Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [2091]

We followed her gaze and saw fire creeping over the hills behind us—far behind us, but not far enough. This was some new fire, whipping along in the dry evening breeze. Either the people who attacked us had followed us, setting fires, or someone was imitating them, echoing them. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 2091

Note

“Far behind us, but not far enough” twists a spatial clause into a measure of dread, and the fire is given agency (“creeping,” “whipping”) that the people who set it lack — the pyromania has become its own pursuing thing, indistinct from its imitators, which is the point: the threat has no single owner.