A Rude Awakening

An orange glow escaped from under the curtain over the window and slunk menacingly towards Caroline, who was just beginning to stir in her bed. It curled around her toes and up the length of her body until she opened her eyes. For a moment everything was fine. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the new light brought by the slowly rising sun, but something was off. Caroline had seen many sunrises, they were her favorite time of day, but the lighting for this one seemed wrong. There was too much orange, too much darkness, too much...

Fire. For several seconds that was the only thing that Caroline could think when she pulled back the curtain to reveal the entire city ablaze just outside her window. Her mind felt heavy, like a thick smoke was running through her brain making it impossible to think clearly. Through the fog she saw herself wrap a dressing robe around her frame, and felt the cold wood on her bare feet as she ran out her door and down the hall.

Her first instinct was to go to her parents room and wake them. A small part of her was still holding out hope that when she got there she would find that this was nothing more than a bad dream, and her parents would carry her back to bed the way they had done so many times when she was younger. Then, just as she was turning towards their door, she heard voices in the sitting room. Caroline poked her head out of the hallway to listen.

She heard the soft whisper of Charlotte, and the grumble of two unfamiliar male voices. She crept closer trying to make out what they were saying, and she almost could have when Charlotte spotted her. She ran to Caroline and wrapped an arm around her, ushering her into the room with the men.

"This is the daughter?" One of the men asked

Caroline pulled her robe tighter around her body and cursed her earlier decision to forgo shoes.

"What's going on? Are my parents here?" The sudden awakening had left Caroline's voice hoarse.

"We are evacuating this neighborhood." The man's tone did not change, "You two will be brought to the train station and anyone else who lives in this area will be redirected there as well."

Caroline wanted to push the issue further. Find out exactly where her parents were and what was going on, but she didn't. She couldn't. It was all she could do to ignore the glow behind her curtains as she pulled on the easiest dress she could find, and tossed a few of her most important belongings into a duffel bag. She only spent a few moments fighting with the lace on her dress before she gave up completely. Hopefully with a coat over it no one would notice.

The trip to the train station was somehow both far longer and far shorter than Caroline felt it should have been. As they boarded the carriage, she kept her gaze fixed on the ground in front of her, stubbornly refusing to allow her eyes to be pulled towards the venomous glow of the city. She and Charlotte sat in silence the whole ride. What could you talk about when you were fleeing your home at midnight as a fire enveloped the city you'd grown up in? A few times Caroline almost tried; she considered asking about her parents, if only to receive some sort of reassurance that they would be meeting them at the station, but a part of her feared that it wouldn't come and so she stayed quiet.

Traveling at night was an experience all its own. Somehow the lack of light magnified every sound, and emphasized every bump. The horses feet pounded like hail on the gravel outside, and the carriage seemed just moments from tipping over. It didn't matter that Caroline had ridden this route countless times for every holiday and family gathering in her life, she had never ridden it like this. She pulled a thin scarf from her bag, placed it between her head and the wall, and willed this night to disappear.

The next thing she saw when she dared to peek out of the small compartment window was the train station. Hundreds of carriages were lined up along the street, and there must have been at least twice that many people milling about as well. Inside the main terminal, she could barely move. Everywhere she looked there were children sleeping on benches, mothers nursing screaming infants behind old newspapers, and men lighting bookstand cigarettes from a singular lighter that no one could remember who had brought.

For the second time that day, Caroline was struck by an odd sense of unity. In this room of displaced strangers, you couldn't tell the prince from the pauper any more than you could tell the burning of coals from the burning of dreams. Thick blinds had been pulled over the station's famous glass wall facing the city. Occasionally a gang of rebellious children would form and venture to peek behind and marvel at the wonder of which they lacked the context to fear, before a group of anxious mothers would come running all at once to pull them apart and back to their respective benches.

Whether from the steam engines, the thousands of people, or the roaring fire just over a mile away, the heat in the station was draining. It was the kind of heat that pulls on every inch of your skin and makes you want to simultaneously rip it off and glue it to your body so it doesn't fall off. Add to this a heavy winter coat, and Caroline was already a bit lightheaded.

Somehow in the chaos she'd lost Charlotte, which meant that she would have to find a way to fix the lace on her dress herself. By the time Caroline had pushed her way through the crowd to the ladies restroom, she was so heatstricken that she practically ripped the coat off her body the second the door closed. It wasn't until after it was lying on the floor that she was able to take in her surroundings. Caroline could count on one hand the number of times she'd been inside a public restroom, and she wasn't sure she'd ever actually used one except in train cabins on long trips.

In contrast to the terminal, the room was nearly empty. As she walked in, a few ladies that had been fixing their hair by the sinks finished up and left, leaving her almost entirely alone. Clearly she wasn't the only lady who recoiled at the idea of public toilets. As she picked her jacket up, she noticed that one of the stalls appeared to be occupied. Caroline cringed in sympathy for whoever was in there, and wondered just how long she would be able to hold out before ending up in the same situation. She suddenly regretted not taking the time to go before leaving home, and silently prayed that the trains would board soon.

Caroline had been born with the gift of unusually flexible shoulders, which she'd never really given much thought to until now. Still, she couldn't help but wonder if another dress would have laced up easier. At the time she'd grabbed the first one she could find, but that was before she knew she'd be on her own to put it on.

Caught in her struggle, she didn't notice the lady exit the stall behind her. By the time she realized how strange she must look to an observer, the lady was already drying her hands at the sink only a few feet away.

"Do you need some help?" the lady's voice was strained as if she was trying to keep from laughing.

"If you don't mind, that would probably speed this up a bit."

Caroline gave up trying not to laugh at herself, and the new lady did too. They laughed at the dress, themselves, and their whole situation. A day ago neither of them would have believed that they would find themselves waiting hours in a packed train station in the middle of the night while the city they were raised in lit up the night sky.

"I'm Lydia, by the way." the lady stated as she finished Caroline's dress and they turned to face each other.

Caroline momentarily forgot how to speak. As she met Lydia's eyes she was suddenly transported back to that moment in the library that already seemed years in the past.

"Caroline." She heard herself saying.

They must have exchanged some more brief pleasantries, and then Lydia wandered off back into the crowd. Caroline took one last glance in the mirror before doing the same.

Out in the terminal, Caroline waged through mobs of shouting people following any coat or hairstyle that bared resemblance to Charlotte. Where there had been an air of disgruntled compliance earlier, there were now near riots. Caroline had to move carefully to avoid being shoved or trampled by the crowds. She tried to make out what they were saying, but couldn't come to any solid conclusions. She made her way to the outside of the crowd, and there she saw Charlotte standing by a window near the door they had first entered from.

Charlotte's face was pinched and her eyes gleamed with exhaustion. They lit up just slightly when she saw Caroline approaching.

"People seem to have gotten impatient." Caroline attempted a lighthearted comment, but it came out more concerned than she intended.

Charlotte hesitated a moment before finally stating, "There's not much to be impatient for at this point. The fire is blocking the trains and they can't get to the station."

Caroline turned to look at the crowd again, and was finally able to understand their cries. Not in words, but in feeling. This was not an angry mob yelling at the attendants to move faster, but a terrified huddle begging someone to do something. None of them wanted to be here, and yet they had no where else to go.

"Should we really stay here?" Caroline asked Charlotte, "Surely there are other places further away from the fire. What if it spreads?"

"If we leave here your parents won't know where to find us. This is the best option we have for now."

Caroline leaned her back against the window and her sleepy legs crumbled beneath her as she slid down the wall, not caring enough to stop herself. Then she just sat there. On the floor. On the dirty floor in a way she had never in her life seen a lady do. But perhaps that was the point. Perhaps now she needed to stop being a lady, if only for a few minutes.

With that realization, she stood up and made her way, head held high, back to the restroom.