Free Embers by Antoinette Stockenberg Page A

folk who covered the airport fields with fridges and couches and mattresses; the minister's wife who packed up her wedding pots — her wedding pots! — for a granddaughter not yet born. Things! That's all any of us thought about, me included. "
    He threw a complex look at the brightly lit dollhouse, sitting in inscrutable splendor in front of him, and shook his head. "That was my thing," he murmured with a lift of his chin toward it. "That was all I could think about."
    Meg handed him the glass of water and he drank it thirstily, as if he'd been fighting on a fire line. A bit of water dribbled down his whiskery chin; he wiped it with his sleeve.
    "I ain't sayin' this town didn't pull together, don't get me wrong. Why, there was acts of heroism that even now bring tears to my eyes. Neighbor helpin' neighbor, mistress helpin' servant, stranger helpin' stranger. It was wonderful. Well, you both are too young to know."
    "That's not true!" Meg said with spirit. "My father and his brother were among the early evacuees; they were in the caravan that went on for hundreds of cars. They've told us how they crept along on unlit roads with sparks and ash falling all around, and how they were afraid they were going to burn to death, and how all the while they didn't know where ... where —"
    "— their mother was," Tremblay finished with grim resolve. "Well, I know, and this is her story."
    Having silenced Meg, he continued. "As I say, my concern was with the dollhouse. I'd worked on it on and off the better part of a year. My heart, my soul was in it, much more than anything I ever done on the big house. I don't know why. There was somethin' about it ... still is. Anyhow, I wanted to move it out of harm's way, but I couldn't, not by myself."
    Tremblay paused and studied their faces, as if he were having second thoughts about continuing. He clamped his jaw tight; but when he opened it again, the words came pouring out in a torrent of present tense.
    "So just after two," he said, "I go into Eagle's Nest for the last time. Things look as under control as they're gonna get, considerin' the circumstances. Old Mrs. Camplin is orderin' everyone about, including her daughter-in-law Dorothea. The old woman's two pugs are runnin' around yappin' and snappin' at the servants. I never do see Gordon Camplin. Margaret — she's dressed in deep lavender, and her hair is tied back in a loose and shining bundle — Margaret passes through the commotion with the two Camplin kids. The little girl is draggin' a blanket behind her on the floor. Margaret and me don't say nothin' to each other.
    "No one's free to give me a hand, so I go back, determined to move the dollhouse to safety myself, even if I break it tipping it on its side to get it through the door. Then come the seven blasts at four ten — the signal for Bar Harbor to evacuate. It sends me into a panic. For the first time, I really believe it's all up for Eagle's Nest and the outbuildings, including the carpenter shop.  I gotta move fast.
    "So I take a two-by-four and smash out the windows of the shop with it, and then I take a sledge to the window frames. That opens a hole big enough to slide the dollhouse through, and onto the bed of the open truck that I've backed up to the window ledge.
    "My heart's poundin'. There's glass everywhere, and I can smell smoke through the knocked-out windows. The wind is howlin'; leaves are whistlin' right through the shop. I don't have much time. Nobody does. I've got the dollhouse half on, half off the worktable as I shimmy the thing back and forth, trying to slide it towards the truck; it was a gut buster, I can tell you. It's almost dark and the electric's out, of course; I'm doing everything by lamplight. That's when I see Margaret on the other side of the window.
    "She frightens me half to death. Her hair's undone, lifting and falling wildly in the wind. She has a look on her face of terror. I assume it's of the oncoming fire. I run to get the door for