Chapter 9 - The Draft of Salvation
Josephine knelt inside the cold, soot-stained hearth, ignoring the black grime covering her white lace dress. She reached her arms up into the narrow, dark flue, her fingers searching in the darkness for the rusted iron mechanism.
The smoke was thickest down here, pooling in the alcove. Her lungs burned; her vision swam with dark, dancing spots as carbon monoxide began to starve her brain of oxygen.
"Can you reach it?" Bennett called out, his voice hoarse, standing by the window with the crying twins. Victoria had passed out near the door, her breathing shallow, while Dr. Henry was weeping silently into the carpet.
"It's... it's rusted shut!" Josephine gasped, her voice choking as she wedged the flat end of the heavy iron crowbar into the seam of the iron damper plate overhead.
She threw all her body weight onto the crowbar, her arm muscles straining, her teeth grinding together. The metal didn't move.
I survived seven months in his cellar, Josephine thought, her mind screaming against the suffocating darkness creeping into her eyes. I am NOT dying in his chimney.
With a guttural, primal scream of pure maternal fury, Josephine jumped, driving her shoulder up into the end of the crowbar with explosive force.
CLANG-CRACK!
The ancient rusted iron hinge sheared away. The heavy iron damper plate collapsed downward, raining decades of soot, dried bird nests, and cold mortar down onto Josephine’s head and shoulders.
Instantly, the natural thermal draft of the tall tower chimney engaged.
A sudden, roaring rush of cold night air was sucked in through the bullet hole in the window, sweeping across the room and pulling the thick gray clouds of diesel smoke up into the chimney flue like a massive vacuum cleaner.
The air in the room cleared rapidly, the temperature dropping drastically as fresh, sweet mountain air rushed in to fill the void.
Josephine collapsed onto her hands and knees in the hearth, coughing violently, her chest heaving as she pulled clean, cool oxygen back into her starved lungs.
Bennett dropped to his knees beside her, setting the twins safely on the rug, wrapping one arm around Josephine’s trembling waist, pulling her out of the soot and against his chest.
"You did it," Bennett wept, pressing his face into her soot-covered hair. "You saved us, Josephine. You saved all of us."
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Josephine rested her forehead against his chest, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs. She looked at the two little girls lying on the rug, blinking up at the clearing air, safe and unharmed.
"Now," Josephine rasped, her eyes cold as steel as she looked toward the locked mahogany door. "It's time to deal with your brother."
