Soul Fire

by Nancy Allan

  “Does Ashla look as bad as you?” Her head shot back up, her eyes a pinpoint focus on mine. Now for the other foot. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that you’re bad looking. I meant you look so . . . hurt.”

  Her focus softened and her voice was a little more audible. “Ashla got it just as bad, but like I said, we got away, which was amazing, considering what they were capable of doing to us.”

  It was my turn to stare. “The police think they’ve found the guys who did it.”

  Celeste nodded. Meanwhile, the part of my brain that was processing the unlikely connection of Celeste from therapy living next door to Ashla Cameron was giving me grief. Bells were going off. Something was wrong with this whole scene. Something didn’t add up. I cleared my throat. “Have you lived next to the Camerons long?”

  She swallowed. “Always.”

  “Always,” I repeated. The bells were clanging now. “So you are close friends?”

  She ran both hands through her hair. “Yes,” she whispered. Her focus shifted out to the sidewalk behind me and I looked over my shoulder.

  The golden red hair almost stopped my heart. Ashla Cameron was walking up the sidewalk, head down, as though deep in thought. I swung around on my crutches and stepped off the porch, hurrying toward her, my eyes fixed on her. She was wearing skintight jeans and a fitted sleeveless tank, her small feet in black flats. Her bare arms were a soft white against the thick red hair that bounced golden in the sunshine. Her walk was fluid and graceful, her demeanor thoughtful. I could barely breathe and stopped, spellbound, twenty feet from her.

  She almost walked right into me. Startled, she looked up and those sparkling green eyes met mine. Recognition. Then, her expression changed to panic. She threw a glance at Celeste, then back at me. Suddenly, she darted past me and literally ran from me.

  “Hey, wait! Come back.” I started after her. My legs were getting stronger every day, but running on crutches was beyond the scope of my therapy. The right crutch hit my leg, the other crutch caught, and I went down heavily on my right knee. Pain shot up my leg and I gritted my teeth. Still hoping to catch her, I worked the crutches back into position and tried to get my other leg to lift me up. Two small hands reached out.

  “Let me help.”

  Looking up, I found myself staring into those beautiful eyes and was struck by the tenderness in them.

  “Put your weight on me,” she instructed calmly.

  “I’m too heavy.”

  She slid her slim body under my chest and said, “Now, stand up.”

  I had a flashback to the pool. The clipped, concise way she gave instruction. The soft musical voice.

  “Is it your knee?” she asked, helping me upright.

  “It’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  She carried my right crutch and I held her tight as we limped toward my truck. My arm was around her, my chest against her shoulder. I wanted those moments to go on forever. She stopped beside the Expedition. “I can drive you back home, if you like,” she offered.

  I was surprised. “How do you know this is my truck?” There were other vehicles parked on the street, although mine was the only one in front of her house.

  “It’s kind of obvious.” She pulled away from me and I saw that she had used makeup in an effort to hide a dark bruise that covered her left cheek. Gently, I touched her chin, tilting her head in the sunlight. “The attack was on the news,” I explained. “I came by to see if there was anything I could do.”

  She put her hand on her forehead and turned away. “There’s nothing anyone can do,” she said with finality.

  I could see she wasn’t anxious to invite me into her house, so I opened the passenger door. “I’ll buy you a coffee.”

  She shook her head. “No, thanks, but I can drive you home . . . if you need me to.”

  “I’ll be okay.” My knee was sending pain spiking up my leg, but it still worked. “Please. Let’s go for coffee. I owe you one.”

  She hesitated. “Not likely.”

  “Hey,” I put my hand on her shoulder and turned her to me. “I’ll never forget what you did that day on the West Face. You kept it together and saved my life even though you were badly injured yourself. I don’t know what’s going on at your school, but it has to be stopped. Please, get in. We need to talk. Besides, I’ve waited months to buy you a coffee.”

  She pulled away. “I can’t.” She put her hands on each side of her face in distress. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.” She turned and walked away.

  “Please!” I called after her, but she was already racing up her porch steps. “Ashla!” Then she disappeared inside the house. The front door slammed shut behind her. I was staring after her dumbfounded and confused when I heard footsteps on the walk. Celeste was walking purposefully toward me.

  “Let’s go have that coffee,” she said.

  We ended up going through McD’s drive through and parking in the lot. I looked across at Celeste in the passenger seat. She sipped her coffee thoughtfully and I waited, sensing she had something on her mind. My window was still down and the unusually warm breeze filtered through the truck.

  Eventually, she said. “Ashla is my best, so I can’t explain her to you. That’s for her to do, if she chooses. What I can do, is describe what she’s gone through from the day she piled into you on Blackcomb Mountain.”

  The tongue-tied Celeste vanished before my eyes and was replaced by an intelligent, well-spoken girl. She gave me a detailed, succinct rundown of everything that had happened to Ashla, from the rejection of her own swim team and school friends, to the taunting, poking, and pushing which escalated into a beating, a serious head injury, and finally morphed into hate sites on the web which had posted nasty comments and photos of Ashla. “It’s been a sheer, living hell for her,” Celeste added.

  My reaction went from shock to horror and finally to outrage as Celeste wrapped up with a blow-by-blow description of the attack across the street from their homes. Fury churned my gut. I shook my head in disbelief. “All because of that ski accident.”

  Celeste put her empty coffee cup into the cup holder in the center console. “Yup. That one thing started this whole nightmare. Of course, she took out the most popular guy at Mount Olympic. I mean, you have super star status at school. Anyway, she’s now open season for the predators.”

  “But these are just school kids.”

  “Maybe you’re immune from them, but there are some real sickies at our school.” She leaned toward me in earnest. “Truth is, they’re in almost every school in America. They pick their prey and feast off vulnerability. I mean, do you know of anyone, beside yourself, who hasn’t experienced this kind of thing on one level or another? How many of us get through the school system without being targeted in some way? Sometimes, like in Ashla’s case, it gets started and never stops. It grows and grows until it takes on a life of its own.”

  I was not only taken aback by this new, forceful Celeste, but by the sorry reality she had painted. A memory surfaced. Nine years old. New hockey skates. I’d taken them to school because I had a practice at four o’clock and needed to go directly to the arena after school. Walking across the grounds, my new skates over my shoulder, five kids jumped me from behind. I rubbed the scar on my temple. They had beaten me senseless and taken my skates. My parents transferred me to another school the next day.

  “Hello?” Celeste was looking at me expectantly.

  I rubbed my temple. “What if I go to school and explain what really happened?”

  “And what? Tell everyone to lay off?”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Mako, Crip, Raptor, Rand, and others like them do what they do because they were born cruel, or they have serious mental challenges, or both. Either way, those kids aren’t right. They’re different from you and me, Justin. Their brains function differently. They’re unpredictable and scary. To make things worse, they seem to bring out the bad in normal kids and before you k
now it, they're joining in on the name calling, snide remarks, and pushing. Then of course, there's the chick who sticks her cell camera under a bathroom stall and clicks off pictures. Add all that up, and you’ve got a huge portion of the school turning on one girl.” Celeste twisted her hair around her finger . . . her words on fire.

  She wasn't finished yet. “For you and me and those like us, it’s a matter of choosing how we deal with the situation when this happens in front of us. We are outside the problem. We can either ignore it and be glad it’s not us . . . or we can watch . . . and be glad it’s not us. Either way, we’re powerless to stop it or to prevent it.” She twisted a blonde curl around her index finger. “Cruel rules. Unfortunately.” She turned in her seat to face me squarely. “I’m open to suggestions too.”

  I considered her summation. “Pretty grim.”

  “Welcome to the real world.”

  “There has to be some solution.”

  “She can try another school or move away, but even those extreme actions don’t get rid of the revolting websites.”

  “Yeah. I heard about them.” Mole had brought me up to speed. “How do you find out who put them up?”

  “It would take someone with more skills than anyone I know. And as long as those sites are up, Ashla will never live a normal life.

  I considered that. “Destructive, poisonous sites that literally decimate a person and change their entire life.” I shook my head. The enormity of it was surreal. I put my paper cup of cold coffee into the cup holder next to Celeste’s. “I can’t believe that there’s no fix for this.”

  She exhaled in frustration. “I love Ashla like a sister. If there is a solution, I’d be all over it. Not a single day or night goes by that I don’t rack my brain trying to think of one. I come up dry every time. Meanwhile, things grow more dangerous by the week. Someone, probably Mako, tossed a Molotov cocktail into a friend’s living room and destroyed his mom’s home. There was the attack on Ashla and me the other night. Who knows what’s next. I fear for her. I fear for all of us.”

  So do I, I thought bleakly. “If kids are pissed off because of what they think Ashla did to me, I can set them straight, maybe erase some of the anger, make them see it differently, see what she really did for me.”

  Celeste considered that. “I don’t know. We need to think that through. It might help. Probably couldn’t hurt. But we’d need a strategy. Let’s give it some thought and talk again, but whatever we do, I don’t think we want Ashla to know about it yet. Maybe not at all.”

  I dropped Celeste back at her house almost two hours later. She stepped from the truck and leaned over to look back at me through the open passenger window. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Thanks for giving it to me straight.”

  She pulled her long hair back off her face, “I don’t know if you realize it, but Tuesday is our last hydrotherapy session.”

  That brought me back to the present. “I’d forgotten.” I studied her, reassessing Celeste. Mole said she was called the Golden Goddess. Now, I could see why. Not only was she golden and statuesque on the outside, but inside, she had a heart filled courage, defined loyalties, dedication, and a deep love for family and friends. She was living on the edge right alongside Ashla without hesitation, never failing her best friend. Celeste had just dropped me into their dangerous, complicated world. It shouldn’t be like this, and I felt responsible.

  Studying the houses where Celeste and Ashla had grown up, I tried to understand the connection between Celeste and Janine. It just didn’t dovetail. I visualized Janine with her dark hair and brown eyes. Then I visualized Ashla with her golden red hair and striking green eyes. There were definite similarities in appearance and tone of voice. “So, how do you know Janine?” I asked.

  “Same swim team,” she replied and walked away.

  Ashla

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I escaped inside the house, slamming the door behind me, and then collapsed against it. For all my planning around Justin and his therapy sessions, I had overlooked the idea that he would suddenly show up here. Walking home and seeing him on the sidewalk right in front of me had been a huge shock. All I could think of was escaping.

  Throughout all the therapy sessions, my biggest worry had been Justin learning my real identity. My plan pivoted delicately on keeping that from him. I considered what had just happened, my thoughts on a slow motion re-run. Had he noticed any similarity between ‘Janine’ and me? Hopefully not, but even if he hadn’t, he must have been shocked to find that Celeste lived right next door. That alone might have been enough to trigger a connection, if not now, then possibly in the near future. Would he leave here troubled to the point where he could no longer ignore the obvious conclusion? Was there any chance that I had managed to escape before he saw a resemblance?

  I was trying to sort all this out when my grandmother’s piercing voice dumped me back into the present with a thud.

  “He came to the door,” she announced. She surfaced in the hallway wearing a terry robe and a towel twisted around her head. Crossbow was reclining in her arms, eyeing me warily, his long, ropey tail swishing nervously back and forth across her robe. I had forgotten my grandmother was home.

  “I didn’t open it,” she proclaimed.

  I blinked, relieved to hear that, and began processing this new angle to my escalating problem. What would have happened if she had? What could she say to him? Did she know enough to give me away?”

  “That was the hockey player, wasn’t it?”

  I didn’t reply. The less she knew, the better.

  “Well, wasn’t it?” the scratchy resonance of her voice, like nails on a blackboard, sent shivers down my spine. It even seemed to bother the cat. He jumped from her arms and rubbed around her ankles.

  I pushed off the door, kicked off my shoes, and swung past her. Bony fingers gripped my arm and she yanked me around to face her. “Speak when you’re spoken to, Young Lady. I won’t tolerate your rudeness!”

  I plucked her hand from my arm. “And I won’t tolerate yours,” I retorted. “If you want a conversation, speak to me politely. And in the future, keep your hands to yourself.”

  Her jaw dropped. She seemed to laser me with her pinpoint vision. I turned the corner and was halfway up the stairs when her voice flooded the stairwell. “I didn’t open the door because I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I know you help him at the pool. Got to wondering how you managed that. Couldn’t see the guy wanting you around after you broke his legs, so I figured that was why you got the wig and those brown things for your eyes.”

  I looked down the stairwell at my grandmother. Sly old woman. Always meddling. She was the last person I needed in the middle of this.

  Her voice softened. “Nice of you to do that for him.”

  I made a face, but no comment.

  “Saw you talking to him on the sidewalk. Does he know it’s you at the pool?”

  I turned and bolted up the last steps and had just made it to my room when she added, “What are you going to do when he finds out?”

  Reality hit like a bucket of ice water. I had been avoiding that very question. What would I do? I had to figure that out fast because there was a good chance Justin would put it all together . . . if he hadn’t already.

  I closed my bedroom door and called Celeste. She didn’t answer and without a cell, I couldn’t text, so I checked my computer for messages. Yes, there it was. She had gone with Justin for coffee.

  I could barely think straight for the next two hours and paced relentlessly in front of my bedroom window, watching for them to return. I tried to imagine their conversation. Celeste would never give me away, but how would she handle it if Justin suspected the truth and started questioning her? By the time the Expedition re-appeared along the curb, I was a wreck. I ran downstairs and peeked through the front door sidelight waiting for the truck to pull away. The second it did . . . I rushed outside.

  Celeste saw me and met me on the porch. We sa
t on the top step. She said, “Don’t worry, Ashla, he hasn’t figured it out.” She paused. “Yet. But he’s sure confused. He just might get it before Tuesday.”

  My worst fear. After the accident, I had made a promise to myself. I would help him walk again. Not hobble. Not fall over on his crutches. Not limp. But walk, like a normal, fully functioning healthy human being. My commitment to the hydrotherapy sessions would end Tuesday, but Justin and I had developed a friendship that would allow me to continue to help him. I had even imagined leading him onto the ice in time. I couldn’t let anything stop me. “What did you guys talk about? You were gone over two hours.”

  “You.” She clarified, “Ashla Cameron. Not Janine.” She gave me a rundown of the conversation. “I pretty well told him everything that has happened to you since the accident.”

  I wasn’t happy. “I don’t like him knowing all this. I don’t want him to patronize me.”

  “He knew about some of it and asked me to fill him in. He wants to help you, Ashla. He even offered to go the school—“

  “No!”

  She shrugged. “Might help. We need to lighten things up on that front.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?”

  “Not at all. After being attacked by those two thugs the other night, I’m terrified of what could come our way next.” Celeste turned to me. “Ashla, think about it. If those guys, or their friends come back, they’ll make sure we don’t escape a second time.”

  I closed my eyes. I knew that. “We have to be so careful. All of us. We need to look out for each other. ”

  “Exactly. That’s why I’m coming with you tomorrow to John Huntley High. We’ll be new girls together. Give each other moral support. It will make the transition easier for you. Not only that, I can drive you. It’s almost ten miles up there.”

  Celeste . . . always thinking of others. The gesture humbled me and I hugged her.

  “Hey,” she said after a moment, “it’s no big deal. Changing schools will be good for me too. It’s getting pretty nasty at Mount Olympic.”