A Singed Scarf

Chapter 2: The Price of Progress (Part 4)

She woke to the sound of someone screaming.

No---not screaming. Shouting. Angry, panicked shouting, coming from the inn.

Lyra scrambled to her feet, her heart pounding. The stable door was open, and through it she could see orange light flickering. Fire.

The inn was on fire.

She ran toward the building, then stopped. The innkeeper was outside, along with several other men, all of them shouting and running with buckets. A line had formed from the well to the inn, but it was disorganized, chaotic. The flames were already licking at the thatched roof, and thick black smoke poured from the windows.

"What happened?" Lyra gasped, grabbing the arm of a passing man.

He shook her off roughly. "Fire in the kitchen. Someone left a lamp burning. Now help or get out of the way!"

She helped. She didn't think---she just joined the bucket line, passing water from hand to hand, her bare feet slipping in the mud, her torn dress flapping around her. The heat was intense, the smoke choking. The fire roared and crackled, consuming everything in its path.

It took an hour to put it out.

When it was over, The Cracked Mug was a blackened shell. The roof had collapsed. The walls were charred. Everything inside was gone.

The innkeeper---his name was Gorm, she learned---sat on the ground with his head in his hands. His livelihood was gone.

Lyra stood at the edge of the crowd, shivering despite the heat from the dying embers. Her dress was now more hole than fabric. The fire had caught the hem, and she'd had to beat it out against her leg; the wool was singed and blackened, with new holes across the skirt. The scrap of cloth she'd bought was gone---she didn't know when she'd lost it. She was covered in soot and sweat, and she was almost completely exposed.

And her coins---

She reached for the pocket she'd tucked them into, a small fold of fabric she'd managed to create in the waistband of the dress. It was empty. The coins must have fallen out during the chaos.

She had nothing. No money. No clothes. No shelter.

The crowd was beginning to disperse now, the excitement over. Lyra looked around desperately, hoping someone might offer help. But the people of Brenthollow were retreating to their homes, their faces closed and uncaring. A few glanced at her, but no one spoke. No one offered a blanket, a coat, a kind word.

She stumbled through the wreckage-strewn street, arms wrapped uselessly around herself. Her fingers couldn't cover everything---her nipples peeked between them, and below, where the dress had torn completely away at the front, the dark triangle of her pubic hair was fully visible above the singed remnants of fabric that still clung to her hips.

Near the collapsed stall, half-buried in ash and charred timber, something pale caught her eye. A scarf. Cheap wool, undyed, coarse as sacking---probably blown there by the wind or dropped in the panic. The edges were singed and one corner was blackened, but the bulk of it was intact.

Lyra snatched it up and shook off the ash. Without thinking of ties or knots, she simply draped the wool over her breasts, clutching the ends together over her sternum with both hands. It was short, barely wide enough to give her any real coverage. Her nipples pressed visibly against the thin fabric, and the lower curves of her breasts remained bare. The scarf covered only what her fingers could hold in place---the rest of her broken, blackened dress hung in useless tatters. But it was something. A thin layer of coarse wool between her skin and the world.

She stood amid the smoldering ruins, a soot-streaked girl with a scavenged scarf pressed to her chest, shivering violently. The cold crept in through every uncovered inch of her. She had no money, no clothes, no one.

Then her gaze fell on the stable at the back of the inn---the same modest wooden building where she had slept what felt like a lifetime ago. The roof had partly caved in, and one wall was scorched, but the structure still stood. It wasn't much, but it was shelter.

Clutching the scarf tight against her, Lyra picked her way through the rubble. The rough ground bit at her bare feet, and the night wind found every tear in her dress. When she pushed the stable door open, the air inside was heavy with the smell of damp hay and cold ash. A pile of old straw lay in a corner, half-covered by a fallen rafter, but enough of it was dry.

She crawled onto the straw and pulled as much of it over herself as she could, still pressing the scarf to her chest with one hand. It was scratchy, and she still felt utterly exposed---but the walls kept some of the wind out, and the straw held a ghost of warmth.

Lyra curled into herself, her body a knot of exhaustion and cold. She didn't walk. She didn't flee into the night. She simply closed her eyes in that half-ruined barn and waited, trembling, for morning to come.