Fury's Fire

by Lisa Papademetriou

  Opening her palm, she let the flame settle inside, then quickly closed her hand. The flame snuffed out.

  “You’ve learned something,” Mafer noted.

  Gretchen turned to face her. She had forgotten that her friend was in the room.

  But Mafer didn’t look surprised. “That’s good.”

  “I’m not sure how I did it.”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  Gretchen turned away, and Mafer placed a gentle hand on her back. “Gretchen, this thing … it’s never going to leave you alone. It’s seeking you. I could feel its hatred.” Gretchen looked into her friend’s face and read the terror in her eyes. “It’s not going to stop.”

  “Then I’ll have to stop it,” Gretchen said simply.

  “Do you think you can?”

  “No,” Gretchen admitted. “But I have to try.”

  The sun had gone down by the time Will and Asia neared the farmhouse. Gretchen was waiting for them on the steps. She had left Mafer inside. She wanted to face Asia alone.

  Will dropped Asia’s hand as Gretchen approached them. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and the sky was darkening fast.

  Gretchen said nothing as she walked up to Asia. She looked into those green eyes, luminous as sea glass. Asia looked back at her, unflinching, and Gretchen felt the familiar drop in temperature that came whenever she was close to the Siren.

  “Leave us, Will,” Asia said.

  “What? No.”

  Gretchen turned to him. “Please, Will.” But he just shook his head. She sighed. I should have expected that, she thought. She knew it was hopeless—there was no way she would get him to leave them alone. But she guessed it didn’t really matter. What she had to say to Asia could be said in front of Will. “Why are you here, Asia?” Gretchen demanded.

  “To help you.”

  “Really?” Gretchen looked at Will, who was frowning at her. He shook his head slightly, almost in warning. But Gretchen ignored him. “Why should I trust you?”

  Asia smiled a little then. “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “That’s wise.”

  Gretchen felt her heart clench. The darkness around them deepened and grew. “Are you saying that I shouldn’t trust you?”

  “I’m saying that you shouldn’t trust anyone, Gretchen.”

  “Gretchen—” Will began, but an unreadable look came over Asia’s face. Gretchen steeled herself just in time—with movements like lightning, Asia leaped toward Gretchen, unleashing a primeval shriek.

  Gretchen clawed at Asia, and a flame shot from her fingers. But Asia’s reach missed Gretchen. Instead, the Siren crashed against a human form that had just come through the door, knocking her from the steps to the ground.

  Gretchen’s ears rang with Asia’s scream of agony, and a moment later, pain coursed through her own arm. A gleam of silver flashed in the near-darkness. It took several seconds for her mind to process what was happening. Mafer and Asia struggled on the ground. Mafer was holding a knife; her eyes glowed gold.

  Gretchen had started toward them when the truth turned her cold. Asia hadn’t been possessed by Circe—Mafer had.

  Will shouted as Asia wrestled the knife from Mafer’s hand. It clattered away, and Will ran to pick it up. Asia slammed her arm across Mafer’s throat, choking the life out of her.

  “Stop!” Gretchen screamed. “Asia, stop!”

  But Asia didn’t hear, or maybe she wasn’t listening. She landed a knee on Mafer’s chest, then another, and Gretchen watched as Mafer’s face began to turn blue. Her friend would be dead in moments if she didn’t do something.

  Lightning tore across the sky in a jagged streak as Gretchen leaped onto Asia. The Siren shook her off, but Gretchen leaped again. Lightning exploded nearby, illuminating the cloudless sky for a fraction of a second. Gretchen tore at Asia until the Siren’s arm came away from Mafer’s throat.

  Mafer took a heaving gasp, then opened her mouth wide. A steady stream of dark mist, thick and oily as rank smoke, poured from between her lips. It hung there for a moment. Something slammed into Gretchen. She twisted and writhed, trying to get a hold on the thing, but it slipped through her fingers like shadow.

  It has its own form now, Gretchen realized. In the moonlight, she saw something like fierce teeth, and the creature lunged at her, piercing her shoulder.

  Gretchen screamed in pain.

  “I can’t see it!” Will shouted as the cloud shadow dragged Gretchen across the yard. Asia raced forward, but the creature flung her backward.

  Gretchen fought, but the vapor was powerful, and she felt its desire—the desire to drown Gretchen, to snuff her out like a candle flame and rule in her body.

  Desperate, Gretchen tore at the ground, clinging to the rocky surface. But with a powerful heave, the vapor slammed her against a tree. Beside her was the water trough the goats drank from.

  Pain shot through Gretchen as she struggled to her feet. The cloud-shadow landed noiselessly beside her. Gretchen ran to the left, but the creature pounced, pinning her to the earth.

  Gretchen felt the fire burning through her, like acid in her veins, and a brilliant light poured from her hands. But the cloud expanded and filled, quenching the light, gobbling it up. It reared back, lifting its hideous jaws.

  It plunged forward, and Gretchen felt piercing cold as the thing tore through her.

  And at the same time, Gretchen felt a thickening fog enter her mind.

  She saw Asia leaping toward her, Will behind her, running, too. But Gretchen saw them as if she were looking through the wrong end of a telescope—they seemed small and far away. Gretchen’s ears were full of wax. She couldn’t hear properly—only muffled noises. Her body was leaden, as if it had been dipped in bronze. She knew she was moving, but she had no control over her limbs.

  It was Circe who controlled her now.

  Asia pinned Gretchen’s arms to her sides, but she felt nothing as Asia dragged her toward the water trough. She’ll drown me, Gretchen realized. She’ll kill the both of us—Circe and me.

  But then Will was there. He tore at Asia, trying to pull Gretchen from her grasp, but the Siren wouldn’t be stopped. Asia landed a fierce blow against his chest, sending him sprawling, but Gretchen felt no emotion as Asia pulled at her hair, yanking it back, and made ready to plunge her face-first into the trough.

  But Circe wasn’t about to let that happen. Gretchen’s body struggled away from Asia’s grip, then flung the Siren away, sending her across the grass like a skipping stone.

  Gretchen could feel Circe’s elation, the thrill she felt at conquest. Gretchen was powerless. Powerless, and growing weaker. With every second, she felt her sense of self disappearing.

  Will staggered to his feet as Gretchen’s field of vision narrowed, turning to a tiny pinpoint.

  The moment was passing.

  Summoning all of her strength, Gretchen flexed her mind, and in an instant, she felt herself burning with a light bright enough to cut through the darkness of the universe, like a star. Lightning lit up the Archer fields as Gretchen burned with enough heat to melt cities, enough light to turn night into day. She felt her flesh falling from her. Gretchen felt the pain, but did not feel it. She knew it, but did not mind it. She would die now, this she knew.

  She would die, and so would Circe.

  She remembered all of this as her body flared into flame. She was burning, she knew it, and the shadow inside her reveled in the new power. But Gretchen burned on, burned brighter. And the silver stars above grew larger and seemed to come nearer, and Gretchen felt herself turn white-hot, lighting the field until the ground beneath her was the color of bone.

  Circe shrieked then, and seemed to shrink, and the stars seemed to reach for Gretchen’s fire, streaking toward her like silver rain, like the night of the meteor shower.

  Gretchen burned on, and she screamed in pain, but she was not consumed. She turned her face to the sky, releasing her voice upward, and suddenly a silver cloud appea
red out of the rain of stars. Circe howled at the cloud, but it grew, and Gretchen thought she could see faces in it—Tim’s face, and the faces of others. Dimly, she realized that these were the dead. Tim was leading them, pulling them forward, through the rift between worlds and toward Circe. Circe screamed as they reached down and tore at Gretchen.

  They tore at her body, but she did not feel it. They tore at her and through her, reaching inside, to the shade that inhabited her. Circe resisted—the cloud-shadow clung and sucked at Gretchen, but the arms held strong, and soon they pulled Circe up, up into their cloud. Their silver brilliance erased the shadow, or swallowed it, and then the wind pulled and howled with so much force that Gretchen felt as if her soul were being yanked from her body. The air only served to fan the flames.

  From a distance, she heard Will’s voice shouting something; a word she knew but could not place. Gretchen burned on and on, and only slowly felt the light around her fade, and the stars return to their normal size and recede back into the heavens. She felt herself disappearing. The sky above was dark again, and the field was lit with faraway fires. Gretchen closed her eyes, one arm on the cool grass.

  Someone whispered her name, and she imagined that she saw Will bending over her, weeping. Behind him stood Asia. I would have died for you, Gretchen heard Will say, but she could hardly make sense of the words. I never would have let him die. Never.

  And still, she felt herself diminishing, like a spark into the night sky.

  I am dying, she thought, and there was enough of her left to feel reassurance and even a trace of happiness as her vision closed and everything went black.

  Epilogue

  “Come on, Will!” Angus shouted, waving to him from the ice. His barn jacket was open, revealing a plaid shirt, and he wore a cap pulled low on his head, his curls sticking out madly. His long wild limbs only made it more comical when he glided gracefully across the ice. “Come show us your Disney on Ice moves,” he urged, spinning into a lazy turn.

  “Nobody can compete with Goofy,” Will replied.

  Mafer let out a shriek as Angus glided into her, and they both spilled onto the ice, laughing.

  Gretchen squinted at the blue sky. Cotton-ball clouds drifted across the expanse, seeming unhurried and untroubled. She was resting on a bench beside the lake. Will shifted beside her, as if the cold air was starting to chill him. He put an arm around Gretchen and pulled her closer.

  She wore only a light corduroy jacket and no hat. Her long hair spilled down her back, white as the fresh snow that blanketed the ground, white as the clouds above. She was smiling, watching Will and Mafer goof around, but she had no urge to join them. She was happy here, on the bench.

  Taking off his jacket, Will started to put it around her shoulders, but she shrugged it off. She turned to him, still smiling. “I don’t need it.”

  Will slipped an arm back into his sleeve and shrugged on his jacket. “You still don’t get cold.”

  Gretchen shook her head.

  He touched her cheek with a gloved hand. She put her own bare palm over his and closed her eyes. She liked to imagine that she was warming him.

  There had been no fires, not for weeks. Her room was finished, and she and her father had moved back into their own house, which was finally starting to feel familiar and comfortable. The boxes in the living room were unpacked, and with the addition of new things and objects and books from the Manhattan apartment, her room looked like a place where she belonged. It looked like home.

  Even school had settled down. It had been hard, but Gretchen had almost completely caught up with all of the work she had let slide the first few weeks. Now she had to concentrate on pulling her college applications together—but there was still time. She was considering taking a gap year, anyway. She still had a lot to sort out.

  The kids in the hall had stopped giving her sideways looks, and even the gossip about Kirk was disappearing, now that he’d managed to act normal for a few months. And yes, she was still warm, as if she carried her own fire inside. But she was no longer hot. No longer ready to flame out of control. She had no idea what it meant. Will liked to believe that she had burned through her power, that she was a mere mortal now. Gretchen liked to believe that, too, when she could manage it.

  But mostly she just didn’t know what to believe. Circe, Asia—all of that seemed like a dream, one she could barely recall, could only get a vague sense of. Mostly, it left her with a feeling of relief that it was over.

  But sometimes she caught sight of herself in the mirror and felt a shock at her own stark hair. It had turned white the night Circe found her.

  The events of that night had unfolded clearly for her only afterward, with Asia’s help. Circe had seen her moment—her power was great enough to inhabit a shadow form and attack. Gretchen had burned, burned to ash, burned to death. But she didn’t die—she couldn’t really die, not yet. It wasn’t her time. And in burning and dying and yet not dying, she had ripped wide open the slit in the fabric between the living and the dead. Tim had been there, and an army of the dead—all of the men and women who had fallen to Circe’s power. Their power had flared under Gretchen’s fire, and they had reached down and pulled Circe back into the Beyond.

  Still, whenever Gretchen recalled that night, she felt a sense of vertigo as she tried to piece together what it all meant.

  Am I Tisiphone?

  Am I Gretchen?

  She could get lost in the what-ifs. What if I live five hundred years? What if the power hasn’t left? What if Circe returns?

  She wanted reassurance, a written guarantee that things were going to work out fine. But no one gets that.

  Gretchen looked up at the sky again, imagining the Beyond. She liked to think of Tim there, watching over them. Still loving them.

  She still missed him, and she knew that Will did, too.

  In that way, she guessed, she did have a guarantee. Love is eternal. It’s the only thing that lasts.

  “Is she out there?” Will asked, bringing Gretchen back to reality.

  She looked over at him. The cold had made his cheeks glow, and deepened the blue of his eyes.

  “Do you think? In the depths?” Will turned to face her, and Gretchen realized he was talking about Asia, not Circe.

  “Somewhere,” Gretchen replied. Asia had disappeared two days after that night, and they had not seen her since.

  “She was never comfortable around us. Humans, I mean,” Will explained.

  “I can imagine that.”

  “She was even ready to kill me. And she thought of me as a brother.”

  Gretchen squeezed Will’s hand. “She would have killed me, too. And she was right.”

  Will’s eyes met hers, and she felt their connection like a touch. “You couldn’t have killed anyone.”

  “No.”

  He leaned toward her, pressing his warm lips against hers. It was a soft kiss, lingering and full of love and restrained passion. Will twined his fingers through Gretchen’s long hair, and a thrill ran through her.

  “Oh, God, get a hotel!” Angus shouted.

  Something cold and wet showered over her, and Gretchen realized that Mafer had just tossed a snowball at Will.

  She let out a shout as Will jumped from his seat to grab a handful of snow. In a few moments, a full-scale snowball fight was on. Even Gretchen joined in.

  It was all so easy, so carefree, she couldn’t resist it.

  Just like normal life.