Jane and the Fire – Part IV
In 1958, young Jane is a twelve-year-old girl who has just moved to the big city of 
Chicago, Illinois with her parents and cousins Billy. During a trip to the park with the Billies, Jane notices a dark and shabby building. All three children also meet a strange man who is trying to visit neighbor Vince Bennet.
The Billies run around and chase after a random dog. Jane looks back at the spooky dark building and shivers. There’s something up with that house. She shrugs off the eerie feeling, and turns to watch her cousins – they’ve befriended the dog and are shrieking with delight as they throw sticks for him to fetch. Jane hurries to join them. The three kids can feel their spirits rising already – the gloomy, closed-in feeling is gone 
– these wide open park is like a breath of fresh air after the cramped tenement buildings that surround their new home. Jane finds some pocket money in her, well, pocket, and she buys them all ice cream. They sit down on a park bench, flush-faced and clutching their ice cream cones, and watch busy people walk by. To their surprise, Mr. Joyce appears out of the crowd; he smiles at them jovially – he’s delivered Uncle Wallace’s dinner and evidently his mood is improved too. Billy the Younger is tired of his ice cream and Mr. Joyce agrees to finish it. Billy the Elder has dropped his ice cream but doesn’t want another one; he is content watching the ants troop all over it. Mr. Joyce is telling the Billies a favorite story – as an author, his profession is storytelling – but the Billies are interrupting frequently because they are very familiar with it. Jane sits back comfortably in her chair as the comfortingly discordant noise washes over her; if she closes her eyes, she can pretend that she’s back on the farm. Just as she opens her eyes to ask if the others are ready to go home, she spies a quotidian velvet fedora. Jane sits up suddenly – she knows that hat, she’s seen it just that very day! It sits tall and proud on the large head of Mr. Vince Bennet.
Jane hops off the bench. Mr. Joyce and the Billies look at her. She mumbles that she’ll be back in a minute and disappears from their view in a minute. Mr. Bennet had had a very shady look about him and she wants to know what’s up. He continues walking, occasionally glancing around in an extremely suspicious manner. To her surprise, Jane 
sees the man who called on the Joyces by accident following him. This latter man pokes Mr. Bennet in the shoulder.
“Well, Vinny, where is he? You know McCawley ain’t no honorable type, and we can’t be seen out an’ about like this.”
Vince Bennet levels a glare at him. “The only concern I have now is you, since you’re talking loud enough to wake the dead! Why don’t you shout to the entire park that Jim McCawley is waiting for us in the grove?” They enter a dark patch of forest at the edge of the park. Jane takes a deep breath and follows. She’s curious – what is Mr. Bennet up to?
Want to find out?
Stay tuned for the next edition of Spirit to find out what happens next!
