by A. L. Knorr
My cell phone buzzed from my jacket pocket. I looked at the screen but didn't recognize the local number.
"Sorry, Hiroki. Excuse me a minute?"
He waved me off so I shot him a grateful smile and moved away for some privacy.
I pressed the talk button and put the phone to my ear. "Hello?"
"Petra Kara?" The voice was a woman's, and familiar.
"Mrs. Shale?" Violet Shale was one of the people who worked at the child services office in Saltford. I hadn't had a call from them since I'd been emancipated.
"You remember me?" she asked.
"Of course, I do."
Mrs. Shale had always been kind to me. She'd often gifted me with books about history, and books full of photographs documenting artifacts found in some of the more popular and spectacular archeological digs. She'd seemed to understand and maybe even share my obsession with archaeology.
"How are you? I understand you had a dig in Libya?"
"Yes, last spring,” I said. “It was…an enlightening experience."
"Oh, that's nice. Good for you. I'm happy to see you pursuing your dreams." Something about her tone said that she'd not called to chit chat. "Well, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, Petra, but your therapist, Mr. Pierce, he passed away earlier today."
I felt like I'd been slugged in the gut with a bag full of flour. It took me several seconds to find my voice.
"Petra? Are you there?"
"Noel is…dead?" Noel had been by no means elderly, or frail. I had seen him in February and he'd seemed perfectly fit and healthy.
"I'm sorry. He had an aneurysm. An ambulance was called, but I'm afraid he died on the way to the hospital. I'm so sorry, Petra. I know you were close."
"When is the funeral?" My mouth felt like it was filled with sawdust and tears pricked at my eyes. Noel had always been kind to me. He was the only one I had trusted enough to share my secrets with before I left for Libya. I was going to miss him terribly.
"A few days’ time. I don't have more information yet, but I'll be sure to call you as soon as I know."
"Okay. Thank you. I'll be waiting." I hung up the phone and closed my eyes against the news. Shockwaves of grief washed over me like breakers on the beach, stealing my breath.
"Everything okay?" I felt Hiroki's hand on my shoulder. "You look a little green around the gills."
I opened my eyes. "Do you mind if we do the ammo test another time? I really need to go home."
2
Saxony
I took the steps up to Georjie's house two at a time with a grin pasted across my face and my heart beating with excitement. I reached the landing at the Sutherland's front door and turned to wave as my dad drove away in our van. Setting down my duffle bag, I turned to face the door.
I paused, my hands hovering just over the metal door knocker. I bit my lip. I was dying to see my friends and share our summer adventures, but was I going to tell them I was a fire mage? My hand trembled.
The truth was, I still hadn't fully decided. Basil Chaplin, my soon-to-be instructor at Arcturus, a fire mage school near Dover, had been clear that he was strictly against anyone knowing except my family. But I did consider these girls to be family. They were my sisters in every sense except blood. I had never asked Basil directly because I was afraid he'd forbid it and not let me into Arcturus as punishment if I did tell them. What was that saying? It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission? What was the harm if I trusted them? They would never betray me. I didn't doubt that they would pick up on the changes in me, anyway. My strange reflective eyes, my burnt-out voice.
Basil would never know I'd spilled my secret, and what he didn't know couldn't hurt me, could it?
I still hadn't moved. My hand hovered there, immobile.
The door swung open and Georjie stood, holding it wide, her ethereal face alight. "Saxony! I thought I heard someone on the porch, but then it went quiet."
"Hi!" The hairs on my body swept to attention at the sight of her. There was something different about her, but I couldn't put my finger on what. Something in her expression, a kind of knowing in her brown eyes.
She stepped out onto the front deck and we hugged each other hard, almost violently.
"Oh my gawd, I missed you so much!" she said into my hair. "I didn't realize just how much. It's so good to see you."
I squeezed her back, enjoying the solid feel of her. I swallowed back the sudden urge to cry. "I missed you too, Georjie."
We stepped back and grinned at one another. Georjie scanned my features intently, a line appearing briefly between her brows. I could guess why—my voice. Our generation (so my father likes to say) relies more on texting than phone calls. Georjie and I hadn't actually talked all summer, and I'd avoided leaving voice texts for anyone. This was the first time she'd heard me speak since Isaia gave me the fire.
"You look great!" I said, taking her in again. Her hair had grown over the summer and was freshly washed and undone, falling over her shoulders in a cascade of beachy blond waves. Her light brown eyes were clear and sparkling. She wore jean shorts and two plain layered tank tops in white and teal. A batch of freckles lay in sprinkles on her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose, a testament to the sunny weather Saltford had been enjoying. She was barefoot, which struck me as odd. I didn't think I'd ever seen Georjie without some kind of footwear unless she was in the pool. Even swimming in the ocean, she'd always worn water-shoes. It was a thing she did.
"You do too." Georjie heaved my overnight bag, throwing it over her shoulder. She stepped into the house and waved me inside. "Get in here."
Stepping into the house, I took a deep breath. It smelled fresh and green and the air felt humid. I looked around the wide foyer for familiar jackets and shoes. "No Akiko or Targa yet?"
"Nope. You're the first." Georjie closed the door.
I toed off my sneakers and peered down the stairs into the basement toward their indoor pool. A warm golden light flickered from the lower level.
"What's going on down there?"
Georjie stepped between me and the sweeping staircase. "It's a surprise. Do you mind waiting? I want to show you all at once. You're going to love it."
"If I must," I replied with an eye-roll. "How's Liz?"
Georjie had come home early from Ireland to be with her mom, who had been hospitalized for exhaustion and dehydration. Her mom had made a rapid and full recovery in the three weeks since Georjie had been home.
"She's good. It's weird but her illness was one of the best things that could have happened to us—for our relationship, I mean."
I thought of Isaia and how his affliction had so changed my life. More and more, I believed it was for the better although at the time it hadn't felt like it. I nodded in agreement. "I can understand that."
My gaze fell on a stack of books and papers on the table near the door. A photograph lay half-hidden inside a book, but I recognized the blond hair at its edges. I slipped the photo out from between the pages.
The image was of Georjie but her eyes were filled with a bright white light. Her hair flew up and out, making a blond corona around her head. Behind her was a sea of green foliage. She was wearing shorts and her feet were bare in the soil. It looked like dirt was crawling up her legs. Her mouth was open and her fingers were flexed as though she were casting a spell. Her hands were filthy up to the elbows with dirt, and there was even a smudge of dirt across her cheek and lip. The look on her face was both awesome and frightening. It was amazing what Photoshop could do.
"Wow,” I said. “Is this from the photography course you did over the summer? Did they teach you photo-manipulation too?"
"Something like that," Georjie replied with a shy lift at one corner of her mouth. "Mom printed it without asking me. I hadn't meant for anyone to see it."
"Why not? It's beautiful!"
“Thank you,” she said.
"Interesting artistic choices here," I said, mimicking our grade nine art teacher who'd been
from Turkey and had a strong accent and smoked about four packs of cigarettes a day. "I'm enjoying the filth coating the woman's hands and feet. A clear statement about the dirty deeds of the youth of today."
Georjie snatched the photo out of my hand, laughing. "That was a good impression. She always did sound husky, like a jazz singer." Georjie's brows pinched together as she tucked the photograph back between the pages of the book. "Are you sick, by the way? You sound like you've got a sore throat."
"No, I'm right as rain." I opened my mouth to form some kind of lie as to why my voice was rough and husky, but someone knocked at the door.
We turned, lightning quick, to open it. Targa stood on the front deck, backpack slung over one shoulder. She grinned and my breath felt short. Something about her was very different, not in a subtle way like how Georjie was different. Targa’s new look hadn't just been a filter over the photo she'd sent of herself and Mira at the gala in Poland.
"D'awwwwwww." Targa wrapped her arms around both of us. "You guys look so beautiful!"
"You too, Targa." Georjie stepped back and we stood side by side, staring at Targa unabashedly. "Like, really."
"Yeah,” I said. “I mean, you've always been a fox, but damn, girl!"
"Uh, thanks." Targa shifted from foot to foot, letting the backpack drop from her shoulder. "Can I come in?"
"Oh, geez. Sorry." Georjie waved her inside and we stood in the foyer, the door still open behind Targa. Georjie and I couldn't take our eyes off her.
"Did you dye your hair black?" I blurted. "And your skin…"
Her skin was so pale, so opaque and flawless looking. I could have sworn she used to have a little acne scar at the tip of her right eyebrow, but it was gone now. I was also sure she'd had a few moles on her arms that were no longer there. I took her hand and examined it. The faint blue veins that normally threaded the backs of her hands were invisible.
"Uh, no…" Targa replied, withdrawing her hand gently. Her brows pulled together the way Georjie's had done only moments before. "Are you fighting a cold?”
I ignored the question. "And your eyes, they're so blue! I have never seen them so bright. Don't you think, Georjie? Come on, back me up here." I elbowed Georjayna.
"Yeah, you do look different, Targa," she agreed.
Targa made a tsk sound. "Gone for a couple of months and even your besties forget what you look like."
"You say that as if we don't have photographic evidence that your hair is darker, your eyes are brighter, and your skin is just…different than it used to be." Georjie finally closed the door behind Targa.
"Photos lie," Targa replied smoothly. "The blonde here can tell you all about that."
She peered down the stairs as Georjie and I shared a look over her head.
"No Akiko yet?" she asked.
"Not yet," I replied. "Georjie wants to wait to go downstairs until she gets here. Apparently there is a surprise." I waggled my eyebrows. "Aside from your enhanced good looks."
"Ha ha," Targa said with an enigmatic smile. "How's your mom, Georjie?"
"All good now. She's away at that conference so I've got the place to myself."
The sounds of light footsteps on the front porch reached our ears, and Targa threw the door open as Akiko was reaching for the knocker. Her face split in a wide smile that lit her entire countenance. I didn't think I'd ever seen her look more happy and open.
"Hello, strangers," she said, her voice soft. She stepped inside to be swallowed in a group hug. "Someone smells like jasmine," came her muffled voice.
"That's probably me," said Georjie as we broke apart. "Good nose, you have."
"Jasmine has always been one of my favorite scents." Akiko inhaled. Her discerning gaze fell on Targa and she canted her head. "You look different. Are you wearing colored contacts? And when did you dye your hair? It looks great black."
Georjie and I both gave Targa a we-told-you-so look.
Targa rolled her eyes. "Honestly, you guys." Her eyes seemed to search for something, anything. "You took the carpet off the stairs. They look way better as hardwood."
"Thanks! On that note, leave your cell phones at the door and..." Georjie made a 'follow me' gesture with her head and went down the stairs.
Akiko, Targa, and I shared a bemused look, took our cell phones out, and left them on the table by the door.
The humidity and sweet smell grew as we descended the stairs. By the time we reached the bottom, the air had become damp and cloying.
Previously, there had been a hallway with a number of doors leading to various rooms; the pool, two spare bedrooms, a storage and laundry room, and the garage. Now, there was a glass wall partitioning the pool from the ground floor landing. The glass was misted up with condensation and a green blur of plants could be seen through it.
"You've turned it into a greenhouse?" Akiko exclaimed.
At the same time, Targa said, "You changed your pool to saltwater!"
Georjie paused with her hand on the handle of the sliding glass door. She leveled Targa with an amazed look. "How can you tell that?"
"There's no chlorine in the air anymore," Targa answered, sniffing.
She was right. I took a deep inhale. "It smells like a jungle."
I closed my eyes, breathing in the fresh clean scents.
Georjie slid the door back. "That's a pretty apt description. Welcome to the jungle."
She stepped through and we followed her.
The pool was the same shape as before but the room was barely recognizable. Butterflies fluttered from plant to plant and greenery burst from every corner of the room. Blossoms of all kinds and colors dotted a backdrop of lush jungle. The ceiling, which had previously been low and filled with pot-lights, had been lifted and replaced with glass. Trees brushed against the glass ceiling, their branches making crisscrossed silhouettes against the dying evening light.
My eyes were immediately drawn to the tiki torches placed throughout the room. It might have been my imagination, but they seemed to flicker toward us, the tongues of flames inviting us in. Gone were the tiles and plastic sunbathing beds and tables. Moss coated the floor in places. The double sliding glass doors leading out into the yard were open to the warm autumn day.
"I don't understand." Targa's vibrant aqua eyes roamed the floor to the ceiling, following the twisted form of what looked like a fig tree. "There are trees growing in here. I can see the roots." She pointed and I saw she was right. Gnarly roots appeared and disappeared in the soil like some serpentine underwater creature.
"But this is impossible!" Akiko pulled off her socks and walked into the space in her bare feet, toes hugging the moss. "You can't have changed the space this much in the time you've been home. How did you transplant such big plants? How did you break up all that concrete and get rid of it in the time you've had?"
Georjie gave us a secretive smile. "I was so inspired by my Aunt Faith's greenhouse that I asked my mom if we could renovate. It wasn't very hard to convince her. She gave me a generous budget and away I went."
"It's amazing, Georjie!" I stripped off my socks and walked alongside the pool, enjoying the feeling of moss and soil beneath my feet. "I'm surprised Liz let you do all this. The maintenance alone-"
"It's my responsibility." Georjie gestured to a small clearing beside the pool where a patchwork blanket had been laid out. A low table held a stack of glasses, plates of veggies and dip, and jugs of water and juice. The Adirondack chairs which had been around the firepit in the back yard had been moved to a space beside the pool. "Want to go for a swim?"
"Absolutely." Targa hefted her bag.
We changed into our suits and splashed around, getting some exercise and enjoying the enchanting atmosphere.
"So, who’s going to start?" I put my feet down on the pool's bottom and stood, water sluicing from my hair. "We've got a lot of catching up to do."
Georjie looked from me to Targa to Akiko, waiting.
"Why don't you go, Saxony?" Targa rested her elbows on
the edge of the pool. "I'm surprised you haven't started talking already."
Butterflies spiraled through my stomach and I opened my mouth. No words formed. I didn't know how to start.
"I'll go," Akiko said quietly.
We stared at her.
"I'm pleasantly shocked," laughed Georjie. "Getting info from you is like pulling teeth, and here you are volunteering to go first?"
"This is unprecedented." Targa laughed. “You must really have something to share.”
Akiko grinned. "It's difficult to know how to begin…"
I nodded, fully empathizing with her.
She took a breath. "The reason jasmine is one of my favorite scents is because my sister and I used to gather it every spring for our home and our neighbors’ homes."
I blinked, thinking I had misheard her. "Your…sister?"
"Yes. I have a sister."
For the space of a few heartbeats there was no sound but the sloshing of water against the sides of the pool.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Targa asked. "If you used to pick jasmine with her every spring, then it means you didn't just meet her this past summer. You've had a sister this whole time and never told us."
Akiko nodded. "Aimi and I were raised together but were torn apart by circumstances out of our control."
"Aimi," Georjie echoed.
"I haven't been able to talk about my life because I've been bound to keep my mouth shut. Until the events of this past summer, I wasn’t free to share anything with you. I am sorry for that. But everything is different now."
