A Phoenix First Must Burn

by A Phoenix First Must Burn (retail) (epub)

  There is nothing left for me to do but to fly into the night, feast, and gain some energy to deal with this at dawn.

  The very old are not as sustaining as the very evil. Vengeance is not in my soul when I find a grandfather wandering the hills at night. I don’t eat the full meal of life force and memories. I take tiny sips or a small bite only, leaving my victim with a fever and shortness of breath. They don’t see us coming, you know. Maybe they notice the light, then the unbearable heat. The older women think it’s menopause. But it is us. We shift from flame, to firelight, to smoke, to heat in seconds. We wrap ourselves around their skin and inhale deep-deep. My inhalations are shallow. I don’t seek death. Then we rise as smoke and shift back to firelight, then to flame, gaining more and more energy as we fly. I pray that my victims survive. Thank Goddess, they have strong, wiry spirits that can bend away from death.

  I am not like the others. I have mercy. I show restraint. And I am not afraid of being charred by the sun, if it comes to that. I am not ashamed of my black fireskin. I know that this is the source of my power, our power. This is why I lead them.

  Still, after my small meal, I aim for our beloved sun. He’s at the tip of the horizon now, and the other soucouyant are waiting for his arrival, too. One of us circles the air with such energy, such velocity that I’m sure it’s with the Don’s soul stirring in her fire belly. It’s Martine. Of course.

  As soon as the sun hits the horizon and the edge of the sky lights up, Martine zooms toward him until she is so close, we can’t tell which is flame and which is sun.

  I begin to lose strength. I can feel my flames becoming smaller, weaker. I let my fireball self fall and fall, until I am firelight, smoke, soul, skin, and finally body. My feet are now firmly planted on the ground. I am upright and half-human again. Half-girl.

  And so is Giselle-in-Stefanie’s-skin.

  We are all back in our own skins now, and some of us have to catch our breaths and gather our thoughts. Only one flame is left in the sky, circling the hill with an anger so hot, she can easily aim for any one of our souls right now.

  So I grab Giselle-in-Stefanie’s-skin to shield her.

  “What is going on?” Veronique asks. “Why are you protecting that yellow girl? She didn’t even race like she said she would. She was down here all this time.”

  Before I can answer, Lourdes appears. Her face tells the story—eyes narrow, lips pursed. “I should kill you!” she hisses, looking directly at Giselle-in-Stefanie’s-skin.

  “I won fair and square,” Giselle says.

  “That wasn’t the game you were supposed to be playing,” Lourdes says.

  “It doesn’t matter. I won!”

  “Wait. What is Lourdes talking about?” Martine asks, appearing before us with her skin darker than it’s ever been. Clearly she won the real game. She kissed the sun. But no one cares, because they’re slowly figuring out what Giselle has done, what Lourdes intended to do, and what Stefanie truly is.

  “Life is the game I’m playing. Life here on this island,” Giselle says, tossing her new long, curly hair back over her shoulders. She looks at her hands and arms as if they are brand-new clothes. “I never wanted to hurt Gerard, really. Or that old white man. He’s done nothing to me. I don’t care. But now . . .” She twirls, whipping her hair around to make her whole self spin like a tiny hurricane. “Look at me! I am pretty-pretty. Now Gerard will love me and only me!”

  The girls gasp and mumble among themselves.

  “Wait, now!” Martine shouts. “She did not . . .”

  “She did,” I say, quiet-quiet.

  But a loud screeching makes us all turn to see Giselle’s actual body speeding toward us. “Give me back my skin!” Stefanie-in-Giselle’s-skin shouts.

  Before I can protect Giselle, Martine pulls me away so that Stefanie lunges straight for Giselle. Lourdes jumps in. I try to stop them, but all my soucouyant sisters are holding me back now.

  “Stefanie, you’ll be hurting your own body, you know!” I yell. “Giselle can always fly out of that skin, and you won’t have one to get back into!”

  “Let them fight,” Martine says. “Giselle has committed a taboo, and she deserves to be punished.”

  “Lourdes planned it all along.”

  “Well, Stefanie should destroy them both!”

  With that, I pull away with such force, I knock three girls down. I aim for the fighting girls who are throwing punches, pulling hair, and are out for blood, skin blood. It isn’t supposed to be this way. We are sisters. Skin sisters.

  I pull Giselle-in-Stefanie’s-skin away and dare the other two to hit me and have to deal with my mother. That works.

  “Why are you protecting her?” Lourdes shouts. “You always protect her!”

  “Because she carries the most pain in her flames and in her skin!” I shout back.

  “And I don’t?” Stefanie-in-Giselle’s-skin asks. “Do you know what a curse that light skin will be? The men . . . the boys . . . And even the women with their jealousies so thick, I can’t even breathe around them. I eat them, you know. Before tonight, I consumed those jealous girls. If I’d known this was what you planned, Lourdes, I would’ve destroyed you, too!”

  “You can’t harm a firefly, stupid girl!” Martine yells back. “I saw your flame. You are a weak soucouyant. Maybe now with Giselle’s black skin you can reach your full potential.”

  “Ey!” I yell louder than all of them. “Stop it! Stop it now! This is a travesty! This can’t be good. Things are going to be bad-bad for us.”

  “As if it hasn’t always been bad! Look at us! We are flames, yes, but this island throws us away like old coconut shells. Useless and ugly, they call us,” Giselle-in-Stefanie’s-skin says. “The world throws us away as if we are a muddied and soiled disgrace. If jealousy and the desire of men and boys are the hardest things to deal with in this skin, then I gladly accept. I will take pretty over ugly any day. Any day!”

  “You were not ugly, Giselle,” I say, reaching for her hand that is not her hand. “Ugly is what the imbeciles on this island say. They all want to be drunk from the rum of the world—white beauty, wealth, shiny things that will choke them if they put them on too tight. You know that is not true-true. What is real is what we are. We are fire, Giselle, and this skin is what protects us, is what gives us our light, our life.”

  It’s quiet for a long moment. This bit of truth settles over my sisters, and I know that I’ve reached her. But then she asks, “Do you like your new skin, Stefanie?”

  Stefanie looks down at Giselle’s shapely body wrapped around her own firesoul. Even without ever getting close to the sun, Giselle’s skin is so beautifully dark, I’m sure it carries the memory of all the powerful soucouyant before her who have gotten close to the sun. “Take it back,” Stefanie says with disgust painted all over her face.

  “I didn’t think so,” Giselle says, looking her old skin up and down as if she’s gotten rid of smelly trash. “And I dare you to try to take this skin, my new skin, away from me. All of you. Watch!”

  With that, she descends from the hill.

  Stefanie-in-Giselle’s-skin doesn’t move an inch, but I know she is plotting. And so is Lourdes.

  I look around at all the deep-brown and black faces of my soucouyant sisters as they watch Giselle-in-Stefanie’s-skin walk away victoriously. From how some of their eyes stare with envy, with longing, with wishes, I know for sure that Giselle has won the game. The big-big game. She did not feast, nor did she kiss the sun. But with Stefanie’s freckled light skin and long, flowing hair, maybe, just maybe, she is the sun to them.

  Next time we shed on the night of the full moon, more of my soucouyant sisters will aim for her, to kiss her, and inhale her firesoul right out of that sunny skin. And still, she will be their unrequited love.

  THE ACTRESS

  By Danielle Paige

&nbs
p; “More tongue,” executive producer Michael Winthrop’s voice screeched through the mic of the PA standing over Reid Hamilton and me on the Hearts Eternal set.

  By the time Rhiannon Heart was fifteen, she’d fallen down a well, fought and won against leukemia, shot a man in self-defense, spent time in juvie, fallen off the wagon, spent time in rehab, and oh yeah, discovered she was a witch and fallen in love with a vampire. But she had never been kissed until two seconds ago.

  I wasn’t Rhiannon. I just played her on TV. I was Gamine Belle, and I had never been kissed until two seconds ago either.

  “It’s supposed to be a kiss that makes every girl at home want to be her. That makes them want to drop their . . .”

  The mic squawked again, and this time, Morgan the PA put her hand over it, preventing me from hearing the end of Michael’s comment. But my brain could fill in the blanks. I was getting notes about panty dropping from a sixty-year-old man in a glass booth a hundred feet away from me.

  Reid shrugged his shoulders and squared his jaw, but thankfully his cheeks burned as red as mine felt. At least he understood the embarrassment, too.

  I was a professional. I had been acting since before I knew what acting was. I had been in commercials for diapers when I was in diapers. I went on to soaps and then finally a primetime gig on the vampire teen drama Hearts Eternal, which had become the number one show for the prized demographic of eighteen to forty-nine.

  The production assistant rocked back on her heels, clearly listening to her headset.

  “I won’t tell her that. You come down here yourself.”

  I glanced up at her gratefully, but as I looked from her to the boy I had kissed and back again, I realized everyone in the glass booth had heard what Michael had said, and the boy I’d just kissed had heard it, too.

  Which was embarrassing for both Rhiannon Heart and me. Both my character and I had major crushes on Reid and his character, Wolfe. I’d had a crush on Reid from the moment I met him, even though I had always been skeptical of those girls who experienced instalove in books. But he smiled at me and I literally felt my pulse quicken, my eyelids flutter. I was smiling without the prompting of my mother or a director.

  “Gam . . .” Right now, Reid said my name, reached for my hand, and squeezed it. I willed the tears not to come.

  “Well, what are we waiting for? Reset. Go again.” I heard Michael’s voice over the loudspeaker. He’d given up on talking through the PA.

  Before Reid and I could respond, Harris Radner blew onto the set, looking like he was one of the cast members’ older brothers. He was only a few years older than Reid and I, and he had piercing green eyes and chiseled features. He had chosen to be behind the camera as a writer-producer, and he was my favorite grown-up on set. He wrote the best scripts, including this one.

  He put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Hey, Michael’s a jerk and a dinosaur. Just focus on Rhiannon and Wolfe. You’re young. You’re beautiful. You’re in love. You’re about to have everything you want . . .”

  I tried to listen to Harris. I tried to dismiss Michael as a dinosaur jerk. But then the mic squawked again.

  The PA mouthed I’m sorry and walked away. I tried to smile back at the PA, but all I could think about was the fact that I’d somehow kissed wrong. And everyone knew it.

  My stomach clenched. What should have been a seminal moment had become my most embarrassing one. The set, which usually felt cavernous, was now claustrophobic. The lights above, which usually barely made a dent in the subzero temps of the set, suddenly felt warmer than sunlight. I thought I was imagining it, but I could see perspiration forming on Reid’s brow. The lights flickered when I looked back at him.

  “Hey, we’ve got this,” he said with a reassuring smile that only increased my anxiety. I looked away. I did not want him to pity me.

  The lights went out again as our director, Marnie, called “action,” but when my lips were supposed to meet Reid’s again, I felt my stomach sink, and the world was suddenly on fire.

  Well, not the whole world, the set.

  When I opened my eyes, Reid was already on his feet and grabbing my hand. I let him pull us away from the flames.

  The fire alarm went off, and Marnie began yelling for everyone to get out of the building.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  While we were standing outside in front of the studio, fire trucks blaring, I could already hear the sound of cameras shuttering.

  It was TMZ or ET or E! or some other show known only by letters. Behind them was the usual collection of fans carrying signs declaring their love for Reid. There were also a few signs rooting for our coupledom, both on-screen and off. Some part of my heart lifted at the sight of my name linked with his—ReGam forever!!! RhiWolfe Afire.

  Today notwithstanding, my character and I and the fans had come a long way since I was cast two years ago. Then there had been an onslaught of tweets that felt a million times more painful than this morning’s embarrassing moment. When it was announced that a brown girl was playing the blonde, blue-eyed protagonist of the New York Times bestselling YA series Eternal Damned, my notifications blew up with threats, insults, and calls for a boycott of the TV series.

  I read the tweets over and over again. To add insult to injury, there was a flash flood on the way home from school just as I stumbled on the tweets. My driver and I barely escaped the car, and I wound up with a sprained wrist. Even as the doctor put a cast on my arm, I couldn’t stop looking at my feed. I knew the script. I’d seen it happen before with everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter. Fandoms could be cruel fandoms. But there had been no way to predict what it felt like to have the hate scroll on your screen, pinging at regular intervals. The words stung even though I knew better. Even though I knew they were ignorant. Even though I knew they weren’t true.

  I stayed quiet at the instruction of my publicist. At the advice of my mother. At the insistence of Michael. Michael was the one who engaged first, defending the choice to cast me, defending my talent. Even though I knew he didn’t really believe in me.

  But it was Reid’s single tweet that stopped the hate storm.

  Gamine is the best thing ever to happen to Rhiannon, to me, and to the show.

  And just like that, the tide turned, and I got more tweets congratulating me than wanting me dead.

  When he came to my apartment to make sure I was okay, I didn’t feel grateful to him, but angry. A single tweet from him had calmed the internet waters. I hated that his endorsement mattered and my words, my being didn’t. And I hated that I had to explain that to him.

  I liked that he noticed I was upset, and that he acknowledged that he saw the difference in the way we were treated, but knew that he couldn’t understand what it felt like to be me. At least he wanted to.

  “Ignore them,” Reid insisted now, not even looking toward the photographers. He took a blanket from one of the paramedics and began to unfold it, but his eyes were still on me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Michael’s a jerk . . .”

  “At least he can’t say it wasn’t hot anymore,” I offered awkwardly.

  “Gam . . .” he said, his voice laced with so much pity it nearly broke me. “If I had known it was your first time, I never would have. . . . we could have . . . practiced.”

  I could feel my cheeks warm. I dragged my fingers through my curls before tucking them behind one of my ears like I did when I was nervous.

  “Hey, it’s okay . . .” he said, pulling me closer to him, using the blanket we shared.

  “I just thought you’d only want to have to do it on set.” Said no girl ever.

  He was freaking Reid Hamilton, and even though I was a star in my own right I was not immune to his obvious charms. Neither was the rest of America under thirty-five.

  “Was I that bad at it?” I asked.

  “You wer
e great. It was great. But I wish you’d told me you’d never . . .”

  “It’s embarrassing. I’m sixteen.”

  “I think it’s sweet . . .”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Hey, you know that there’s a difference between an on-screen kiss and one off-screen—” he began.

  “Yeah, Michael totally explained that to me,” I countered.

  “You’ve seen them yourself—the kiss for the cameras is for the cameras. It’s about making sure that it looks passionate, but at the exact same time, it’s about making sure that the camera gets our best angles. It’s not real. It’s not true.”

  I heard what he said, but it was still my lips on his. My heart beating in my ears. It felt real—even if it wasn’t to him.

  “That wasn’t your first kiss, that was Rhiannon’s,” he said. I was struck by how long his lashes were and how insanely beautiful and brown and deep his eyes were. When I looked into them, everything and everyone else fell away. He didn’t have the square jaw that the other boys on the show had. His face was thin and long and punctuated with a dimple on his left cheek that shot through me every time he smiled. His wavy hair, usually pinned down with gel, was mussed in the hasty exit from the studio. “Whenever you have your first, whoever has it with you will be lucky.”

  Shows like Hearts Eternal were way stations on the way to the big screen, but Reid was all humility. He didn’t seem to take his fame for granted, even though the whole world seemed ready for him to make his big-screen break. For some reason he kept turning down every movie script his agent brought him. He always had an excuse. Too close to Hearts Eternal. Too far from his range. I teased him about being Goldilocks looking for something perfect. But I secretly wondered if maybe it had all been too easy for him. Maybe he was scared life wouldn’t be the same once he got out of the Hearts Eternal nest.