by Amber Lynn
I thought about faking my death the next morning, but realized that'd be in bad taste. The fact that I wasn't looking forward to the day made me roll out of bed even slower than usual. I showered and dressed in some loose fitting jeans and a light blue t-shirt. I wanted to be comfortable if I had to sit in a car for most of the day. Nate picked out a similar outfit, but his blue shirt was a little bit darker than mine.
"I think I'll throw together some snacks and a lunch for us. We're going to be gone all day and you know I won't stop at any restaurants on the way."
"That's a great idea. Can you make sure you bring the orange bag of chips? I have a feeling I'll be craving them today," Nate said as he finished putting on his shoes.
In the kitchen, I grabbed the requested chips, a box of crackers, some peanut butter cookies, a loaf of bread, some lunchmeat and cheese, the latter two I stuck in a small cooler. Also, because I was nice, I threw a couple of chocolate bars in the bag. Before I sealed everything up, I added a half dozen bottles of water, so we could keep hydrated.
"Okay, I think I have the food situation under control," I said as I brought the bag out to the living room.
"Good, let's hit the road then. The sooner we get locked in a moving vehicle, the better chance we have of making it to your parents."
"You should've probably mentioned that after you had me in said vehicle."
"I know she can be a lot to handle, but I also know you're actually to blame for that. All the annoying qualities you've noted about me, are the same ones she has. Since mine are based on the years you were missing, I'm sure hers are too."
I didn't think he'd spent enough time with my mother lately. She was nuts and nothing would ever explain away her lunacy to me.
"Maybe after a few decades I'll feel more forgiving. Right now, I really just want to get this over with."
"Then let's get to it and enjoy as much of the day as we can."
He snatched the keys and opened the door for me. Since we went to bed extra early, we were starting out at five instead of the planned six. I had a feeling the extra hour would come in handy, based on the activities Nate had planned.
Our first destination on our tour of state parks was about four and a half hours away, so we had a lot of time to fill. Our SUV had various media options that could've kept me occupied, but I still had enough questions floating around in my head that I thought my time could be better spent.
"So what's it like in your phoenix form?" I asked Nate. "With the fire, it seems like it'd be warm."
"Not really. It's kind of hard to describe, since it's just part of who we are. It doesn't feel like anything special. Flying high in the sky is an amazing feeling, though. We don't use our phoenix form often, because we try to blend in, but when we do it's freeing. You don't have the worries humans do.
"No worry about what to wear, what others will think about you, or if you have enough money to pay your bills. We don't even really have to worry about eating, because we just need to feed the fire in that form. The air we're breathing is enough to do that," Nate explained.
The lack of worries was really appealing to me. I had a tendency to let little things stress me.
"When do you think I can try changing forms?" I asked.
"I'm kind of surprised you haven't tried to already. I think we should wait a little while. I don't want your body to get overwhelmed. Your mind is already kicking into overdrive to bring back the memories. Your body isn't ready for the strain of a first change. Not that they're really stressful or anything."
"Am I a sexy phoenix?" I meant it to come across jokingly, but it was something I was curious about.
"To me, it doesn't matter what form you're in, you'll always be sexy. To answer your question, you saw me as a phoenix, right?"
"Yes, I remember it very clearly." It was hard to forget the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"Okay, well, you look a lot like that, but you have a little black star on your crown," he said.
?"Cool. Do other phoenixes look the same?" I asked.
I'd have to remember to ask Rick if he would change for me when we got back. I didn't think I'd utter the same request to my parents, at least not on that trip. Eventually, I wanted to see as many other phoenixes as I could, but I wasn't comfortable being in the room with my parents naked, and Nate had indicated that was necessary.
"For the most part, we all look alike. A little color variation here and there, but not much more than that. You're the only one that has a marking. That's how we knew you were special and needed the protector."
As he revealed things unique about me, I wondered why he had a problem with my powers being unique. It almost made me feel like I'd been holding back from everyone at one point.
On the way to the Pictograph Cave, I continued to pepper him with questions about being a phoenix and tried to weasel out little details about our lives together. He wouldn't give me much information, claiming it was better if I remembered the stuff on my own.
Revealing that we had children, should've been followed by details of those children. He wouldn't even give me that.
?At the park, he led me to the main cave and started pointing out different drawings and explaining to me what they meant. Every once in a while I'd guess what they meant before he told me. Absolutely none of my speculations where anywhere near correct.
"How many languages do you know?"
"All of them, including now pig Latin thanks to you. When you've lived as many years as we have and you need to move around often, it pays to know all the languages," he explained. It made sense, but along with my memories, it sounded like there was a lot of learning in my future to make up for things.
"I'm surprised you and Rick haven't resorted to switching languages on me to talk about something you didn't want me to know, but of course you don't even have to speak out loud to keep something from me."
"That's true," he replied as he continued showing me around. After about thirty minutes, we called it good and headed back to the car.
Next stop was the prairie dogs. It was only a little over an hour away and I couldn't wait. I jumped out of the vehicle as soon as Nate shifted into park and could already hear little chirping barks. Nate, being a great tour guide, showed me around. I was able to see the little guys running around, playing a game of tag I wanted to join. I also saw some little heads sticking out of the ground, reminding me of the game whack-a-mole.
After I made Nate take a ton of pictures of me with the prairie dogs in the background, we decided it was a good time for lunch. Too many more pictures, and I was afraid Nate was going to start comparing me to my mother. We found a picnic table and made some sandwiches.
"So, have you talked to any of our children about me being back?" I asked Nate while I stole some of his chips. He wouldn't tell me any details about the kiddies, but I didn't see any issues cluing me in about what they knew.
"Of course. They all know you're back now. I had to keep a couple of the girls from paying us a visit. I told them we need a little more time to get your memory back together before they showed up expecting you to remember them."
"The fact that you claim I have so many full-grown children is one of the creepiest things about all of this. I never wanted to be a mother, let alone be married, and I magically am kind of both of those things without me even knowing it."
"It's confusing for all of us, but I'm sure as you gain more memories, it will get easier. Learning more about who you used to be may change you a little, but I don't think your personality is that much different from what it once was. You're more reserved, which I'm sure isn't a surprise."
We finished up our food and said goodbye to the prairie dogs. All of which had new names thanks to me. If I could knit, I would've claimed I needed to stick around to make them little sweaters.
"How far until the next stop?" I asked as we got back underway.
"I think I'm going to make an unscheduled pit stop in about forty-five minutes," he replied.
"What
for?" Even though I'd grown up in the general area, I wasn't sure where he wanted to go.
"It's a surprise," he said, not willing to give any clues, which I determined to be a little rude. Maybe there was another phoenix who lived around there and he wanted to check in. That was all I could think of as a good reason to stop.
I turned on the radio and started singing along to one of my favorite country bands as we headed down the road to destination unknown. After a little while, he exited the interstate and drove us to a parking lot.
"Come on, we have about a mile hike," he said, getting out of the car.
I was glad I'd been smart enough to wear my tennis shoes and not the usual sandals. Nate had served as a tour guide in my presence before, so I was used to his crazy need to do a lot of walking.
He steered me down a wooded trail. After walking a little while, the sound of running water made it to my ears. When we approached the end of the trail, I came face-to-face with a very tall, very beautiful waterfall.
"It's gorgeous," I said, staring up at the waterfall.
"Avery, I wanted to make sure this was done properly, so you don't try to back out." I turned to look at him and saw he was down on one knee. Didn't we just go through that act a couple days ago?
I glanced down at my finger and noticed the ring was missing. "Hey, where did the ring go?" I asked, a little worried I'd managed to lose it.
"The prairie dogs were a really good distraction," he said, laughing at the concern on my face. He took ahold of my left hand, brought the ring up to my finger and slid it on.
"Avery Belle Clavens, would you do me the honor of promising to marry me at a future date, to be determined solely by you? I promise to love and protect you for eternity and do my best not to annoy you to death." Not the most romantic proposal in the world, but it actually kind of worked for us.
To respond, I said, "I'm not promising we'll be wed within a year, or maybe even a couple of years, but from the little I've heard about our past, I'm sure when all my memories are back online, there won't be a question that we care about each other.
"I mean we've had five kids; I'm guessing they weren't conceived by artificial insemination, since they were born hundreds of years ago. In conclusion of my own little rambling speech, I can't promise you that I won't annoy you to death, but I can promise we will eventually be married in this lifetime, and maybe one day you'll even hear me say I love you too."
Technically, that gave me a few hundred years to work with. I could live with that.
"You don't know how much of a difference hearing that makes when you're not using an alias and acting a part," he said, taking me in his arms and giving me a thorough, but closed-mouth kiss. "Let's get on the road. We still have a two hour hiking tour through some caves to get through and two hours on the road."
A little over an hour later, we were starting on our cave tour. I'd always had a fascination with cave formations. The cave tour wasn't for the faint of heart. It involved six hundred stairs and I wished I would've brought a sweater, because the temperatures caused a few goose bump formations on my arms.
The views were well worth the exertion and I made Nate take more pictures. It seemed I really was turning into my mother. If she ever got word of that, I was going to have to go into hiding.
After the tour, we looked around the gift shop and Nate found a purple and green marbled rock that was shaped into a heart. It was pretty, and when he asked if I wanted it, I couldn't help but say yes. We searched the store a little more and picked some other interesting rocks to add to the heart. During my vision of my first daughter, she seemed to like rocks. I thought maybe I could give some of them to her when we finally met.
With our loot in hand, we headed back to the Suburban to tackle the last leg of the road trip. If it was up to me, we could just turn around and go back to Vida, but getting my memories back was important to Nate, and even though I wasn't in love with him, I could try to endure the torture of spending time with my mother for him. He was going to owe me.
CHAPTER 22
I wrote a letter, but forgot to sign it, so I'm not sure who it's from
