The Headmistress of Rosemere by Sarah E Ladd Page A

shook it. “Mother, there’s a fire in the stable!”
    Her mother stirred, mumbled, but did not sit up.
    “Mother!” Patience pulled on her mother’s arm until she finally turned. “A fire! Do you not smell the smoke?”
    Patience did not wait for her mother’s response. She ran back to the corridor. She needed to get down there. Down to the stable.
    Down to Charlie .
    The fastest way to the stables was through the kitchen entrance and through the courtyard. She flew through the west wing, down a main staircase, and through a wide corridor to the kitchen. All was dark save for the eerie glow seeping through the paned windows. Patience ran out the back door and into the night. The combination of frosty air and choking smoke stole the breath from her lungs. The fire’s strength was even more impressive, more intimidating at ground level than from the height of her room. Almost instantly she spied George’s silhouette, his bulky frame, struggling to lead a spooked horse away from the fire.
    She squinted to guard her eyes from the brightness of the blaze and grabbed George’s shoulder. “Where’s Charlie?”
    The fire’s erratic light reflected from the sweat on his brow. “Sent him to Eastmore for the water wagon,” he managed betweencoughs. “Probably frozen through after this winter. Cow’s inside. Take this one.”
    He shoved the lead rope into her hand and ran back inside the stable. The carriage horse at the end of the rope yanked and pulled, and Patience threw all of her weight into coercing the frightened animal away from the burning stable. Finally, the horse complied, and she trotted alongside him to the pasture gate and released the animal. But when she turned, a child-sized silhouette, dressed in a gauzy gown, was running toward the fire.
    Patience darted to the child and grabbed her arm, nearly knocking the girl from her feet.
    The fire’s light shone on the tears on the cheeks of young Emma Simmons.
    “What are you doing?” Patience shouted, determined to be heard above the roar of the fire. “Do you not see how dangerous this is?”
    Sobs racked the child’s body. “Delilah!” she screamed, gasping for breath and fighting to free herself. “Delilah!”
    The goat!
    Patience gripped Emma’s arm and struggled to hold the child, who seemed to be made stronger by fear. “Stop! Emma, stop! I will not allow you to go any closer!”
    The child pushed and squirmed until finally Patience wrapped her arms around the girl so she could not move. “George will get Delilah, I promise.” She looked back toward the house at a group of girls, clad in nightgowns and wrapped in blankets, staring at the fire. “Go with the others. Immediately!”
    Patience half-carried, half-dragged the sobbing child to a respectable distance and left her in the care of one of the older girls, then ran back to the fire.
    Chaos surrounded her. George tugged on the cow. Mary ran past with a chicken in her arms. Patience took the second carriagehorse to the same gate where she’d led the other animal and released her into the pasture.
    In the flickering light, she spotted a wooden bucket on the ground and snatched it up. The watering trough was already empty, and the well was on the far side of the building. Thaughley River was just on the other side of a thicket of small trees. She bolted through the undergrowth toward the river, sinking ankle deep in the half-frozen mud and nearly falling to the ground more than once. She plunged the bucket into the rippling water and hurried back to the fire.
    As she got closer, her eyes watered with ferocious intensity, nearly blinding her. A low-hanging branch tugged at her hair as she dipped under a tree limb, scratching her shoulder through the thin robe. Even from a great distance the fire’s heat trumped the bitter cold, and she drew as close as she dared before throwing the water on the blaze.
    George, Mary, and the teachers were doing the same. Bucket after bucket of water was