Christmas Home (The Coming Home #6)

1. Prologue – Rutherford Crawford

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Prologue – Rutherford Crawford

T he big old house was creepy when I was home alone. Mom and Dad had put a TV in my bedroom—the big kind with all the “gadgets,” as my dad called them.

Mostly, it was to entertain me since I had no friends and didn’t know a soul my age in the area. We lived in New York but spent holidays and summers here at the family estate in Tennessee. Usually, Dad’s sister and her husband joined us, bringing my older cousin Farlow with them. But they weren’t here this year and I didn’t know why.

“As Quakers,” my dad loved to say, “getting away from the city and all that Christmas nonsense is what we should be doing.”

I was only ten years old and despite not having my cousin to keep me company, my parents left me home alone. They’d gone to Nashville and I knew it was to celebrate the holiday in their own way—their breath would be smelling of alcohol and they’d be laughing hysterically over nothing when they returned.

I turned off Cartoon Network. It got weird this late anyway. I stayed in my bedroom and hadn’t gone back down after Mom sent me upstairs with cookies and milk before they left. The house was too spooky to wander around at night by myself.

I fell asleep with my clothes on. Mom always kept the house so hot that I preferred my shorts over pajamas anyway. This side of the house was newer and had central heating, which meant it got superhot upstairs. Then it got cold when the Tennessee winds blew through the windows.

I never heard the fire. I woke up to the sound of sirens and saw flames clinging to my bedroom ceiling. Then, I didn’t know what to do. I hoped the sirens meant firefighters were coming. I hoped they’d come and get me.

I drew the covers over my head and cried out for Mom just as I felt blinding pain hit my stomach. Moments later, something else fell on my legs. I couldn’t see what it was. “Help me!” I screamed, unable to move.

Then I felt the fire burning through the blankets, scorching my skin. “Help!” I screamed again but no one answered.

The flames were eating me alive, blazing a path from my stomach to my chest and making their way up toward my face. “Help. Please.” I knew my cries were growing quieter. I was dying. I was going to die in this old house, alone and in unbearable pain.

I squeezed my eyes shut but couldn’t escape seeing the glow of the fire. Then the pressure on my body lifted and the burning covers were pulled back.

As I was picked up, I blacked out. I didn’t remember anything else until I woke up in a New York hospital room. I never learned who my rescuer was.

As horrific as the burning had been, my nightmare had only just begun.