Page 58 of We Were Liars

LOOK.

A fire.

There on the southern tip of Beechwood Island. Where the maple tree stands over the wide lawn.

The house is alight. The flames shoot high, brightening the sky. There is no one here to help.

Far in the distance, I can see the Vineyard firefighters, making their way across the bay in a lighted boat.

Even farther away, the Woods Hole fire boat chugs toward the fire that we set.

Gat, Johnny, Mirren, and me.

We set this fire and it is burning down Clairmont.

Burning down the palace, the palace of the king who had three beautiful daughters.

We set it.

Me, Johnny, Gat, and Mirren.

I remember this now,

in a rush that hits me so hard I fall,

and I plunge down,

down to rocky rocky bottom, and

I can see the base of Beechwood Island and my arms and legs feel numb but my fingers are cold. Slices of seaweed go past as I fall.

And then I am up again, and breathing,

And Clairmont is burning.

* * *

I AM IN my bed in Windemere, in the early light of dawn.

It is the first day of my last week on the island. I stumble to the window, wrapped in my blanket.

There is New Clairmont. All hard modernity and Japanese garden.

I see it for what it is, now. It is a house built on ashes.

Ashes of the life Granddad shared with Gran, ashes of the maple from which the tire swing flew, ashes of the old Victorian house with the porch and the hammock.

The new house is built on the grave of all the trophies and symbols of the family: the New Yorker cartoons, the taxidermy, the embroidered pillows, the family portraits.

We burned them all.

On a night when Granddad and the rest had taken boats across the bay,

when the staff was off duty

and we Liars were alone on the island,

the four of us did what we were afraid to do.

We burned not a home, but a symbol.

We burned a symbol to the ground.