House of Spells by Robert Pepper-Smith Page A

evening, the unmistakable smell of wood smoke. I sat up in bed to look north and made out in moonlight a column rising straight up, thick with burning fir or pine pitch.
    Because it was night, no one could be flown in to that fire in the Bremmer Valley. The road in was switchbacks through canyons, so it would take three or four hours to drive to the scene. High, strong winds, I write in the log book.
    In the Bremmer Valley, there’s a wet hollow of alder saplings. I don’t know how they got in there. The valley is narrow and dark and only gets a couple of afternoon hours of light. A raw wind must have carried in alder seeds, all at once, so that a field of them grew young and springy, their trunks no thicker than my thumb. Someone had tried to farm in there once, leaving only a fence line of rotten cedar posts grassed over, a scattering of lichen-covered apple trees that looked crouched and huddled in themselves, like cats moved into a new house, and a hollow for a root cellar.
    A few weeks before Senna was born, I walked from the fire tower to the Bremmer Valley, to lay out an armful of alder saplings to dry in the field among the apple trees, shaking the soppy earth that was full of shale from their roots. A week later I took in a saw to cut off the root balls and I stripped the canes of withered leaves, carried them back to the cabin to weave into a crib. I wasn’t sure it would ever be used but I wanted it just in case Rose needed me to take him. I’d offered to help her and I wanted to be sure I could. I laid in towels for bedding in a frilled pillowcase and tied to the side a mobile of painted pinecones that I knew would make her laugh, so that he’d have something to look at. I even made rockers out of bent saplings tied with fishing line and I placed it under the north window and moved my little collection of books to the east sill. Those were warm days, maybe the last of the season, and the fireweed was in second bloom along the Palliser Ridge. When I sat out on the catwalk for hours, it felt like midsummer and I could smell the heat in the cedar siding, waiting.
    Whole days and nights went by, billowed in time, and I didn’t know what was happening to her.
    Now I see headlights on the dust roads, crews driving in to take out weekend campers and river runners. By now the fire is in the pine and fir, trees torching off like matchsticks on the slopes of Bremmer Mountain. Burning debris tumbles and ignites more fires across the Palliser Ridge.
    Later this morning a cold front is supposed to move in, bringing sleet and rain.

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    When I had a few days off, a month or so after we returned on the train, I went down from the fire tower to see Rose in her new apartment and to serve at the parish supper. It was hard to see her, after her decision to return. She always looked tired, as if she wasn’t sleeping well, worn and quiet.
    Though she had her own place now, though she was still in our village, every day she grew more distant, more unreachable.
    Yet when I asked her how she was, she’d say, Fine! and look at me defiantly.
    It grieved me to be around her. All the lightheartedness had gone out of her step; she no longer laughed in that quick, bright way that made you feel good. Another time when I was in town I didn’t even go see her. I told myself I was too busy.

    On the first morning of preparations for the parish supper, I got up early because my mother was up: I could hear her in the kitchen. She was making toast and coffee though it was still dark outside and the birds were asleep. She was dressed as I’ve never seen her before, in loose, light blue cotton slacks and a plain blue blouse. She looked younger.
    “Where are you going?” I asked, wondering at the brightness in her eyes. All the worry had gone from her face. Though she was no longer dressed as a midwife, I asked, half-asleep, confused, “Is someone having a baby?”
    I looked around for her midwife’s bag that she usually put on the kitchen