The boy stood barefoot in the snow, staring at the house, a blaze of light in the darkness. It seemed like all there was in the world. The living room window gaped open; green curtains fluttered in the wind, oddly soft and warm. The shouting had stopped. Only the murmur of the spruces remained. He closed his eyes and imagined waves crashing on smooth rocks, the air salted with mist. He was very young, not even ten. His mother had pushed him through the window, and he did not know where to go.
The front door banged open. His father appeared, an axe in his hand. He strode down the steps, dropped the axe into the snow, and seized the boy’s hands, pressed over his eyes. For a moment he tried to pull them away, then his arm sagged.
“You don’t want to see, do you?” he whispered, and began to weep.
His mother also had tears in her eyes, but from the smoke rising through the floorboards. She was still alive, on her knees in the kitchen, as the man carried the boy up the groaning stairs. On the last steps the child stirred and coughed smoke, but settled as his father pressed him to his chest. The mother could do nothing but watch.
The boy heard his father murmuring. He kept his palms clamped over his eyes, but knew when they entered his and his brother’s room. Gently his father set him on the bed, searched the floor, and pulled a blue blanket over him.
Across the field, dark figures entered the yard. Flashlights flicked on. The spitz strained at its leash. The first flames licked through the curtains, casting wild shadows on the snow.