Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series)

by Reckenwald, Sarah

  “Why are we hanging out with the Holmes family?” I demanded before one of the carefully crafted weekend outings.

  “What do you mean?” Aunt Lynn tried her best to sound confused.

  “Why are we hanging out with Zach and his family? We never spend time with other families. What’s going on?” I was almost sixteen, and I thought I could handle anything. Aunt Lynn just stared at me, weighing her options. Eventually, she would have to tell me. If she didn’t tell me now, when I was asking and suspecting something, she would have to explain later why she chose to pass the opportunity by. I knew it was serious when she didn’t say anything. She motioned for me to join her in the living room. We sat down on the couch, and I started to worry.

  “Are they witches, too? Are you going to make me start practicing again?” I was self-centered then.

  “No, honey,” Aunt Lynn struggled with her words. She grabbed a box of tissues from an end table and held it tentatively, like she might drop it at any moment or it might wiggle out of her grasp.

  “I’m sick,” she managed to say. She didn’t start to cry right away. She had done her crying without me. Her fingers rubbed the fluff of tissue poking out of the box. She stared at the box. I remember the light beige fabric of the couch and the pale beige of the walls. The music I had been listening to drifted from my room towards us, but I couldn’t tell what band was playing. I could hear the afternoon noises of our neighborhood outside, but it all seemed to swirl together as I took in what she was trying to say.

  My hair was red that day, and I started to twist it around my fingers, trying to think about what color I should dye it next, but unable to focus. We sat there, she staring at the tissue box and me staring at the twist of hair around my finger, the sounds of the world surrounding us, but not penetrating our private cocoons.

  “How sick?” I finally asked, my voice cracking and the tears I had been holding back breaking the threshold of my eyelashes. My face felt wet, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t reach out and grab the tissue away from her that she was so obviously grasping for a hold on reality.

  “Very sick.” She didn’t look up.

  “What is it?” I didn’t really want to know. I wanted to go back in time and not ask about the stupid weekends with the Holmes family.

  “Cancer. I have melanoma, Jade.”

  “They can cure cancer, can’t they?” I didn’t know who they were who could cure cancer. Doctors? Witches? It didn’t matter. Someone had to fix this.

  “They removed the melanoma, and they thought everything was okay, but it came back a couple months ago. They still thought it was early on. The doctors removed it again, but I found out it has spread.” She finally looked up to see my face soaked with tears.

  “But you’re going to fight it, right?” She moved towards me and patted her tissue on my face. She pulled my wisp of hair out of my hand and took my hand in hers.

  “Of course, honey. I start treatment next week.” She took a deep breath, and I knew she wasn’t done. “This is going to be difficult. I’m going to get very sick, even if I do end up getting better.”

  I stared at her. What was she trying to say? What did all of this have to do with our weekends with Zach and his family?

  “While I’m in the hospital, I want you to go and live with Patti and David and Zach and Maggie,” she named each member of the Holmes family as if “Jade” could fit into the list comfortably.

  “No,” I argued, “I’ll stay with you.” Even as I said it, I knew there was no truth in it.

  “Jade, I want you to concentrate on school. You can visit me everyday. When I come home, you can come back.” We sat then, quietly crying and holding each other’s hands. The afternoon sun faded into a sunset we didn’t see and faded again into darkness. The sounds of the afternoon turned into the cadence of frogs and whippoorwills in the spring evening. We didn’t eat dinner that night. We eventually moved to the kitchen. We each ate a bowl of cereal and went to bed, emotionally spent.

  The next months were spent between the hospital, the Holmes family, and short stints in our own house. During my junior year, it became obvious the fight was a losing battle, but we kept fighting. Then one day it was over. Aunt Lynn was gone, and I was living with Zach’s family permanently, or at least until college. We had a tiny funeral service. I sold most of our possessions, but I couldn’t find the family book or any part of our unusual library. I had told Aunt Lynn I wanted nothing to do with it; now I could only assume the book was what Aunt Lynn left me buried on the last property we called home together.

  Going back to St. Augustine with Zach for the summer was the first step in my plan. Once we got there, I would have to get back to my old house and go digging in the backyard. I hoped no one was renting it for the summer, but I knew I would need a massive amount of luck on my side if that were to happen.

  Zach came back later that evening. By Saturday morning, we had my car packed up with most of my boxes and the rest of my boxes and bedroom furniture were ready for the small U-haul Zach’s parents rented. Zach had rented his apartment furnished, so he only had his boxes. I realized guiltily that the U-haul was mainly for my benefit. His family thought of me as one of them, but they didn’t really know me. It was going to be an interesting summer.

  Chapter 8

  I woke up in my bed, in Zach’s house, to the smell of bacon and coffee wafting up the stairs from the kitchen. We had spent the weekend moving back in and unpacking our boxes, and now it was Monday. I lay in bed letting the aroma soak into my pores and feeling the warmth of the sun as it fought its way through the plantation style blinds that weren’t quite fully closed. I stretched and made my way to the window. I could hear the air conditioning humming as it pumped cool air throughout the house—a constant during a Florida summer. I opened the window anyway. The Holmes family lived in a modestly large home in a gated community just a block from the ocean. I breathed deeply and felt the salt air filling my lungs and clearing my sinuses, mixing with the aromas from breakfast downstairs. If I didn’t have an alternate agenda, I could spend my whole summer in this paradise.

  After several deep breaths of ocean air, I quietly closed the window and got ready to go downstairs. I thought I would have breakfast and take a drive over to the old neighborhood to scope out the house. When I made my way downstairs, I discovered plans for my day had already been arranged.

  “Ummer fobs,” Zach announced through a mouthful of eggs and toast.

  “Excuse me?” I slid into the chair next to him with a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a plate of eggs and bacon.

  “Summer jobs,” Zach clarified, “Mom and Dad say we have to get summer jobs. We have to be working college kids.” Zach smiled. His parents had money, but they worked for it, and Zach had been working a part time job for his car as soon as he was fifteen and old enough to get a job bagging groceries.

  “Really? Already?”

  “Yep,” Zach chugged down his juice and picked a piece of pulp from between his teeth—something he wouldn’t have done had I been any other girl.

  I took a sip of my juice and played with my eggs. This was not how I intended to spend my summer.

  “It could be fun. Besides, it’ll be nice to have some spending money.”

  “What are you going to do?” I looked at Zach, not really keen on the idea of cash flow at the moment.

  “I’m gonna work on one of Dad’s construction sites. You know, he wants me to learn the business.” For a brief moment, Zach looked crest-fallen, but it passed quickly. His father wanted him to take over the family construction business sometime after college and settling down with the right girl. Zach had no interest in taking over the business at the moment, and we both knew neither of his parents was going to force him into it. Besides, Maggie was the business guru. She may only have ten years behind her, but she already had big plans for the family business and other ventures.

  “So, do I need to go out job hunting today or will any day this week do?
”

  “Actually,” Zach’s mom, Patti, interrupted, “You have a couple choices.” She turned the stove off and joined us at the table. David was already at work, and Maggie was playing outside before heading off to summer camp for the day.

  “Oh.”

  “Well, Jade, we are looking for someone to work part-time in the office. You know, filing, making copies, that sort of thing. You could come to work with me every morning. Or, David says they need someone to hold the traffic sign at one of his worksites. What do you think?”

  I could not picture myself doing either one. If I went to work with Patti, I would be working in the same office Aunt Lynn had worked in with the same people she had worked around. I would go to work every day and get those pitying glances and sympathetic tones. A shallow person might work that to her advantage. I could work there and hardly work. I knew of at least three women there who would do whatever they could to take the pressure off poor, orphaned Jade, but I couldn’t deal with that on a daily basis. Working for David was better money, but then I would be standing in the hot sun everyday holding up a sign telling cars to either stop or drive slowly. I would be working with lots of dirty, sweaty, construction-worker men, and although many of them were very nice, many others made sure they lived up to the stereotype. They wouldn’t hit on me—practically David’s daughter—but I would have to listen to their catcalls and crude comments every time a decent looking woman walked, biked, or even drove past the site.

  “Those are both very generous offers,” I began.

  “But they aren’t jobs you would like,” Patti finished for me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Jade, but you know we’re not going to let you come home and just take it easy for the summer. This has nothing to do with your situation, and I don’t expect you to pay rent or anything like that. Zach has to work, too. It’s about building character and responsibility.”

  She had no idea how much character and responsibility I had cultivated in the last week.

  “I know. Let me go down to Marble Slab Creamery and see if I can get a job there, like last summer. If not, I’ll take you up on one of your job offers, okay?”

  “That sounds fair enough, Jade. I’ll even give you until Wednesday. You’ll need to know which job you’ll be doing by then because we are going to have to advertise for both positions if you won’t be working either one.”

  I finished my breakfast, scraped my plate, and loaded it into the dishwasher. I could head down to Marble Slab, check out my job possibilities, and then go scope out the old house.

  I threw on my flip-flops, standard Florida summer wear, and grabbed my keys, but Patti stopped me and made me change into “good first impression” clothes. I tried to explain since I had worked at Marble Slab last year, it wasn’t really a first impression anymore, but she insisted. I ended up wearing a floor length black skirt with dress sandals and a white, sleeveless blouse with layers of light, airy fabric cascading down the center. It wasn’t the type of clothing that was going to get me a job at an ice cream parlor, but Patti was satisfied. I took a change of clothes with me in my bag.

  When I got to Marble Slab, I realized almost immediately they did not need my help. A slew of new high school recruits were working the counter, and three more sat filling out applications. Toby, the manager, saw me walk in and waved, so I walked across the store anyway.

  “Hi, Toby,” I smiled at him, “I don’t suppose you need any help this summer?”

  Toby gave me a weak smile and shrugged his shoulders, gesturing at the kids being trained behind the counter.

  “At the moment, I’ve hired all I need,” he began and then dropped his voice several octaves lower in a conspiratorial tone, “but you know a few of these newbies will quit after a couple weeks. I can call you when that happens.”

  “Thanks, Toby, but Zach’s parents said I need a job by the end of the week.” It looked like I would be holding a sign for the construction company after all.

  “Well,” now Toby leaned towards me as if the ice cream shop had informants waiting to catch a tidbit of the latest plot to take over the competition’s frozen yogurt business. “My cousin works down at Kilwin’s, and I think they are still looking to hire someone for the summer. I’ll put in a call.” Toby gave me what he must have thought was a sly wink. The teens filling out applications had not paid attention to any of this, but I whispered anyway.

  “On St. George?” I asked with a hint of disdain in my voice.

  “Ahh, touchy about tourists? Beggars cannot be choosers,” Toby smiled at me again and handed me a scrap of paper with his cousin’s name on it. I would let him think it was the tourists. It was actually the witches. There were so many of them who congregated around historic St. Augustine. Most of them were witches who were eager and happy with their blessed life. I didn’t think they could spot me; I was fairly certain of it since we had lived near the historic district, but Chase’s words still haunted me. I thought it best to stay as far away from them as I could.

  I sighed. Maybe sign holding in the Florida sun was my destiny after-all.

  “Thanks, Toby.” I smiled at him and turned to leave. The oldest of the girls behind the counter was trying to explain the process of mixing toppings in with the ice cream on the marble slabs to two younger girls and a boy. They were all intent on learning their new jobs, and their auras were bright and bold with the excitement of finally being able to earn their own money. Two of the boys who were filling out applications seemed to stare at me and whisper as I walked out. Their auras were both a bluish gray.

  It seemed suspicious, but there really wasn’t anything I could do about it. If they knew I was a witch, I couldn’t call them out on it. If they were just surmising the situation between Toby and I and the job on St. George, I didn’t really need to cause a scene about that either. In the end, I smiled politely at them as I walked out and hurried to my car.

  I decided, despite the larger percentage of witches in the historic district, a job inside a candy and ice cream shop would be less conspicuous than a job standing on the street holding up a traffic sign. I headed over the Bridge of Lions into the historic district. As always, it was impossible to find parking on the main streets, so I weaved up and down side streets until I found an empty spot with a parking meter. I put in two quarters and walked towards St. George Street, ignoring the auras all around me and focusing on the goal of finding a job.

  By the time I reached Kilwin’s, known more for the fudge they make in the front portion of the store than their ice cream, Toby had already phoned his cousin who had talked to the manager for me. The interview was more like an introduction and a confirmation I was the same Jade who had worked for Toby last year and was a model employee. It wasn’t much of an interview, and when it was over, I found out they wanted me to start right away.

  “Do you have other clothes?” asked my new manager, Dan, looking suspiciously at the dressy clothes Patti had insisted upon; I did not look like the model ice cream shop employee.

  “I have a change of clothes in my car,” I informed him with as much positive energy as I could muster. I hadn’t wanted to start a job today. I wanted to find a job and then scope out the old house. Now I would be stuck working all day.

  As I ducked out of the store and into the wall of heat the summer day had already concocted, I noticed a dark-skinned girl with the longest hair I had ever seen sitting on a wooden bench just down from Kilwin’s. She looked up at me, smiled, and looked back down at her book. I stared for just a moment. Her aura glowed the most unusual colors, especially in the summer heat. It looked cool and refreshing, blue like the water of my lagoon. Around the blue aura glowed another color, luminous like a full moon on a hot summer night when it is not quite white and not quite orange. The kind of moon you have to stop and stare at, no matter what you are doing. I felt as if in a trance, staring at this beautiful girl.

  Someone brushed passed me as he made his way down the street, and I br
oke free. I had never seen anything like her aura before, so I knew she could not be just a regular person. She must be a witch, and I would have to check myself to make sure I didn’t give away what I was by stupidly staring at other witches in the middle of St. George Street. I hurried to my car and grabbed my clothes. When I got back to Kilwin’s, she was gone. I worked until the store closed at eight, and then I drove back to Zach’s.

  Before I knew it, my summer fell into habit. Up before dawn with Zach for a run before he left with his dad. Back to bed for a few hours. Even though I knew I had things to do, sleep could not be denied. Then breakfast and in to work to open up the store. It turned out that Kilwin’s needed a lot of help, but somehow, people kept quitting or getting sick or leaving town. They really had no luck with keeping a staff. Nearly every day, I helped open the store, worked until close and left exhausted. Every day, I saw the same strange girl reading outside Kilwin’s at least once. I never spoke to her, but she smiled at me often.

  A few mornings, I kept myself from going back to bed after my run with Zach and drove past the little brick house Aunt Lynn and I had lived in, but I hadn’t scoped it out quite enough to determine the habits of anyone living there. There were never any cars in the driveway, but the lawn was neatly trimmed and there were never any papers piled in the driveway like so many empty houses often accumulate. Most importantly, I had not found a night both off from work and away from Zach’s family where I could creep into my old backyard and dig until I found whatever my aunt had left for me. So I settled for a while with practicing little spells and starting fires in the Holmes’ practically unused fireplace when I had a little time to myself in the mornings. The problem with using an unused fireplace to start a fire using my talents was that I had to clean up everything and make it spotless again. Occasionally, a flame leapt out and singed the carpet. I’d clip the little burnt edge with a pair of scissors to cover up my activities.