Phoenix Flame

by Sara Holland

The door opens, and there he is. Dad lights up as soon as he sees me, his weathered lips parting in a big grin. He pulls me into a hug, the familiar smell of home cooking and faint cigarette smoke wrapping around me.

  “Maddie.” He steps back and holds my shoulders at arm’s length, like always when I get back from Havenfall, and his eyes widen as he takes me in. “You look …”

  I blink, unsure what he’s going to say. I know I haven’t gotten taller since he last saw me. Haven’t gotten a haircut or anything. But I do feel different. I feel like everything that’s happened this summer—the Silver Prince, losing Brekken, the Solarian door opening, Marcus falling ill, becoming the interim Innkeeper, blood and violence at Havenfall, Taya, Nate—has changed me on a molecular level. I didn’t realize the change showed on my face, but somehow I’m not really surprised either.

  “I’m okay, Dad.” I smile at him, feeling the weight of everything that’s changed since I last saw him.

  The realization hits me with a thud. I can’t tell Dad that Nate might be alive. There’s too much to the story he can’t know, since he doesn’t believe in magic or Havenfall or Realms. But it feels wrong to keep that hope from him. Nate was Dad’s family too. His adopted son.

  “How was your trip?” Dad pulls my backpack from me and leads me through the house into the kitchen. “Marla had a shift, but she sends her love. And she got pancakes started for us.”

  Sure enough, a mixing bowl and pan sit in the sink, and pancakes are piled on a plate on the counter. The kitchen is clean and flooded with sun, and two glasses of orange juice and mugs of coffee sit on the small, weathered table. A familiar haze, mixed nostalgia and loneliness, settles around me as I sit down at the place settings Dad has laid out.

  “How’s Marcus?” Dad asks as he busies himself getting pancakes for both of us. He knows Marcus has been sick, but not more than that. “I know I wouldn’t want to come down with anything in that little town. Does Haven even have a doctor?”

  “Unclear,” I say with a laugh. “There is a guy that the people of Haven go to with aches and pains, but I’d be shocked if he actually has a degree. Luckily Graylin took good care of Marcus.”

  “And what about you?” From across the counter, Dad’s eyes zero in on me, narrowing in good-natured suspicion. “Have you been studying for your SATs like I asked? Are you still dating that guy Brock?”

  “Yes to studying. And his name’s Brekken.” I feel my cheeks redden, not knowing how to answer his other question. It’s not like I could go on normal teenager dates with Brekken, being that he’s a soldier from another world. And there’s no way I’m telling my dad about the kissing. Anxious to change the subject, I ask Dad, “How’s Marla?”

  Marla is one of Dad’s favorite subjects, so the question is enough to set him off on a long, adoring tangent about how Marla is up for a promotion at the hospital. And just like that, things feel normal again. Well, almost normal.

  The thing with Dad is, I once tried to tell him about Havenfall’s magic and the Adjacent Realms. It was when I was a little kid, and he nodded along with me, asked questions, seemed to take me seriously. But then I overheard him on the phone with Grandma Ellen later, laughing. You should hear the stories she tells, Ma. The imagination on her, I can’t believe it sometimes.

  He didn’t really believe me. He was just pretending.

  While I know Dad didn’t mean anything bad by it, the wounded betrayal I felt at that moment is still burned into my mind. Yet even so, I still find myself wanting to tell him what’s going on with me, or at least as close to the truth as I can. So I do, picking my words carefully and twisting the story a little: how Marcus came down with a horrible flu and I had to run the inn in his absence, how reports of a mountain lion on the grounds were freaking everyone out. How Brekken’s soldier training—in my story, he’s started basic training in Wyoming—kept him distant, but a new friend, Taya, helped distract me. And that she had to leave the inn early for a gap year.

  Dad follows along with bright eyes, nodding and hmm-ing and asking questions that I then have to improvise answers to. I don’t know why I don’t just outright lie to him—that would be a lot easier—but the truth is, Dad is my best friend outside of Havenfall, lame as that may be. I want him to know what’s going on with me, even if it’s a simplified, watered-down version of the truth.

  In turn he tells me of the drama among his neighbors in the home park (debate over the same leaf blower I can hear in the distance now), my grandma’s insurance company (it’s doing well), and Marla’s problems at work (an overbearing new fellow nurse who’s competing with her for the promotion). Normal, everyday problems, and hearing about them makes me feel more normal. It’s not that they’re simple or unimportant—just that no one will die if the other nurse rubs Marla the wrong way, no worlds will be closed off if someone’s leaf blower is too loud. This is what life is supposed to be like, where not every moment is a balancing act on a tightrope, and not every moment can lead to catastrophe.

  So why do I miss the inn so fiercely? Why, even as I speak, do my eyes stray out the westward-facing kitchen window, as if I might be able to make out the mountaintops beyond the orderly slopes of our neighbors’ roofs?

  Here, life—at least my life—is safe and predictable and lonely. No one expects anything of me except to stay out of trouble. Dad and Marla love me, but they spend most of their time at work, and I don’t have any other friends to speak of (perks of being the Murder Girl). It’s easy to let the days pass, but each one is more and more stifling, and I’m terrified that if I can’t have Havenfall, this is all that my future will hold.

  It’s an uneasy reminder that Marcus has a point. As much as I want to drop everything to hunt down the soul traders and bring them to justice, if the Silver Prince takes Havenfall, I’ll have nothing at all left.

  “Got something for you,” Dad says, breaking into my spiraling thoughts.

  I look up at him, trying not to let my alarm show in my eyes, the darkness of my thoughts. “What’s that?”

  “Follow me.” He pushes back from the table and leads me outside. I follow, trying not to let my sudden panic show.

  We head around back, where Dad’s usual handful of car projects shelter under a plastic roof. He stops by his old green Toyota Camry—the one he used to drive before the engine gave out a couple of years ago. It’s a little rusty around the edges, but clean, the paint shining under the late morning sun. The car has been fitted with new tires.

  He tosses something at me, and I catch it before realizing to my surprise that it’s keys.

  “What is this?” I ask dumbly.

  Dad shrugs modestly, but he can’t help but grin. “I fixed ’er up. I was planning to sell her, but … when I heard you were coming home, I figured you could use it more.”

  “Wow. This is amazing!”

  I stare at the Camry in shock, wondering what made my dad give up on his long-held rule-slash-bribe that I could get a car when I went to college. What expectations will counterbalance the gift? But whatever they might be, I’m not going to turn down a car. I grin and give Dad a hug. “Thanks so much, Dad.”

  “My pleasure,” he says, beaming. Then the smile dims a bit. “I figured you could use it tomorrow, so you don’t have to take that early bus. You know how I hate you riding when it’s still dark.”

  Dad knows that I’m planning to see Mom. I told him when I originally called from Havenfall to arrange the visit. Just like he doesn’t like my going to Havenfall, I know he’s not a fan of the fact that after all these years I’m still going to see Mom at Sterling Correctional Center. He doesn’t understand why I’d even want to—after all, he thinks she’s the one who killed Nate. But he’s never tried to stop me or talk me out of it. He’s respected my choice. And now …

  Unexpectedly, a gust of emotion hits me and my eyes fill with tears. Dad doesn’t know why it’s more important than ever that I talk to Mom. He doesn’t know about Solaria or the soul trade. And yet, somehow, wheth
er through sheer luck or some kind of fatherly intuition, he still came through for me right when I needed it most. Overcome, I wrap my arms around him in another tight hug, one that he’s not expecting judging by the oof he emits.

  “Thank you, Dad,” I whisper, letting myself feel hopeful for the first time since the meeting in Havenfall’s kitchen. “Thank you so much.”

  5

  Sterling Women’s Correctional Facility is familiar in the worst way. I have been here so many times for so many years, and yet it never changes. The parking lot feels as flat and endless as purgatory. The guards at the gate all wear the same mirrored sunglasses that hide their faces and show you yours instead, small and warped and scared when you drive through the checkpoint. The barbed wire along the top of the fence curls high and even, stretching as far as I can see. Everything is gray—the ground, the walls, the uniforms—and rather than making the blue of the sky pop, all that gray seems to leach the color out of it, like the earth is infecting the heavens, or feeding off it. This place is enough to make you forget that magic exists. Enough to scrub all the individuality out of you. Here, I’m just another inmate’s kid, scared and lost and desperate.

  A dark thought pops into my head. If Mom’s sentence is carried out, will they take her somewhere else or kill her here? I suppress a shiver. I haven’t been checking my emails to see if there are any updates from Mom’s public defender about her death sentence. The last few years have been a depressing parade of appeals and reprieves and all sorts of administrative hoops in the public defender’s attempts to give my mom more time. But it’s almost scarier not to know what will happen next; to have the ax hovering overhead, but not know when it will fall.

  The motions to enter the prison are rote for me now. After all these years, I bet I could do them in my sleep. Go inside into a barren entryway where everything is concrete or metal. Stand there awkwardly while a bored-looking guard with chapped, bitten lips paws through my backpack, then calls over a female guard to do the same to my person. I stand still, try not to act tense or worried—though I’m very aware of my body, the tightness in my shoulders, how weird my hands feel hanging limp at my sides—and wait for it to be over, having learned long ago that any attempts at small talk would only result in an annoyed look and stony silence. The guards are efficient, but a place like this must burn any kindness out of you.

  Eventually it’s over and I’m escorted to the visiting area. Just a long, off-white counter bolted against a wall of scratched, clouded plexiglass, with plastic dividers separating each slot and metal stools similarly bolted to the floor.

  I settle down on the uncomfortable seat. Mom’s not here yet, so there’s nothing to look at but the faint shape of my reflection in the plexiglass, like a ghost emerging from the bare cinderblock. I search my reflection for the difference that Dad saw in me earlier. So much has happened since the last time I came here. But I just look pallid and sickly and small, same as always, same as everyone here.

  A few minutes later, Mom emerges from the back door that leads to the cell blocks, and for a moment our reflections line up and overlap in the glass. Beyond the limp braid and haggard stress lines, she looks like me. Has my sharp chin and round eyes. One brown, like mine, and one green. She’s my mom. My heart jumps, and this, too, is familiar. The moment of hope when everything else falls away and for a moment I forget about the plexiglass, I forget where I am, because my mom is in front of me and that’s all that matters. For a second, all I can think about is how much I’ve missed her.

  Then the rest of it comes into focus, the jumpsuit and dead eyes, and the hope crashes down. But I force myself to hold my mom’s gaze, to smile, because things are different this time. I’m not helpless. She doesn’t have to protect me from the truth anymore. I lean forward as she slumps down on the chair on the other side.

  “Maddie,” she says. “It’s good to see you. How’s Havenfall? How’s Marcus?”

  She sounds exhausted, her voice scraping out of her throat. I tell myself that’s a good sign. Better tired than totally affectless. “He’s … fine,” I say, and have to stifle a despairing laugh at how disconnected we’ve become, how much I’m not telling her. I hate lying to her, but when we only have a half hour before the guards turn off the intercom, there’s no time to waste, not when there are things I need to say. “Mom, I have to tell you something.”

  She blinks. I guess that’s all the acknowledgment I can expect, so I go on, lowering my voice. “I know Nate was taken … I know what really happened to him.” It feels strange and shocking, even still, to say those words out loud.

  Finally, a spark of life. Mom’s eyes widen for just a second before snapping back to blankness. “What do you mean?” Her inflection is robotic, even more so than usual.

  “I found out about the silver. The soul trade.” It’s hard to keep my voice down so the guards won’t hear; I want to yell the words, let them spill out. “I know the truth about the Solarians. That they’re not evil. That Nate was one. Is one.”

  Finally, Mom reacts, rocking back in her seat. Her eyes are round and alert. Her hands come down to grip the edge of her chair.

  “He might be alive, Mom.” Hope feels like a balloon inflating inside my chest, pressing against my ribs. It’s almost painful. “I’m going to try to find him. And take down the soul trade. I know why you said you killed him, but you don’t have to lie anymore.” A bit of a laugh escapes me. “I know you wanted to protect me from the traders, but trust me, I made enemies of them all on my own.” I take a deep breath, trying to cram all the complicated feelings I have into the short, simple words. “Take it all back. Tell everyone you’re innocent. Please. I need you alive, Mom, not dying to protect me. I need you to help me find him.”

  The change that’s come over her is complete. It’s like she woke up, like I’m looking at a different person. Her eyes are big and bright, her back straight, her lips parted. But the expression on her face—I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect guilt.

  “I didn’t kill him,” she says. “But it is my fault.”

  The words are pins in the hope balloon. The painful pressure vanishes, replaced by an even more painful vacuum. “I don’t understand,” I say blankly.

  “I failed,” she whispers.

  I think of her name on Marcus’s list of “hosts,” and my heart breaks a little. Of course. It was her responsibility to protect the Solarian boy she adopted; of course she blamed herself when he was kidnapped. I think of how guilty I’ve felt for all these years simply because I stayed frozen in the cupboard during the attack. How much worse must it be for Mom?

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I’m going to make it right.” Never mind that I have no idea how. “Do you know who kidnapped him? What are their names?”

  She shakes her head. “Maddie, you can’t take them on alone.”

  “I’m not alone,” I promise her, and pray that that turns out to be true. “I have Marcus. I have Brekken, Graylin, Sal—”

  “They’re more powerful than that.” Mom drops her head. Her eyes have a haunted look, like she’s lost in memory. “There was a reason Marcus and I worked in the shadows. We didn’t want anyone we loved to get hurt. But even that wasn’t enough to keep you kids safe.” She raises her head and fixes me with a look that feels almost like a glare. “I don’t want you playing hero with the soul traders. They’re dangerous.”

  “I know that,” I say, trying hard to take even breaths and stay calm, not wanting to draw the guards’ attention. But it’s hard when frustration is mounting in me every second. “Mom, it’s not like I’m going to barge in on them Rambo-style or anything. I just need a name. Just a place to start.”

  I didn’t expect her to resist like this. I thought that I’d be bringing her hope, in the possibility that Nate is alive. It didn’t even occur to me that we wouldn’t be on the same page. Why doesn’t the idea fire her up like it does me? My frustration overflows, and I snap, “Don’t you want to find him?”


  The stare Mom fixes on me isn’t like her usual expression during these visits. It’s not dead or empty—but even fully present, it’s still bleak and cold, absent of hope. “We don’t know that he’s alive. The traders are cruel.”

  That hurts to hear, but I don’t let it dissuade me. “But how can you stand not knowing? Don’t you think it’s at least worth looking into?”

  “I don’t want to lose two children.”

  That shuts me up. I stare at my mother, reeling, trying to figure out what to say next. But to my surprise, she goes on, slightly softer.

  “We’re not meant to love people from other worlds,” she says in a low voice, the last word trailing off in a whisper. Like she’s trying to be gentle but doesn’t quite remember how. “We can’t save them. We can’t follow them. It’s better to just keep our heads down.”

  How can she say that? I stare at her, stunned into silence. Coming to Sterling Correctional, the long boring drive, the invasive search—as depressing as it all is, I felt hope on the way here that I hadn’t felt in years. Hope that my mother was finally going to come alive, and we’d save my brother together. But now I feel that hope slowly being snuffed out inside me. “Are you saying I was—I am—wrong to love Nate because he’s a Solarian and I’m a human? He’s my brother.”

  “No—just …”

  Mom shifts in her seat, and I register a flicker of twisted satisfaction that I’m making her uncomfortable. For ten years she lied to me about what had happened to Nate, sat here in safe silence while I tore myself apart with grief and guilt.

  “I’m not saying—” Mom seems flustered, a bit of color rising to her sun-starved cheeks. She shakes her head, her ragged braid swinging from side to side. “It’s because of love that the traders found us.”

  I blink. “What do you mean?”

  Mom bites her lip and turns her face away. But there’s just a blank wall there, nowhere else for her to look except at me. And in a sick moment, I’m grateful for it. I want her to be forced to meet my eyes. I want to understand.