Free The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards Page B

to take their dinner. I did not wish to stay there alone, so I decided that I would step inside, just briefly, to make sure that no one else was working. I knew they would not care if I came and cleaned tomorrow. I pushed the door open, and peered inside.
    What can I say of what I saw? All the jars upon the table were glowing softly, as if each contained a small star that had fallen, as if shafts of moonlight had been gathered into each. The simple mud she had worked on for so long had become a thing of magic. I fell on my knees as if to pray, but I could not take my eyes from the light caught within those jars. It was so beautiful, so unearthly. I wanted to take one home, to keep it in the cupboard, to know I could open the door at any time and see that luminescence. I imagined the faces of my children, the wonder that would infuse them at the sight. That greedy thought was my first. I wanted this rare beauty for myself.
    The dirt floor was very cold, and soon my knees ached with it. Slowly, I stood up. I went across the room, my skin growing pale blue as I drew closer. Gingerly, I reached out, holding a single jar in the loose vessel of my hands.
    It was not terribly hot. That surprised me. I had expected the sort of heat you can feel coming from a flame. But this light was only slightly warm, so faint I thought I might be imagining it altogether. Some vibration seemed to come from the jar, though perhaps this was only my imagination. Perhaps it was my own A Gleaming in the Darkness
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    excitement, making my hands tremble, making my fi ngertips tingle as if with new life. I held the jars and thought of a child, unborn, moving beneath my flesh. A ripple of life, the sense of a hidden thing, growing. I thought of all the plants that had once flowered in this room, grown and died and grown again, and it seemed that the essence of their green life was caught in the jar, like a spirit in a bottle. That is how it felt. I cannot explain it. I can only say that I went there, night after night, for many months, and held the jars in my hands, and every time I touched them I experienced the same wondrous surge. It seemed to me, too, that the light was healing. My stiff joints eased, my fingers felt alive.
    One night I even brought my children there. I let them touch the jars, one by one. It is impossible to believe I did this secret thing. I meant no harm. But I tampered with knowledge that was not meant for me. And look at me now, paying the stiff price, my hands twisted like a thwarted bush.
    One night Madame walked in and found me.
    “Marie,” she said sharply, “what are you doing there?”
    “Oh Madame,” I said, stepping quickly away, pressing my hands against the folds of my skirt. “Madame, it is so beautiful.
    What have you made, Madame? What is this light?” She smiled then. Her jars were safe. And what mother can resist honest praise for her creation? “I call it radium,” she said softly. “It is something very special. It will change the way we think about the world. It has the potential to do great good. Some day, Marie, no one will die of cancer because of what is in this jar.” She came close, and took my hands as I once had taken hers, and she held them to the surface of the glass.
    “You can feel it, can’t you, Marie?” she asked, looking me in the eye. Her hands holding mine to the glass were very strong, the palms and fingertips as rough with callouses as mine.
    I nodded.
    “It is life,” she said. “It is the very energy of life you feel.”
    “You took it from the dirt?” I asked, as she released my hands.
    “Yes,” she said. “I took it from the earth.” She was looking at 50
    The Secrets of a Fire King
    the jar, her face softened, her voice was low and dreamy. “Please,” she said, “look all you want, Marie, but do not touch it again. It is very rare, this element.”
    I agreed, of course, but it was a promise I did not keep. Instead, every night, I put my hands against a jar,