When he locked the downstairs door behind him and pounded up the tower stairs, he had no clear idea of what he was going to do. But by the time he reached the second-floor landing he did have an idea-a dangerous one, a last resort to be undertaken only if the situation became desperate enough. But even if he didn’t implement it, preparing for it was better than just sitting up in the lantern, waiting for Alix to bring help, waiting for God knew what to happen.
He ran into the cluttered bedroom, through it to the bathroom. Packing box on the floor, half full of sundries and items from the medicine cabinet. He rummaged inside, found the bag of cotton balls Alix kept in there. Back in the bedroom, he began pulling the pillows and blankets and comforters off the bed, wadding them under his arm. All the while he could hear them down betow-inside the house now, yelling, running around, hammering on the locked tower door.
Please, God, don’t let them find Alix.
He ran out onto the landing, trailing bedding, almost tripping on it. He made as much noise as he could running up the stairs and through the open trap, releasing the catch and letting the door slam shut. He knelt to throw the locking bolt, then straightened and pounded up the rest of the way.
Inside the lantern he dropped the cotton and the bedding, went to the glass side that overlooked the grounds. The station wagon was still burning, though with less intensity now, but the garage had caught fire, a blaze that was spreading rapidly under the lash of the wind. Sparks danced and swirled in the mist. If the wind turned gusty, blew sparks and burning embers this way…
His head had begun to hurt-not badly yet, thank God. He pressed his thumbs hard against the upper ridges of his eye sockets, then stood staring down toward the pantry door in the side wall. Get out, he thought, come on, get out!
And the door popped open and Alix stumbled into view, looked around, started to run.
He watched tensely, but when she reached the gate and nobody else appeared, he felt the first stirrings of relief. And something else, too-a realization that he was no longer afraid.
So much fear had been stored up inside him the past few months, irrational and unnecessary, growing, festering, coloring his judgment, controlling his thoughts and actions; but now it had been purged, bled out of him by a simple act of confession, a simple acceptance of what should have been self-evident all along. How could he have thought he couldn’t depend on her?
He leaned against the glass, watching her until she was fifty yards along the road, running into the gray wall of fog-running away but not from him. When he could no longer see her he turned toward the stairs, his hands clenched at his sides. He was ready now.
For the first time since he’d learned of his coming blindness he was ready to fight.