1

          “No way! I paid for this plane, I’ll have a cigarette whenever I want,” she fired back at the co-pilot, who, by the way, was definitely looking down her shirt. 
          “Madam—”          
          “Ciara. You can use my name, I’m not some rich asshole’s wife.” She took a drag and felt the bite on her words as she said the last bit. I should ease up on the poor guy. She was still blowing smoke in his face as she read her magazine mindlessly.
          He coughed quietly into his sleeve, and reoriented his gaze from her chest to her beautiful, angry face. “Ciara, yes, sorry. It’s just, the pilot is concerned that the pressure in the cabi—”
          “UGH okay, okay, okay, I’ll put it out. Relax, man. Just one more puff,” she interrupted. The cherry on the end of the Marlboro was almost the same color as her thick tangle of hair, a deep red-orange singed with undercurrents of ash black. She had gone through all the trouble of dyeing it and still her dark roots fought to see the light of day—her mother always said the most beautiful Irish women had locks of bright ginger hair.
          Ciara stuffed the cigarette out directly onto the windowsill and began to look at the island below them. They were still high enough that the people looked like ants, and the houses like tiny mushrooms. The volcano rose like a great zit out of the green, rolling hills around it, a geologic blemish spewing smoke out of the face of the little land mass.
          “When are we landing, anyway?” she called out to the co-pilot, who did a double-take on his way back to the cockpit. He swore under his breath, and reminded himself he only needed a few more minutes of patience for this monstrous woman.
          “Half an hour, but our descent will not be as smooth as you might be used to. Seaplanes like this experience a most terrible turbulence this time of year.” This time of year? Ciara imagined flying such a short distance in the middle of summer should be relatively simple. Whatever, I’ve been on worse flights.
          She decided this was the moment she would change her tune, when she would turn on that charm that had gotten her so far with so many people before. “I see. Well, I’m sure you boys will get us down there one way or the other,” she said slowly, licking her lips, taking off her hoodie, and readjusting in her seat. He watched her without replying. The co-pilot’s mouth was not-so-subtly open as she continued: “And oh, one more thing. I’d just love it if you stuck around for a couple days while I get acquainted.”
          He shook his head and nervously began pulling away. “I-I would hate to disappoint such a valued passenger, but we depart for St. Lucia tomorrow morning. I apologize. I really must be getting back to the captain. I think I hear him calling for me, actually.”
          "Aww, come on, at least think about it. Wait, before you go, what’s your name?” she asked sweetly. His cheeks flushed red and he gave an uninteresting answer. She forgot as soon as she learned it. “That’s a beautiful name, where did you get it?”
          The man replied, “My mother gave it to me.”
          “Oh.” And Ciara’s flirtatious smile cracked a bit. “Well, you’d better check on your captain, make sure he’s not as distracted as you. Your fly’s down, by the way,” she pointed out.
          “Right, yes, thank you, I mean, my apologies, Ciara. I’ll be back with some literature in a couple minutes so you can plan out the rest of your first day on the island.” Wow, litch-ra-chure. These Brits sure do talk funny. He readjusted his pants and zipped his zipper as he walked away in a rush.
          He’s almost cute, she thought. Taking a quick swig from the flask in her backpack, Ciara leaned back in her chair and let out a sigh. I really do need this vacation.
          She had been taking care of her mother in Vermont for months, and felt she deserved a break from all the fluorescent lights and lawyers and cold weather. Ciara had left spontaneously that day, booking the plane tickets while still in her dress from the reception a few hours earlier. The shiny black ornamentations on the hem complemented her hair perfectly at the time, a comparison that her friends complimented her for in between boring questions about her dad or work or the weather. Ciara remembered ignoring their polite laughter to check if the shops past the security gates had hair dye, and before too long she was back at her apartment, frantically and wordlessly packing a single suitcase then calling a cab to take her to the airport. With each connection southward the planes decreased in size, until this last flight, this private seaplane experience.
          “We’ll be landing shortly in Hell’s Gate,” the other pilot announced.
          “Oh good, I can’t wait to hit the beach!” she called performatively up to the captain’s cabin. Ciara said two Hail Marys to herself before ending her prayer with and I hope I don’t find a way to fuck this up. Give me the clarity to see when it’s my time to go. Amen. She took one more quick gulp of whiskey and smiled out the window at the gorgeous, turquoise-colored Caribbean water rising closer as the plane descended with a splash into the bay.

 

2

          Are you fucking serious?” She was livid.
          The buses that serviced the still-intact portion of the island don’t run on Sundays, the co-pilot was explaining, and they were already done running for today, as well. He assured that he was indeed being serious.
          “Ugh! What am I supposed to do, camp here for God-knows-how-long then pray someone from the bus wakes me up when it finally comes? Assuming I haven’t been kidnapped or torn apart by animals by then, of course,” she clarified. The wildlife was actually pretty small, but she needed this extra theatrical flair.
          He cleared his throat. “Right. Um, y-you could spend the night with us if you wanted,” he offered sheepishly. This is exactly what she wanted.
          “I hadn’t even thought of that,” she said, having thought of that about an hour after the seaplane took off. She did not anticipate the buses would screw her over like this, but Ciara had insisted on starting her vacation at Hell’s Gate, the near-northernmost point of Montserrat and a popular tourist vista (for good reason). It felt like the kind of light biblical joke she could tell over the phone to anyone who might call her—arriving in Hell for her summer getaway. She liked how dramatic it was. But now she had gotten her pictures, her flask was empty, and she was getting impatient with this man.                 “Thank you. So you and the other guy sleep together in the plane overnight?”
          “When we have quick turnaround assignments like this, we do. But I promise you, there’s plenty of space,” he said, elaborating on how the rocking of the waves puts him to sleep like a baby in a cradle. 
          Ciara thought, If we have sex, will they fly me into town in the morning?

​

          The humidity was sweltering, she couldn’t believe it. Ciara knew she made the right call by packing mostly short-sleeve shirts and breathable hiking leggings, but still, what the hell. Thick beads of sweat were racing down her forehead, occasionally getting in her eyes, as she lugged the suitcase through the jungle’s sole footpath. Her backpack was chafing a bit against her shoulder, and she took a break every twenty steps or so to adjust it. Mosquitos and gnats were buzzing annoying little secrets in her ear just when she was about to forget about them. Pests.
          The Brits had quickly (and rudely) exiled Ciara from the seaplane at around 9am, after her failed attempt to persuade the co-pilot (with her hand in his pants) to ‘drop her off’ at Little Bay led to a screaming match between all three of them. She didn’t understand why they were so uptight, and said as much when she brought up how minor of a detour it would be from their precious St. Lucia appointment. Stiffs.
          Her makeup was beginning to run a bit, and she could taste a bit of her lip gloss in the corner of her mouth. Mhmmm, just like strawberries. Ciara always loved fruity things, scents and tastes overflowing with natural succulence and beauty. She had been caught eating her mom’s lipstick as a toddler, once.
          Mom. And she stopped walking. There was a pool of clear greenish water in front of her, nestled in the shadow of a large boulder. She had been going uphill for at least a couple of hours, and had run out of water long before running out of whiskey. The boulder seemed to be held up by just a few pebbles which were littered around its base. A familiar balancing act.
          She sat on her knees, ignoring the mud staining her clothes, and began to shovel handfuls of water into her mouth. Sweet water, I’ll never forsake you again. Ciara quenched her thirst, washed her face of the crusted makeup, and lay on her back while a few flies buzzed overhead.
          She sat up straight to get back to walking, and locked eyes with a squat grotesque creature just a foot away from her face. “AAAAOUUUUAAAAGGH! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING?! WHAT ARE YOU?!” and she grabbed a nearby stick to defend herself. She pointed the sharper end at the melon-sized mound of slimy brown flesh staring back at her. “WHIRUH, RIBBIT,” the thing replied. It bounced off the rocky ledge it was perched on, making gleeful amphibious sounds and plopping softly into the crystalline pool below. “What? You live in this puddle?! BLEUGHHH!” Ciara began coughing a bit of bile, scraping her tongue dramatically and looking at the pool of water suspiciously. “This island is getting on my nerves.”
          “Oh fuck.” In her panic she scraped her ankle on a protrusion of the boulder jutting out around knee-height. I hate frogs. As she sat down and chuckled at her misfortune, she took out the flask to find it was completely empty. “Fuuuuuuck.” I should’ve brought more whiskey.

 

3

          “That’ll be three dollars,” Allen said to the old woman. He handed her the package of chocolate-covered wafers and looked out the window. A storm was picking up soon, he could tell from the above-average speed of litter gusting around his mart’s parking lot: an empty plastic bag twirled by a miniature, invisible tornado; a broken but mostly full bottle of red wine rolling determinedly towards the sewer drain. Dark clouds gathered behind the trees.
          “Thank you, dearie,” she said as she waved and walked out. “I’ll see you tonight.” As the wind slammed the door closed behind her, Allen’s eye caught something moving at the edge of the treeline. 
          “Ooh, ooh, Daddy, it’s an American!” Ingrid shouted as she pointed through the glass. A sweaty young woman lugging a large suitcase was coming slowly towards his store, though it seemed she was limping as she got closer.
          Allen asked his daughter to watch the counter for a second and rushed out to check on the woman. She was wearing only bright red compression shorts and a sports bra, and had sunburns and insect bites covering her face and legs, respectively. When Allen reached her, she nearly collapsed in his arms, and he saw an open gash on her ankle, too.
          “Water,” she croaked. “Clean if you have it.”
          “Of course! I’ll be right back, stay here.” Allen ran and grabbed a big plastic bottle of water, which the woman seized without words and began to chug. He stood awkwardly while she did this, wondering for a moment if he should look away but ultimately deciding that would be insulting to her appearance.
          “Can you please stop staring at me? It’s kinda creepy,” she said, wiping her yap and spitting on the concrete. A few stray raindrops replaced the upper lip moisture and she had to wipe a few more times, embarrassed.
          “Oh yeah, sorry,” Allen managed. “Is your leg okay? It looks like it could get infected.”
          “Look dude, it’s none of your fucking business—” she saw fear in his eyes and cut herself off. “Sorry, I’ve been walking circles in that godforsaken jungle since this morning. My name’s Ciara.” She hobbled up onto one foot and hugged him earnestly. Ingrid was glued to the window. “Thanks for the water. I can pay you for it, and anything else you’ve got...like, booze, maybe? Please tell me you have a drink in that shop of yours.”
          He smiled at her shameless desperation. “I’m Allen, and yeah I’ve some alcohol in there. I think I’ll need to see some form of ID, first, though.”

          

          Ciara enjoyed her freshly filled flask as he dressed her ankle. “Where did you learn how to do this? Ow!” Not my type, but definitely a keeper, she thought to herself gratefully.
          Allen had cleared a little space in the walk-in freezer and was giving her the full bedside routine. “Try to hold still. I was in the military, a long time ago,” he chuckled. “In the States. Or for them I should say.” Ciara was trying to make eye contact, to deduce whether he might fall in love with her. This was a common problem she had in New York—people were always coming up to her asking if she believed in love at first sight. She was always too flattered to answer seriously but was secretly afraid she didn’t believe in any sort of romance. Ciara preferred the untouchable charisma of her favorite outdated catcall—Hey hot stuff!
          “...still far from a real doctor,” he was saying. “No, I was one of the recon and tracking guys. We had just as much of a chance of getting shot, but rarely brought guns because back then the weight of them was just astronomical. I never wanted to kill anyone, anyway.” Ciara nodded and cleared her throat. “I thought the whole point was protecting people.”
          “My dad served at some point, but it was all the same to me. He was never home because of war, and then he was never home because of business. When I was little I used to ask my mom if he was safe at work, because his office building was just in the same place in my head as the battlefield.” Mom was just as tired of it as I was. “She always told me prayer would bring him back faster, so I started doing like thirty mini-prayers, rapid fire, before every meal. I grew out of it, the religious deal I mean, by high school. But she never shamed me for stopping,” she realized.
          “It sounds like your mom was pretty strong for both of you,” Allen said. “Where is she no—”
          “Daddy, Miss Kilkenny is on the phone!” Ingrid shouted from the counter. “She says the storm is over, so we can go set up now!”
          “Ah, excuse me for a moment, I wish I could be in two places at once. I’m pretty much done with your leg, so let me know if you feel any pain when you try to walk on it.” Allen went out of the walk-in and began talking to whoever called. Ciara pulled a few layers of clothes from her luggage, suddenly feeling indecent for wearing so little near this child. She’s at least old enough to run the store by herself.

          As if summoned by Ciara’s embarrassment, Ingrid bounded towards the freezer door, beaming. “Hey weird naked lady, do you want to come to a party?”

​

          The bonfire was enormous. Dozens of people sat in concentric circles around it, some playing drums and others passing around cigarettes or pot. Closest to the pit was a group of casually dressed young islanders dancing awkwardly with one another, the shortest of which was constantly readjusting his rhythm to keep up with his friends while simultaneously attempting to shake sand out of his jeans. 
          “There’s someone you should meet,” Allen mentioned as they walked through the crowd.
          “In a minute, in a minute!” Ciara said, kicking a soccer ball back to a pair of middle schoolers. “I’ll be goalie!” she said in a singsong voice, taking out her flask to warm-up. It is a party, she thought.
          “Hey, Ciara, come on, she’s going to bed soon.” Allen slapped her bicep with the back of his hand, she rolled her eyes, and waved goodbye to the kids. 
          “Who?”
          “Miss Kilkenny, she’s the matriarch of Little Bay. If there’s anything you want to know about the island, she’s the one to ask. People around here love her like family—she’s got this technique for using sand to dry firewood super quick. Notice how big a fire we got even with that storm earlier?”
          “I’ll say hi.” Ciara didn’t want to come under the scrutiny of some old bat, especially since the whiskey was starting to settle in her stomach and she hated making conversation while nauseated.
          They walked a little further past some port-a-potties and concession stands, and Ciara thought she saw a white crab scuttle out of a discarded chip bag. Stars were starting to come out and the smell of rain fought the smell of smoke in her nose. Both were invigorating. As she took a deep breath and one final sip of Jameson, they approached what looked like a cushioned viewing platform of the bonfire.
          “Hello, Allen, thanks for inviting the new girl,” the old woman said without turning her head. Her eyes were lost in the dancing flames reaching up past the palm trees. “My name’s Ria, but everyone calls me Miss Kilkenny. Come sit down with me, sweetie.” Allen nodded and left them to talk. Ciara tried to make him stay with her eyes.
          They sat in silence for a minute, staring straight forward and listening to the laughter of the people on the beach. Music was playing distantly, and people were skinny dipping off in the same direction. The moonlight was fully bright now, decorating the dancers and honey-colored sand in a ghostly purplish glow.
          “What are those big frogs called?” Ciara finally asked.
          “Mountain chickens, actually. Heheh, they only live here on Montserrat, isn’t that wonderful?”
          “If you like big sacs of poison with eyes, yeah.”
          “Oh,” and Kilkenny looked down. “What are you looking for here, dearie?”
          Ciara was caught off guard. “W-what do you mean? I’m on vacation—”
          “Our little rock isn’t much of a resort anymore. You had to have heard about all the volcanic activity from a couple years back, right?”
          “I’m here to reconnect with my faith, lady, that’s all I care to share,” Ciara lied. Feels like when Mom used to chew me out for skipping school. 
          “My old church burned down, unfortunately. Was abandoned for quite a while even before the eruptions in ‘96. I still pray every day, though.” She was taking long pauses between these thoughts, obviously trying to hit a nerve. “Would you want to pray together?”
          Ciara was belligerent, and wanted this elderly interaction to end. Who is this lady and why is she trying to preach to me? I’m going to get fucked up. This is a bonfire, not a sermon.  She made up an excuse and left Miss Kilkenny to go find something strong to take the edge off. 
          “Old ladies and their words,” Ciara muttered under her breath.

4

          Three hours had passed and Ciara was still walking, ambling down the avenues of the moonlit jungle floor in her bare feet. The smoky smell of the campfire had taken up residence in her tank top and compression shorts, but she didn’t mind—smoke was a natural repellent of mosquitoes, and she was still lucid enough to know that scratching at an ever-expanding collection of bug bites in her current mental state might very well result in some venereal infection or at least a couple bloody scabs. “Never know what kind of crazy shit lives down here by the equator,” Ciara said to no one in particular. She wasn’t that afraid of malaria, but knew how unattractive open wounds would be when her rescuers found her.
          “Mushhhhhhhhrooooooooooooomz,” she kept repeating as she hiked. Ciara was singing this word now, approaching it from a number of musical genres while trudging through the foliage. “Muuuuuusharoooooms!” I bet Britney Spears likes mushrooms, she thought. She’s so fucking cool. She wasn’t sure when she had taken them, or which of the locals offered the hallucinogens in the first place, or whether they were hallucinogens at all. But the fire seemed like years ago to her now, and the memory was blurred further by however many swigs of rum she had taken. “Mhm…shroooooo.” Her feet were caked with mud and there were a couple scrapes on her shins from tripping over logs, but Ciara was unable to engage with anything in her nervous system taking place so far away from her head. Allen’s ankle wrap held firmly.
          Why didn’t Dad come to the funeral? Her stomach growled but went unnoticed. “Oh, shut up,” Ciara said to herself, not her stomach. “If I asked him to come he would have, but I canceled the gallery the week before and it would’ve thrown everything off for him to get a flight on two days' notice like that.” At the time, she was relieved the procession had so few attendees (for it was easier for her to slip outside for a flask break), but thinking about it now she couldn’t get past the cruelty of her father’s absence. I’m an only child and I was almost the only family member to show up, she reflected. Thanks solely to the late arrival of her competitively medicated uncle, Max, she was able to deflect a few teary-eyed condolences and carve out a few minutes of solitude on the funeral home’s back patio. The coniferous trees there were the same color as the tropical ones surrounding her now.
          The freckles on her arms began to slowly swirl and gleam in those beams of moonlight that cut through the canopy, and Ciara’s dilated pupils fixated on the small population of pitch-black hairs growing at the intersection of her shoulder and tricep. “Why do people even have hair,” she said to the night sky. Constellations and the dots that comprised them were moving like bugs on the surface of a pond, erratically darting around the dark pool of cosmos hanging above her. “Hair is a product of the late-to-nineteenth earliest century,” she posited.

​

          They all know I pulled it. 

“No, come on. I’m being paranoid,” Ciara said. 

 

          Shit, it’s gonna be in all the papers.

“No one was even in the room!”

          

          Mom was in the room. Until she wasn’t.

“Shut up shut up shut up—”

          

          It’s a big inheritance, isn’t that what I told the orderly?
 

“She was comatose for MONTHS—”

          

          But she might’ve woken up soon if I hadn’t—

          

          “AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! Let me in, let me in! My mother is sick! Let me in, let me in, she’s SICK!” She was banging on the door of a large cream-colored building at the edge of the jungle. Here, the soil seemed different. Killed. The volcano towered behind the structure, and was responsible for the incineration of all the plants that had been there.
          Murderer.
          Ciara burst through the front door to find the place was a small church. Broken gargoyles and stonework littered the aisles. In fact, two walls had crumpled years ago and were half overrun with vegetation, though Ciara had not yet come down enough from the unknown bonfire substance before attempting to use the door to see these huge gaping entrances. She appreciated the safety of a good ol’ fashioned building.
          A hollow noise rumbled from the direction of the back wall, and Ciara tensed up in fear. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” she began, clutching a charred bible she picked up as a defense tool. Visibly shaking but walking carefully forward, Ciara saw a hole in the large bronze crucifix behind the altar and peered down its 20° slope through a large tunnel. There was a faint red light at the bottom, and her curiosity kept her feet moving. “Now and at the hour of our death, amen.” At least it’s getting warmer, she thought. I feel like I could sleep for decades. 
          “Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes…” she was cooing under her breaths. Mom used to sing that for me at bedtime, she recalled. Weird that it’s stuck in my head now. The warmth was getting stronger, and she came into a spacious chamber with a white-hot rock slab in the center. “From glen to glen…”
          Ciara began to stretch out on the warm red cave rock underfoot and felt an urge to pray more formally this time. “Dear God,” she said, “I have done something bad, but I want to ask you to show me mercy. My mom, bless her and all that, she was fighting so much for so long, and I was there beside her through the worst of it.
          “We suffered greatly, we had so many sleepless nights in the hospital just crying or arguing or playing card games. When she fell comatose I stayed there, still, but my dad was nowhere to be found. He was out pretending his family wasn’t falling apart, then had the nerve to ask me how work was going when he cared to text. But I was face-to-face with my mom’s sickness, and the doctor told me that we would have to transfer her to this other room, and that she might not ever wake up, and I…couldn’t keep waiting around. I didn’t want to see her trapped in a suffering body, God. I figured at least one of us should get to have a life. One day the orderly said he was taking his lunch break, and I just wanted to help us both stop hurting.” She started crying. “Okay, I admit it, I was mostly thinking about myself. I went over to the machine, and I unplugged it, okay?! I fucking unplugged it, and her heart stopped! Is that what you want to hear? FINE. I did it, I did it, it was me! It was MEEEEEEEEE!” She was sobbing, and curled up in a ball.
          Ciara sniffled and wiped her nose, feeling exhausted and pathetic. It feels a little bit good to get it off my chest at least, she thought. “Amen,” she appended. The cave suddenly began to tremble around her, the stone slab began to radiate heat and steam, and rocks began to dislodge from the cave ceiling. “I gotta—”
          Ciara fell unconscious.

​

5

          “Amen.” Ciara was drifting in and out of consciousness with another wordless prayer, and was thinking about her mother. She was always too sick to travel, she recalled. Mom would’ve loved this place, the warmth of it. The air was nearly ablaze inside the tunnel, but she was too delirious to pay attention to much of anything besides her thoughts, which were oddly clear albeit all-consuming. Allen was practically dragging her to the exit, his urgency instinctive and desperate.
          “Come on, Ciara, COME ON! YOU HAVE TO TRY TO WALK!” he shouted over the cacophony of caving rocks and distant explosions. “We’re not going to make it at this rate,” he mumbled to himself. The hole of natural light at the end of the stone corridor was getting smaller, and to make matters worse Allen could see the orange glow of fire past the threshold of the altar. I wonder how many eruptions it took to make the island in the first place, Ciara thought, somewhere else entirely. How many times has everything here died?
          She was at least on her feet now, and seemed to snap out of her trance at least partially as they ran past the charred pews and crumbling busts depicting the crucifixion. Allen could not help but notice how beautiful Ciara was in this moment—finally serious, with her fiery long hair blending in with the molten runoff destroying the church behind her. He thought he might be attracted to her, but he knew she would never be a good role model for Ingrid. He disregarded his feelings.
          “Right up here,” he gestured towards a nearby grove of trees, already burnt from years back. They were sprinting, she was coughing, and he was fumbling in his pockets for what sounded like keys. Ciara climbed onto the ATV as he did, closed her eyes, and held on tightly. She remembered holding on to Mom like that during fireworks as a kid. Allen floored the gas and they nearly collided head-on with a tree before gaining enough distance for the air to cool down.
          “Thanks for saving me.” Ciara said quietly, almost not specifically addressing Allen. Over her shoulder, the volcano was bright and loud and impossible. The ruddy little ATV produced a hypnotic buzz beneath her. What does saving me do for anyone, though? Doesn’t he know I’m the reason we’re fucked?
          “Don’t mention it. You were easy to track, at least,” he responded. “Don’t go wandering off like that again, we’re gonna need your help to get everyone evacuated.”
          Ciara didn’t object. She was grateful Allen had risked his life for hers, but she felt a growing detachment towards herself as they barreled towards Little Bay. Who am I going home to? Then, why should I flee the scene of the crime? She mindlessly groped for the side pocket containing her flask, and realized it must still be somewhere on the beach. Fuck it, I don’t need it anyway. She figured the adrenaline of the whole crisis would numb pain just as effectively as any whiskey, swallowed her fear, and wiped her eyes dry. As they swerved to avoid a fat mountain chicken parked in the driveway of Allen’s store, she thought, These monsters will die, too, and they don’t even know it.
          “I’m gonna run and get Ingrid. You’re pretty strong, so you should get to the water and help them load any boats they have. The lava won’t take long to get here—I’d say you have about a half hour before this place turns to ash,” he panted. She nodded and gave him a hug. He saluted her, which almost made Ciara giggle, and ran screaming back to the storefront: “INGRIIIIIIID! I’M BACK, HONEY! CLEAR OUT THE REGISTER AND LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!”
          Ciara could see the little girl was as cute and capable as ever. “Oh, Daddy, did you save that weird lady like you said you would?” She’s a lot stronger than I was as a kid.

​

           The beach was madness. People were screaming, sand was flying everywhere, and fires were spreading across the jungle just a few hundred yards down the coastline. Ciara heard babies crying, their mothers trying to pacify them, and dogs barking in distrust as their owners tried to convince them to board the two dozen or so lifeboats in the water. She smelled the salt of the ocean, the sweat of her own armpits, the fear and smoke in the air. It must be nice to have someone to cling to, she thought.
          “Has anyone seen Miss Kilkenny?!” a man shouted. 
          “She might still be in her bungalow!” a woman bellowed. 
          “But she’ll die in there!” someone protested.
          “We’ll die if we don’t get a move on! Just leave her!” someone else asserted.
          “I’ll go,” Ciara said, though probably not loud enough. She turned back towards the buildings as a huge gush of lava spewed out of the top of the volcano, rippling high into the air and letting out a thunderous BOOM. She fell to the ground, disoriented, and a bit of salt from the sand scraped into her ankle wound. “AGH, fuck!” she roared in pain. Ciara stood up and broke into a hobbled gallop, going as fast as the uneven terrain and her body would allow. I’m going to save you, Mom.
          Kilkenny’s was the biggest bungalow and was thus easy for Ciara to spot even amidst all the chaos. She threw the front door open and was surprised to see no trace of emergency—no bootprints or hastily-raided closets or open windows to speak of—nor Miss Kilkenny anywhere. She flew past the kitchenette into a back bedroom, and stopped in place when her feet met the touch of a carpet so soft it reminded her of home.
          “Sit down with me for a moment, dearie,” the old woman invited, seemingly already mid-sentence. How is she not panicking? Does she not know the island is burning down? How am I not panicking?
          “Okay.” And Ciara sat next to her bedside, observing the familiar collage of CPAP machines, IV bags, and pain meds.
          “You remind me a lot of me when I was younger,” Kilkenny said sweetly. “Brash, headstrong, popular with the boys. I saw your vibrance at the bonfire…” she trailed off. “But I also saw fear. Fear of yourself, fear of nature, fear of being known.”
          “Listen, we have to get you to a boat before—”
          “Shh, shh, honey, I know,” she interrupted gently. “I’ve lived on Montserrat long enough to know what an eruption feels like. If you want to leave, I suggest you go now.” Ciara shook her head, puzzled and hypnotized, and stayed put in her chair. “What I’m trying to say is, you can’t be so afraid. I know you’re much stronger than you think,” she said, taking Ciara’s hands into hers. She’s got the same earrings Mom used to wear. “And you should trust yourself to be strong enough to be vulnerable.” Ciara was beginning to cry silently. I should have loved you more, she thought. She couldn’t hear anything going on outside and didn’t want to. She wanted to stay in this moment with her mother forever.
          “I’m only here because I ran away,” Ciara confessed through sniffles. “My mom was sick for a really long time and I was the only one taking care of her, and by the end I just hated seeing her so weak like that and so I…I…” She felt like throwing up. “I found this place, and all these wonderful people, and I thought I could just hide here and start over. I think I really believed for a while that I could have a life without it needing to be my life specifically.”
          The old woman cleared her throat and gestured to offer a hug. Ciara squeezed her tight and a whiff of some fruity perfume caught her by surprise as she leaned in. I could’ve been happy on this little island, she thought as warm tears ran down her cheek.
          “Sweet girl, we are blessed in all we do. We are blessed to live, and we are blessed to die. That is why we pray,” Miss Kilkenny whispered, sending a glance at the gold cross on Ciara’s necklace. “The volcano is the reason the island is here at all, yet it’s destroyed the island probably countless times, too. But the volcanic soil makes everything grow back stronger every time, and people can’t help but rebuild when the dust settles. Why do you think that is?”
          Ciara didn’t know. “I don’t know,” she said.
          “Because death is never the end. Just a sea change, the way I see it. That’s why you won’t get me out to one of those rickety boats on the bay,” she concluded. “I’ll sip on my tea one more time and go to sleep—I’m at peace with it.” Miss Kilkenny smiled and closed her eyes.
          Peace. Ciara thought that sounded nice. She had never looked for peace before, only comfort.
          “Thank you, Mom. I love you. Goodbye.” She stood up and exited the bungalow, taking in the awesome destruction of the island as liquid heat enveloped the manmade structures and jungle alike. Ciara glanced at the shore, at the townsfolk clamoring into boats and the millions of belongings left behind in the sand. For a moment she saw the familiar reflection of her shiny metal flask, beckoning her. I would get them all killed if I went now. Besides, she shouldn’t have to go through this alone.
          Ciara felt clarity. The kind of clarity she had always hoped God would give her at church, or the kind she longed for when her and her dad would drink together, however rare that was. She thought that if she put the right words together, then she would be able to get him to help her take care of Mom, or at least he might give her some fatherly advice for when he left. But no, it was always that cold silence, and then his even colder absence.
          “I want to feel good,” she said, facing the volcano. “So fucking kill me! I want to feel warm, I want to feel loved! Fuck you!” She was drunk on something else now—a primordial certainty, a surge of self-determination and endorphins, an insatiable desire. “I don’t want to feel shitty for every fucking thing I do anymore! I’m not afraid! I can take the heat, see?!” Feeling a queasy combination of arousal, fight-or-flight, and alcohol withdrawal, Ciara ripped off the tattered clothes she was wearing. She stood naked, proud, eyes locked on the large lava flow descending upon the town. She walked confidently, almost seductively, towards the fiery mass of molten earth. I’m going to die gorgeous, Mom.
          As her feet made contact with the lava, she smiled. The heat was gentle, she felt no pain. Fire spread up her legs, hips, torso, kissing her skin and massaging her hair away into nonexistence; melting her pain away, liquifying her organs, evaporating all the thoughts in her head. 
          From the lifeboats she could be seen dancing, burning as they paddled over the horizon.