, who is currently standing
off to the side, studying Larry as his Dad keeps him held in place. Then he
glances at me, obviously wondering why an elderly man had been chasing me out of
a psychiatric hospital. My life just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

 “What on earth is going on here?” asks John in a deep, guttural voice.
He’s got wavy brown hair with just a hint of grey at the temples and salt and
pepper stubble. His dark eyes graze over me with concern, making sure I haven’t
been too badly injured.

 The nurse catches her breath before replying, “The young girl had been
volunteering at the hospital,” she says, gesturing to me, “and I had been
taking Larry,” she points to the old man, “for a walk. We bumped into the girl
as she was coming out of the building and suddenly Larry went berserk,
screaming and shouting at her and then chasing after her, trying to hurt her. I
don’t know how it happened, he’s been so docile since being admitted three
weeks ago. Now all of sudden he just snapped.”

 John turns to look at me again. “Is that what happened?” he asks, his
brow furrowed.

 “Y-yes.” I reply. “I – I was r-running to get away from him, that’s why
I ran out in front of your car. I’m so sorry if I dented it sir, I was too
panicked to look where I was going.”

 He smiles. “That’s quite all right honey, a little thing like you
wouldn’t put a dent in this beast,” he pats his truck. He has Larry upright now
and hands him over to the nurse. Larry doesn’t protest any more, seeming to
have calmed down again. The red has receded from his eyes, his old body slumps
against the nurse as she struggles to hold him.

 “But what I do want to know is if you’re okay,” says John. “You feel any
unusual pain anywhere?” he asks. “That was a pretty rough skid you took.”

 “No,” I answer. “My knee and my hands are scraped, my jeans got ripped
but that’s about it.”

 “Good,” he says, satisfied I’m not going to keel over any time soon.
“Now Miss,” he continues, turning his attention back to the nurse, “would you
like me to drive you and the patient back up to the hospital, it’s a long walk,
what with the incline.”

 “Yes,” she replies, “that’s very kind of you, but shouldn’t we see to
the girl, her knee definitely needs cleaning and disinfecting.”

 “I’ll take her back to the farmhouse with the boys and get her cleaned
up,” says John. “Florence is a friend of theirs from school, aren’t you
Florence?” he prompts, and for a minute I’m surprised he knows my name. Had
Frank been talking to him about me?

 “Yes that’s r-right,” I say, mustering a smile.

 “Okay, well if you’re sure,” says the nurse, already edging Larry toward
the door of the truck. I nod my acquiescence, asking her if she’d let Caroline
and Lia know what happened so that they don’t worry at my absence. Then John
opens the door, helping her in alongside the now limp-bodied Larry.

 “You three wait here,” says John. “I’ll be back out in a minute.”

 “‘Kay,” says Frank, monosyllabic.

 “Come on you,” says the nurse to Larry, in a scolding voice. “We’re
definitely going to have to increase your medication after all this.”

 The truck pulls into the path leading to the hospital and disappears
from sight. I’m quiet after that, drained from all the commotion. It takes me a
while to notice that Frank has ushered us onto the path at the side of the road
and his arm is around my waist. I sag into him and rest against his chest. My
weight doesn’t seem to bother him too much.

 “That was surreal,” I say, finally breaking the silence. Frank pulls me
closer, but doesn’t say anything. Under normal circumstances I would never be
brave enough to get this close to him, but the urgency of what just happened
has me acting out of character. I rest my head in the crook of his neck. As I
do so he seems to inhale quickly.

 Alex glances in my direction. “What I want to know is why you were
volunteering at the loony bin in the first place, I mean,
who
does
that?” he seems bewildered as to what my motivation could be.

 “It wasn’t my idea,” I answer on a heavy sigh. “Caroline does it every
couple of weeks and she asked me to come along.”

 “And you said yes?” he snorts.

 “Leave her alone Alex,” Frank interjects, in a low but threatening
voice, while stroking a hand down one of my plaits. He lifts it up. “Your hair
is adorable like this,” he whispers too low for Alex to hear. I blush and he
laughs gently, I hear it vibrate through his chest.

 Alex’s face turns indignant. “All I’m saying is, you go willingly into a
place like that,” he peers up at the hospital in the distance, “and you’re
asking for trouble.”

 “I just wanted to do something nice for Caroline,” I tell him. “She was
the first person to be genuinely n-nice to me since I moved here, I wanted to
return the favour.”

 “Yeah well, now you know that no good deed goes unpunished,” he replies,
walking a couple steps further up the path and checking to see if John is on
his way back yet.

 “You know,” says Frank, voice low so that Alex can’t earwig, “Caroline
wasn’t the only person to be nice to you on your first day, yet you seem to
repay me differently.” He’s clearly referring to the fact that I’ve been
ignoring him all week. Guilt seizes me.

 I turn around a little to get more comfortable in his arms. “I’m s-sorry
about that, I – well, it was a misunderstanding. I had planned on apologising
to you yesterday at school but you weren’t in.”

 “It’s okay, Alex told me everything. And don’t worry, Josh will get his
comeuppance.” His warm breath tingles at my ear. How did he figure out it was
Josh who lied about him? Though I suppose it’s obvious once you think about it.

 “Will he?” I ask, concern clouding my expression. Not for Josh of
course, I just don’t want Frank getting into trouble for me.

 “Wait and see,” he replies ominously, eyes and aura simultaneously
glittering, one blue, the other fiercely orange.

 Then I hear John’s truck approach and after that a horn beeps loudly.
John gets halfway out of the vehicle. “Come on you two, hop in,” he calls, with
a knowing smirk on his face as he takes in the sight of Frank with both arms
around my waist, my head resting on his chest.

 I pull away out of embarrassment and hobble over to the truck. Frank
takes my elbow and helps me in, before sliding in beside me. Alex sits in the
front with John. My hands rest in my lap, I turn them over so that the palms
are facing up. From my inner wrist to my thumb the skin is scraped and raw,
road dirt in the wounds.

 “Hey, try not to think about it until we get to the house,” says Frank.
“I know it probably hurts like a bitch but once we get them disinfected and
bandaged up the pain should fade.” He rests his arm over my shoulder and pulls
me into him, I don’t resist.

 John glances at us in his overhead mirror. “How are you doing, sugar?”
he asks me.

 “As good as I c-can be,” I answer shyly.

 “You’re a tough one then,” he says with a quiet laugh, “that nurse said
the old codger really turned on you, said he looked as though he might strangle
you.”

 “John!” Frank hisses. “I don’t think Florence needs to hear that right
now.”

 “I’m not trying to scare her Frankie,” says John in a reasoning voice,
“I just want to make sure the girl is feeling okay, anybody would be in shock
for days after an episode like that.”

 “I’ve been through worse,” I say in a quietly.

 John keeps watching me after I’ve said it, considering. Then he nods
with a half-smile and turns his attention back to the road.

It only takes a minute for us to get to the farmhouse. It’s situated just
off an isolated lane way that turns in from the main road and runs up as far as
the big red brick house. There are empty fields beyond and a couple of
weather-beaten outhouses. Clearly the farmhouse is not a functioning one,
perhaps the previous owner had been a farmer. The land has been left fallow and
overgrown for at least a couple of years now by the looks of it.

 John parks the truck in the driveway at the front of the house right
beside the big navy van the boys normally drive to school. The front of the
building boasts large windows with varnished wooden frames, and there’s a porch
leading to the front door, which is wide open. No fear of burglaries here I
see. Then again, I guess you don’t have to worry much about that sort of thing
in such a sparsely populated area.

 “Take her up to the bathroom and start work on her cuts Frank,” says
John. “I’ll go see if I can find an old pair of Hayley’s trousers that Florence
can change into. Those jeans have seen better days,” he adds, glancing down at
the blood stains and the massive tear across my knee.

 “Sure,” says Frank nodding to John, and ushering me in the front door.

 As we make our way down the hallway, Benji jumps out from the open door
that leads to a large living room. “Hey you’re back,” he announces happily,
until he sees Frank helping me along.

 “Oh – what happened?” he asks with a perplexed expression.

 “There was an accident,” says Frank. “Alex will tell you, I’m taking
Florence to get cleaned up.”

 Benji widens his gaze and then dips his head. “Right so, say no more,”
he replies and then races out to get the low down from Alex.

 Managing the stairs is tricky with my knee being hurt, but I get there
eventually with Frank’s assistance. He takes me past several bedroom doors to
the end of the upstairs hallway where he opens the door to a good sized
bathroom, with wooden floor boards and clean white and black tiles on the
walls. There’s a bath and separate shower. I sit down on the edge of the bath.

 “I’ll be back in a sec, just have to go get the first aid kit from the
kitchen,” he tells me before disappearing out the door and returning no more
than a minute later.

 “You know first aid?” I ask, in an effort to fill the silence as he
searches through the box.

 “Yeah, John taught all of us the basics, you never know when it’ll come
in handy living in such a remote area,” he answers.

 “Yeah, I suppose you’re r-right.” I say, trying not to think about the
stinging in my knee.

 “I’ll do your leg first,” he tells me. “That’s the most serious part,
and then I’ll see to your hands.”

 He reaches down and folds up my trouser leg to above my knee. His
fingers brush gently over my skin. He turns on the hot tap and waits a moment
for the water to heat up, testing it under his fingers. Then he soaks a white
gauzy cloth and turns to me, pressing it down on my knee and dabbing gently to
wash away the dirt. I gasp as the rough surface of the fabric touches my
sensitive wounds. Franks laughs quietly.

 “If you can’t take the cleaning, I don’t know what you’re going to do
when I use the antiseptic,” he tells me in a gentle voice.

 I scowl and reply, “I can h-handle it.”

 “You sure about that?” he asks, while pressing particularly hard in one
area.

 I hiss. “Yes,” holding in my need to scream.

 Frank smirks and continues to use the cloth to clean my knee, while
rinsing it out and then returning three or four times. Once all the dirt has
been wiped clean, Frank withdraws a small bottle of brown coloured liquid from
the first aid kit along with a bunch of cotton balls. He pours a little of the
liquid onto one of the balls and then raises it to my knee.

 Before making contact he instructs me, “Deep breaths in and out, and try
to keep your mind off what I’m doing.”

 I can’t answer because I know how it feels when antiseptic comes into
contact with even the most mild of cuts and grazes. My face scrunches up in
anticipation. Then Frank begins gently dabbing the fluffy cotton over the
surface of my cuts, and the stinging is terrible, but I bite down on my lip and
suffer it all the same. Just as Frank finishes my knee, wrapping a clean white
bandage right the way around my leg and securing it tightly, Ross peeks his
white blonde head in the door.

 “Alex told me what happened, how’re you feeling Flo?” he asks, eyeing
the bandage.

 “Stingy,” I reply truthfully, touching a finger to the bandage and
testing its strength.

 “I still have to do her hands,” says Frank, pulling me closer to him
down the length of the bath and taking my left hand in his, studying it a
moment.

 Ross sucks in a breath. “Christ, that’s looks like it hurts.”

 “It does,” I tell him, trying to smile and ignore Frank’s movements as
he goes through a similar routine to what he did on my knee. First washing,
then disinfecting, but he doesn’t bandage my hands, instead he puts a big
plaster over the torn skin on each palm.

 “So, um,” Ross begins, “Alex said some patient at the hospital went
mental and chased you out of the place,” he raises an eyebrow, acknowledging
the strange nature of what happened.

 “Yes, it’s probably one of the c-creepiest things that have ever
happened to me.” I tell him.

 “One of? Stuff like this happens to you a lot does it?” he asks, trying
to mask his curiosity with a joking tone. I can tell the question isn’t
rhetorical, and his colours show that he really wants to know the answer. He
probably thinks it will help him to discover what my ability is, Alex did
mention that they all knew I was different, they just don’t know
how
I
am different. Except for Frank.

 I evade his question as best I can. “Well I’ve never had a psychiatric
patient turn on me before, but then again, this was my first time in a mental
hospital, so you never know. Maybe I trigger their insanity,” I answer him,
with a flippant laugh.

 He studies me a minute, probably considering if I am some kind of a
trigger for madness. Hell, even I’m wondering about that a little myself. Larry
had been so frail, with his tentative uncertain steps, but that had been before
he’d looked at me and flew off the rails.

 “All done,” Frank announces, finishing applying the plasters. “Those
shouldn’t get infected but you should probably apply some antiseptic cream
every night for the next week or so until they heal.”

 I look up into his eyes and whisper, “Thank you.”

 “Well,” says Ross, interrupting, “we’re having a barbecue for dinner,
would you like to join us Flo?” he asks.

 “Sure I’d love to stay.”

 The idea is actually quite appealing, since it’s such a sunny day and
all. Well, at least there’s one consolation for me being knocked over by a car,
I get to enjoy a nice barbecue to make up for it. Frank seems pleased by my
answer.

 “Oh I almost forgot,” Ross adds, slipping out the door a second and
returning with a pair of cream combat pants. “John called Hayley at the book
store and filled her in on the situation, she said to give you these. Do you
think they’ll fit?”

 I take the pants from him and check the label, which informs me they’re
a size smaller than what I normally wear. It’ll be a tight squeeze but I should
be able to manage it.

 “Yes they’ll be fine,” I answer and ask him to thank Hayley for me.

 Ross leaves then, and Frank glances at me awkwardly before following his
lead. “I’ll, um, let you get changed then,” he says, and disappears out the
door.

 With care, I peel off my now destroyed jeans and ease myself into
Hayley’s old combats, which are quite tight around my hips and bottom. I guess
they’ll have to do. I retrieve my wallet and keys from my other pants and slot
them in the pockets of the clean ones. Then I take my time to fix my hair in
the bathroom mirror and splash some water on my face before drying it with a
towel. I fold up my discarded pants and leave the bathroom in search of Frank.

 I can hear voices from down the hallway, I follow them until I come to
an open bedroom door. Frank, Ross and Alex are inside splayed out on a large
double bed. I stand in the doorway and hesitate. After a moment Frank sees me,
and his eyes instantly wander to my trousers, lingering on the tight areas.
When he notices me catch him looking his gaze quickly focuses back on my face.

 “Hey, come in,” he says with a smile.

 “Is t-there a b-bin that I can throw these in?” I stammer after the
tension of his heated gaze.

 “Oh yeah just shove them in there,” Frank answers, pointing to a small
blue plastic bin in the far corner of the room. A big window is open and a nice
cool breeze permeates the space.

 “Is this your room?” I ask Frank once I’ve discarded my ruined jeans.

 “Yes,” he answers with a crooked grin, I think I hear Alex snigger. I
nod my head, not able to think of anything else to say.

 “Well,” says Ross, getting to his feet, “we’re going to go pick up Layla
now aren’t we?” and then he nudges Alex in the side.

 “Huh? Oh yeah, right, we better get going,” says Alex. The two of them
rise from the bed, leaving me alone in the room with Frank.

 I sit down on a bench opposite the bed and look around. There’s an old
television set close to the door on top of a chest of drawers, shelves beside
the bed and a small locker with a reading lamp on top. The walls are dark green
and there’s another door in the other corner that I presume leads to an en-suite
bathroom.

 “John’s outside with Kevin and Benji setting up the barbecue,” says
Frank.

 “Cool, I’ve never actually been to a barbecue before,” I admit
sheepishly.

 “You haven’t?” he asks.

 “No, people don’t really have barbecues in the city, it’s way too cold
in Tribane and there aren’t many open spaces for it.”

 “Well you’ll get to enjoy the whole experience today,” he smiles.

 I pause a moment before getting up and going over to sit by him. His bed
has clean navy sheets on. I stare at them as though they are the most
interesting thing in the world.

 “Are you feeling any better now that you’re all bandaged up?” he asks.

 “A little, I could do with some trousers that are a bit less tight,” I
reply, shifting on the bed to get comfortable and resisting the urge to undo
the button above the fly.

 Frank leans back on his elbows and watches me. “Would it be rude to
suggest you take them off?” he says humorously, though there’s heat in his
voice.

 “Y-yes,” I say with just enough indignation, I push him in the shoulder
but before I can pull my hand back he catches it in his own and drags me down
to him.

 He turns my hand over and strokes a finger down my palm. “You should
probably avoid hitting people, just until the scrapes heal,” he whispers. He’s
so close now. Too close. I can smell his minty breath, the faintest scent of
aftershave. When I look into his eyes I would swear I could almost see fire in
them, as though his aura is present within the blue irises. He hasn’t let go of
my hand yet, he raises it to his lips, and places a feather light kiss to the
centre of my palm above the plaster.

 “Frank…” I begin but before I can say anything else he sits up and leans
over me, brushing a stray lock of hair away from my forehead.

 “Touching you is like a little bit of peace, Florence,” he says in a low
voice. “It radiates from you,” he continues. “It heals me.”

 “I wish I could feel that,” I whisper.

 “You can’t,” says Frank, “because it’s what you give to those around
you.”

 “Figures,” I reply, nervous tension seeping from my every pore with his
nearness.

 “And,” he goes on, “you are so indescribably beautiful,” his words make
my heart jump, my lungs catch on air.

 I’m about to tell him to shut up when his lips suddenly brush gently
over mine. I gasp and jump a little, and he smiles at my reaction before
returning his lips to me, this time deepening the kiss. I have no idea if I’m
responding in the correct way, I’ve had no experience after all. His hands
graze my hips, pulling me closer to him. He lifts his head, and I instantly
mourn the loss of him. But then he bends down to my collarbone and plants
little feathery kisses all the way up to my neck. He stops then, breath heavy
against my skin.

 “Maybe we should go downstairs,” he whispers.

 Oh God, did I do something wrong? “Oh – okay.” I reply, disappointed. I
must not be a very good kisser.

 He must have heard the dejection in my voice when he replies, “No, not
that, never that. I just don’t think I’ll be able to keep control if we continue
much longer.”

 I instantly redden. “Oh...r-right,” I say, sort of getting what he
means.

 I sit up and straighten my top. But I don’t want to go downstairs, I
want to stay here and talk to Frank, get to know him. I ask him a question so
that he might stay a little while more. “So, how long have you lived here with
John?”

 Frank sits up with me, he looks a little taken off guard by my question.
“What’s it now, about four years I guess. I’ve been with John and Hayley since
I was fifteen. Then a couple months later Ross and Alex came to live with us
within the space of the same few days, and Benji and Kevin a year after that.”

 “So, you’ve been with them the longest?”

 “Well I suppose it makes sense since I’m the oldest of the five of us,”
he grins, and his aura shines with contentment, thinking of his acquired
brothers.

 “It must be really nice,” I say, “living all together in this big house.
You’d never get lonely.”

 Frank absent-mindedly trails his fingertips up and down my bare arm as
we talk. “I guess you could say that, then again, there’s the kind of company a
brother can’t provide. I suppose that’s when loneliness can set in.” He tells
me this with eyes downcast, looking at his own hand as it strokes my arm. Is he
embarrassed I wonder. But I don’t make a big deal out of what he’s said.