“Caitilin Ashberry,” Ethan repeated while rolling his eyes.
She gasped. “Have you studied the Phaenix dialects? That was beautiful beyond the rainbows of splendor—at least for an Earthian.”
He blushed, but wasn’t sure why. She still had not told him why she was here. He put out his hand for her to shake it and she moved to grab it accordingly.
“That is a good welc….” She stopped suddenly.
Caitilin saw something that her mind could not have prepared for in a thousand lifetimes. Her mind would not have noticed it if her Readying School hadn’t warned her gravely. It was the “X” that was now etched into Ethan’s hand. It shone at her in stark burgundy welts.
She stumbled backward into a pole lamp, pointing at Ethan’s hand, her face filled with horror.
“How?! I mean, they sent me to watch you, but how? How did you? Where?!”
“What is it? What happened?” Ethan yelped.
She lunged forward and grabbed his hand, rubbing her thumb over the marks.
“Ow!” Ethan said, trying to retract his hand. “I got that today.”
She sat him down on the sofa; her lips were curled and her eyes were tearing up. Her peppy demeanor turned to fear.
“They sent me to you, Ethan Chester Mioko. I was sent by my Religistral house to observe your ways and learn about service to your race. Now, I see that you need me very badly. This is dire, more dire than death. I am a deaconess, a religious healer to the layman; I specialize in taking care of these things.”
Ethan stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“A curse! You have been cursed!” she cried to the ceiling. “It is one of the worst curses one can receive in my land! I have seen the red plague and a sickness that turns your organs into fruit, but this is much worse. The bearer receives bad luck for the rest of the day—because the bearer usually does not last longer than that. This will eat away at you until you go crazy or die suddenly! I should have seen the signs.”
Ethan watched her pace around the living room, deep in thought, muttering nonsensical phrases.
“Like falling off your roof, getting knives thrown at you, or in your case, getting large metal vehicles crushing you or almost drowning in your indoor spring. I thought that I was saving you from something lesser, like a clumsy life or a curse of dolefulness, but this is much worse.”
“Like breaking a mirror, bad luck? I don’t believe in that sort of thing.”
Caitilin stopped.
“What do you believe in?” she asked, fearing what he might say.
Now he was able to recite exactly what his philosophy teacher taught him in school. “I believe in chance — random events causing random happenings. We are here based on probability, and our actions determine that probability.”
She couldn’t believe this blasphemy. She closed her eyes and started chanting, “Lyoso, Lyoso, Daya, Sune’, Sune’....”
“What are you doing?”
“I am saying a prayer for your soul. You have spoken something that only a complete fool or a man possessed by Darken knowledge could say.”
Now he was feeling insulted. “You broke into my house to yell at me and tell me that I have bad luck when I don’t even know who you are! And now, you expect me to believe in all of this— garbage?!”
The ceiling began to crack. A fracture started to form above Ethan’s head, splintering outwards until it started to rattle. Caitilin grabbed Ethan’s hand and pulled him to a far corner not yet in danger. In a split second, it burst open and the upstairs love seat came crashing down onto the couch. Ethan’s heart beat rapidly.
Caitilin looked at him with suspicious eyes, “I suppose that was random and by chance.”
Ethan’s eyes grew wide and frantically looked around the room, ignoring the question. “My house! My house! My parents are going to be so mad when they get home!”
She shook her head, “No, Earth-Boy, your parents are gone. The curse took them.”
Ethan kept lamenting as Caitilin watched the cracks slowly creep towards them.
She grabbed onto his robed sleeve. “We need to leave. Get some clothes and some food. We don’t have much time.”
Ethan turned to Caitilin, nearly sobbing, when his emotions began to boil. Some blonde chick wasn’t going to invade his home and boss him around. If he wanted to be bullied he would have preferred the vicious guard dog, not this girl.
“Get your hands off me,” he said, pushing her away toward the kitchen. “I didn’t ask you to come here. I don’t believe a word you say and I definitely am not going to let myself be kidnapped by you! Get out of my house and don’t come back!”
He pushed her to the front door. All the while Caitilin stuttered phrases of concern. “The dog attacking you, the almost d-d-drowning in the shower…the chair almost crushing you. All those things…you must believe me! You are cursed, Ethan. You are cursed!”
He looked her square in the eye holding a venomous stare, “The only curse here is you.”
Her mouth stood wide open as she realized his choice. That was it. She couldn’t do anything for the boy now. He had rejected her. They taught her that Earthians were stubborn, but she had never thought it would be this difficult.
Ethan opened the door and pointed to the street. “I never want to see you again.”
“You probably will not make it anyways,” Caitilin sighed, trying to sound distant and careless, as if it didn’t matter to her.
She began to leave, but turned around with a very solemn gaze. “If you choose not believe a Phaenix’s words, perhaps you will believe in their actions. We come from a long line of faerie people. We do not practice in lies.”
“I suppose you’re just going to sprout wings and fly home,” he jeered, enjoying his clever rebuttal.
But when he said that, two large wings shot out of Caitilin’s back. They were like butterfly wings, but silkier, sharply edged, translucent, and a light purple color. They were magnificent and moved like dragonfly propellers on her. She started to lift herself off the ground and turned around to meet Ethan’s surprised face. Her wings glistened against the moon as they whirred. She turned and took flight, vanishing into the darkness.
The night enveloped Ethan, darkness circling him. Crickets echoed the chorus of the evening.
Ethan stood in disbelief. “What just happened?”
“In certain cases a deacon or a deaconess might sneak off to the Earth Realm to bring an outsider back. We must remind them after the Germanic war incident that this is forbidden.”
– Rules for Phaenix Deacons and Deaconesses
III : How to Start a Fire
The early morning sun rushed through Ethan’s window before he was ready. He winced away from the glaring light and squinted at his clock.
“Cheese and rice!”
Ethan tore himself out of his sheets. He wasn’t going to miss out on the only place where he could be smarter than most people. He ran to the bathroom and pulled out his toothpaste. As he brushed vigorously, he noticed the “X” staring back at him. It was fully formed now, blackening around the edges as if he’d been branded. The memories flooded his reality.
A flying crazy woman came to his house and told him about a curse. That was after a dog tried to feast on his neck, a truck toppled over him, and the shower tried to drown him. Ethan stared at his hand like it was a foreign invader.
“If you give me any more trouble,” he warned, “I will put you in the ugliest mitten I can find!”
He had better things to think of, like trying to impress his crush to end all crushes, Rhiona, or hanging out with friends. He wondered if they’d even talk to him now, after promising rides to the mall and other local spots. The wretched smile of the old lady haunted him with her smug eyes. He briefly considered suing her, then hypothesized that she could probably only repay him with cats and stinky robes.
Ethan’s stomach pinched him as it tried to claw out of his skin. “Mom, why didn’t you tell me to wake
up?”
No answer.
Ethan descended the stairs to the kitchen. He poured a bowl of teeth-rotting cereal and blissfully sniffed the milk before tossing a frozen strudel in the toaster oven. Besides waking up late, he managed to complete all of the steps in his morning routine; but he still felt like he was forgetting something. He looked back at the kitchen before walking into the living room. He plopped himself down on the couch and started eating his breakfast.
“Ugh! I forgot to do my homework,” he sighed. “That might tarnish my A-plus by a few points at least.”
Ethan smiled to himself and continued to slurp down the sugary goodness. Reminiscing about his GPA was the only calm in this sudden turbulence. If he listed his favorite hobbies, academics would be at the top. The ability to absorb knowledge and information was like drinking water—refreshing and revitalizing. He could master any essay, multiple choice quiz, or science fair diorama. His ability to handle the pressures of school disillusioned him to think he was prepared for any of life’s challenges.
An explosion of metal shrieked from the kitchen.
It startled Ethan’s cereal out of its bowl and leaped to freedom on the couch. His clothes and hair dripped rogue cereal flakes that were slowly sticking to his face as they dropped to the floor. As he tried to wipe away the fallen friends from the couch he smelled the burning grease of his forgotten strudel. He turned to see flames and smoke swallowing the toaster, quickly branching outwards to claim surrounding appliances and cabinets. He panicked, grabbed a towel, and spread it over the fire before it reached for the ceiling. He sighed in relief at his quick thinking.
The towel burst into flames.
Ethan swatted it to the floor and began stomping on it. He was taught that stomping would smother the flames and they would be extinguished. The fire laughed at his sneakers and engulfed them. Ethan screamed as it started to snake up his pants. He ran outside through the garage and onto the lawn. The fire cascaded in the wind as he flailed, trying to repel the burning fingers climbing up his back. It ate through his shirt and started to ignite what little back fuzz he had. The only place to smother it was on the cool grass.
Grass isn’t as flammable as shirts and toasters, right?
Ethan dove for the lawn and began to roll until it made him dizzy and the blades of grass clung to him like a starched shirt. He checked his clothing and noticed a new kind of nakedness; most of his body hair had been burned off. The fire was gone, leaving charred remains of polyester and grass stains.
He nervously started to laugh. “That was close.”
Ethan noticed a crinkling sound behind him as he walked back towards the garage. Loose flames had started swallowing a chunk of the lawn, burning it without remorse. He looked up to see smoke billowing over his house. The raging flames licked Ethan’s retinas as they rose up in defiance and fed off the flammable structure. Seconds seemed like hours as he watched the fire devour past holidays, birthdays, and childhood memories. Ethan ran to a neighbor’s house and knocked frantically to a silent response.
“No, no, no!” he shouted. “You’re supposed to be home when there’s a fire!”
He ran to a pink vintage-style house, owned by another neighbor. They were always home and were good friends with his parents. He banged on their door and practiced saying, ‘I need your phone; my house is on fire!’
No one was home.
He looked across the street, scanning the area for another familiar house. He spotted a green house, he knew those neighbors to be kind and desperately ran towards it. After relentlessly ringing the doorbell and knocking on the window, he realized they were also gone. Ethan ran around the neighborhood to three more houses until all he could do was stop in the street and watch his house burn.
In a bright ember glow, Ethan watched part of the roof crumble and fall, the outside of the house blackening to a crisp. His childhood home reduced to nothing more than charred walls and support beams. His book-bag filled with homework, his smart tablet, and his parent’s bedroom with Swedish furniture were all gone in a glorious blaze. It almost made him cry, if not for the fact that he knew his parents were safe.
The fire stopped suddenly. It was as if the fire gave up when it knew Ethan was no longer inside. The walls still stood but they looked like toasted crackers. Every piece of furniture and floorboard stayed in its place and the foundation still sat, but now it was empty and black like Ethan’s stomach. He looked to the neighbor’s houses. None of them caught fire, nor did anything else next to the property lines. It was like a square bubble of chaos swallowed his domain, not single hand to throw him out of the horrific situation.
Ethan sat down quietly on the ashen lawn and buried his head in his knees. Silence gripped him but not hard enough to keep his heart from falling out. There was no recovery from this. He was sure someone would eventually call the police and send him away to juvenile detention. Swatches of orange trauma rushed behind his eyes and poured out. His face got tighter and his mind began to circle as the conjured voices of his parents screamed through his endless thoughts.
“I can explain this! It wasn’t my fault!” he exclaimed, cursing his love of sugary breakfast foods.
He grabbed a shock of grass. It was cold and damp. He noticed there were still some green patches underneath the ashes. He walked to the edge of the sidewalk to get a better view; the fire had burned a shape, one that he had begun to dread. It looked strikingly similar to the "X" on his hand, now dark like the soot surrounding him. Stabbing pain pierced through his hand where the mark lay as if it were laughing at him.
Ethan clutched his hand as he began pacing. He mulled over his options. He could freak out and possibly miss school. He could forget about school and get bogged down in conspiracies from that butterfly girl. But that would be letting her win and he didn’t want that. No one seemed to care that his house had burned down, so it wouldn’t be that unreasonable to walk to school and explain it later to his parents.
I’ll just call between classes, somehow. They’ll understand! It’s not like I didn’t try to put out the fire! I can’t be blamed for an exploding toaster! This isn’t my fault!
Ethan’s burnt clothes barely held on as he power-walked his way to school. En route, he noticed the guard dog perked up his ears as he passed by. No one had come to chain him back up the night before. It dribbled warnings from a clenched jaw and started to chase him. Ethan grunted and started to run. The dog tackled him, per usual, but this time Ethan was so fed up with the past twenty-four hours that he flipped himself over and kicked the dog away. After that, he decided to run the rest of the way to school. The rest of the morning started to look brighter.
A gargantuan grid of dusty brown cubes came into focus, greeting him with the “Crappy Oaks High School” sign. It was supposed to say “Happy Oaks High School” but some local vandals and pranksters found some replacement letters. Compared to the chaos at home the bleak school building was a refreshing sight.
Cracked brick walls cascaded on top of beige marble floors that were always decorated in sticky trash and crumpled hall passes. Students swarmed the drop-off entrance and narrow halls in a blur of neatly-ironed clothes, all too expensive for the district they lived in. The smell of disinfectant on the floors combined with clouds of cheap cologne could melt the eyes of anyone without a hazmat suit.
This dump was the atmosphere of education.
Happy Oaks High School was an incubator of teen angst, petty drama, and copious amounts of caffeine. Ethan had spent the past two years studying and analyzing the stereotypical cliques that festered within this social nest. He could point out the star wrestling athletes amongst those who joined only to train hard enough to get a girlfriend or a scholarship to a community college. Either way they didn’t notice him unless they needed a practice dummy.
The pep team was a complicated group of blonde girls. Their long flaxen hair and blinding smiles were monuments to their excessive popularity. However, the squad was divided into three parts
: the dance team, the pep squad, and the cheerleaders. They smiled for any audience, including the rival team, but not for Ethan.
Ethan caught himself staring at the “cool kids.” If high school was an ocean, they were the life raft of choice. They casually posed in their rebellious fashion statements as if the school was a backdrop for an alternative photo shoot. At a glance it seemed glamorous, but every person in that crowd had their heads buried in the newest high-tech accessory. One of their cell phones alone cost more than Ethan’s entire wardrobe. Their entity wafted of Brazilian coffee as they discussed bold opinions about politics and the injustices of their failing institutions.
Rhiona changed her hair again!
Ethan stared at the girl with the now purple hair. She was naturally soft-spoken, if she ever talked at all, while her outward appearance demanded attention. Any expression or eye contact she made was coveted like fine art. Ethan remembered her smiling during a short conversation the previous year and every day since then he tried to earn another one. He watched her purple hair wave goodbye as she walked down the hall. He had missed his chance.
He walked confidently into the gray walled cube of the cafeteria. Ladles clanged a cacophony against rusty pots stained with grease. The wafting stench of “Government certified and chemically modified” food seeped through the walls. The cafeteria was actually the auditorium filled with cheap folding tables. It was now a multi-purpose room, instead of a regular gym, with an even smaller pull-out stage stowed away in a far corner underneath a pile of rusted folding chairs. The sound system waited patiently for a theatrical production of The Elf and the Shoemaker behind a food splattered scoreboard. It was anyone’s guess when the room would be clean enough to perform it.
Behind a fortified wall with two ticket windows stood cafeteria ladies who desperately wanted a cigarette break and a reason to retire gracefully. They silently swore to themselves as they struggled to go about their daily routine in the cramped cubicle. Ethan set his styrofoam tray at the window and tried to smile at them, instead of looking at the bubbling goo behind them. They grimaced back and frantically plopped an oozing mass of leftover mac and cheese before shutting the window.
The Boy and His Curse Page 3
