Jesse tries to roll over but is still too busted up. One of the men sees him struggling and slams the butt of his shotgun into his head, dazing him. The man who went to the cabin returns with a five-gallon can of kerosene. He soaks Claudine and Jesse with the fuel, and they howl as it seeps into their wounds. The man tries to strike a match but fumbles.

“Stop,” Jesse shouts. “Stop!”

Another of the men pulls a match and sparks it. He drops it on Claudine, and she’s immediately enveloped, screaming and writhing, in a cocoon of fire. The trees pulse red. Smoke bubbles into the sky. The men turn to Jesse, but before they can light him up, too, Claudine springs to her feet and lurches at them, a wailing human torch. One of them runs, but another lifts his shotgun and pulls the trigger. The blast knocks Claudine back to the ground, where she lies burning, silent and still again.

Jesse realizes he can move his legs, and, marshaling every ounce of his strength, he staggers to his feet and sprints for the dark woods. A shotgun booms and buckshot burrows into his back, but desperation keeps him going. He plunges into a thicket. Nettles lash at him, thorns threaten to hang him up. The men pause at the edge of the tangle to argue about who’s going after him.

He thrashes on until the ground disappears from beneath his feet and he plummets through darkness to land in a cold, black river. An electric shock shoots through him when he hits bottom. His legs are broken, both of them. The current takes hold of him and whisks him off.

He managed to get to shore, managed to find a riverbank cave to shelter in for the day. As soon as the sun set he returned to the clearing. All that was left of Claudine was a mound of ashes and a patch of scorched grass. He heard a noise on the trail leading to the men’s shack and fled, an act of cowardice he’s regretted ever since. It would’ve been better to have been dusted while trying to get revenge that night than to plod on as he has all the years since under ten tons of guilt and grief.

He held his life cheap afterward, came close to dying many times—tried to, in fact. It wasn’t until he started looking after Edgar in the wake of their mother’s death that he finally turned away from the grave.

The flames die down, and the audience gasps. The girl has vanished. The magician feigns confusion. Knocking comes from inside a wooden crate on the stage. The magician prances over and opens it, and the girl steps out unscathed.