Excerpt of Trouble the Water by Jacqueline Friedland

Douglas urged his horse onward at a feverish pace, gripped by panic that his wife might have been taken, or his daughter. The evening’s vacant streets worked in his favor as the animal tore across the cobblestones, racing furiously toward his estate. The horse huffed and spat, sweating into the moonlight, as Douglas struggled to focus on speed, rather than on his dread. Rounding the corner onto Lightbourne Street, where candlelight emanated from the windows of quiet houses, he had the sudden thought that it couldn’t be today. Whatever that dis- tasteful man, Wilson Bly, meant by the threat, Douglas told him- self, it wouldn’t be this very same day when he had only just been alerted to the possibility of danger. He began to relax slightly, feeling added relief now that he was so close to home. He eased up on the horse, slowing to a trot and patting the animal’s hide in recognition of its exertion.

He and the horse continued east at a lighter pace, and Douglas inhaled deeply, trying to calm his racing heart. As the humid air filled his lungs, he caught the scent of smoke, sudden and sour. His alarm returned afresh, beastly in its force. Digging his heels into the horse’s sides, he urged the animal to resume its breakneck pace. They barreled across the remainder of Lightbourne, and Douglas began to detect the din of disaster, shouts, and clamor from afar. As the horse cut onto Meeting Street, Douglas was greeted by a vision that would terrorize him the rest of his days.

The Elling estate was alight against the dark night in roaring, spitting flames. Fire was bursting forth from the east side of the house, licking its way up the walls, reaching its hands sky- ward, like crackling, roaring calls of prayer. There were people running every which way, bodies emerging and disappearing behind the fog of smoke in a frenzied crush as they tried to help manage the fire.

Douglas searched the crowd for his family as he rode on- ward, forcing the horse toward the fire. “Sarah! Cherish! They could still be inside!” He shouted into the air of the maddened crowd around him. At the perimeter of the property he jumped from his horse, still screaming as he rushed toward the flames. “Sarah! Cherish!”

“No, Mr. Elling!” The family butler ran out from the masses, from the darkness, and grabbed Douglas’s coattails, trying to hold him where they stood at the edge of the drive.

“Jasper! Oh, thank God! Where are my girls?” Douglas shouted over the popping and crackling of the fire.

“Please, Mr. Elling, there is nothing we can do now. Come with me, to safety.” Jasper pulled Douglas’s arm, trying to move him back toward the street, toward the faceless crowd of on- lookers.

“No, take me to Sarah!” Douglas shouted again. “Where are they?” His voice was eclipsed by the sound of roof crumbling into the house below it.

“Mr. Elling, I am so sorry!” Jasper leaned close and shouted into Douglas’s ear to be heard over the commotion.

“The market! I was out at the market!” He shouted that again, as if his prior whereabouts were the main focus.

“I am so sorry, sir!” Jasper was repeating himself, his bursting words nearly meaningless to Douglas. Though if the man was shouting, Douglas reasoned, Sarah and Cherish must be safe. People didn’t shout at times of death. There was no com- fort in shouted words.

“Where are they?” Douglas pressed, his eyes searching the darkness.