Ember Burning

by Jennifer Alsever

  “You know my mom,” I whisper weakly.

  “Of course, how could I forget Dezi?” she says, clucking her tongue a couple times. “She could have had it all. What a shame.”

  The words crush me. I killed her.

  My mind runs like a blender, spinning up thoughts of hiding, screaming, fighting, dragging Chris by the arm and running. Afraid, I take a step backwards to make a run for the door. “Ember,” the woman says, several paces away. “No need to run.”

  “You have nowhere to go,” Zoe adds, standing behind me, a majestic soldier. She puts a hand on my shoulder, and immediately, that terror diminishes. The lovely Zoe intoxication returns. The creepy cool air, the dark tunnel, the lines of mannequins with hoods—they don’t bother me. The fear floats away. In its place, that delicious pulsing massage to my brain. My drug.

  Xintra moves so close that even in the dim light, I can see the pores in her white skin. Her eyes are sea green—rolling ocean water. In the candlelight, her hair shines a deep flaming red. She is made of fire and water. Her face is serene and relaxed, studying me, delivering the same damn pulsing energy that makes me want to curl up and take a nap.

  “I think Ember would agree she is broken and she’s ready for rebirthing to begin,” Zoe says from somewhere nearby. Her voice ripples in my mind.

  I can’t decide if she’s correct. If I’m really broken. The elephant crushes me into tiny, jagged pieces. Zoe peeled back all the layers of Hardened, Bitchy Ember to see the real me. The me who is vulnerable and weak and looking for something to numb and erase everything. I’m tired of running inside a cage. This life is too much.

  “Ember.” Xintra’s voice sounds milky and sweet, rippling like a warm ocean wave. “You will shed your skin. You will have power. You will be someone who matters. People will love you.”

  I try to imagine what that would look like, whether I could really be somehow transformed into someone important. I cannot picture it.

  “You came here for a reason. You were lost,” she says. “And we found you. You were broken. We will fix you. You came to the light and you will reemerge a god.” Her oceanic voice is huge in my eyes now, the rolling green blue its own swirling design. It’s powerful, hypnotic, beautiful. Waves lapping at my feet.

  Yes. I was lost.

  Yet somehow in the midst of this, I can still hear that small, distant voice inside my mind, screaming—a violent tantrum, throwing furniture and breaking dishes in a faraway room. Visions flicker through my mind, a carousel of pictures, feelings, colors. Tre’s chocolate voice. His kiss. The feeling of him writing his name on my heart.

  “No…” I stammer.

  I hear a faraway banging on a door and a muffled voice. Tre? The thought of his smiling eyes and those spectacular kisses explode in my head. I have to fight for us. But the thought is immediately erased by a memory of his sulky face and the invisible wall that went up around him just a half hour before. He could never love the real me.

  I can hear Xintra whispering to Zoe in a hushed murmur, something about being too early, and gift like her mother’s. But the words move like jelly in my mind.

  Xintra circles me, dragging her finger along my shoulders, her touch like a feather’s. Her voice fills the room with a singsong chant. It’s hypnotic and rolling and lovely. The voices of the cloaked mannequins join in a low, rhythmic chorus. The sound fills my Color Crayon Brain with shiny black ripples, so beautiful and powerful, like a magical midnight symphony.

  Maybe Xintra’s plan will be good. Maybe forgetting will be good. Maybe this will make everything better.

  “You can finally forget,” Zoe says over the humming. Her voice is velvet, wrapping around me like a warm blanket on a cold night.

  Xintra and Zoe move like water around me, their hands guiding me farther into the tunnel to a smaller room with uneven floors. My feet follow their direction, but the voice in my heart speaks up, reminding me to stay true to myself. “I don’t want to forget,” I murmur.

  Or maybe I do.

  “You will shed your skin like a serpent and find the light,” Zoe says from behind me somewhere. “You will see that with our way, your world will be better.”

  I don’t need Perc. I need Trinity’s drug. I want to forget.

  Fog floats along the floor, moving in billowy clouds up and around my body, slowly eliminating everything from view. The fog is alive. It’s breathing. And, maybe, it’s replacing my own breath.

  The fog becomes drenched in color, floating pinks and greens dancing around me in a swirl of lasers. A forest of light. I am alone now and watch as if outside my body, drugged and entranced by the spellbinding flicker of the candles in the fog, moving in an array of colors.

  Then I see only red, and in my mind’s eye, the color transforms into a memory. The red parka worn by Mom the night of the accident. The color of splattered blood. The color of police lights.

  Mom’s voice echoes around me. “Ember.”

  Is that in my mind? I turn my head to search for her voice.

  “I hate you, Mom!” It’s my own voice, rippling around me, like a recording of me shrieking from the back seat the night of the accident. “You’re sad and pathetic. You wallow about your stupid paintings instead of getting up and doing something real. Everyone says you’re crazy in this town, and you know what? They’re right! You are fucking crazy.”

  I had pushed those words to the back of my mind for more than a year, and now hearing them again, they slice me now just as they did her back then. I loved her. I admired her. I wanted her to be happy, and she never was.

  Now, Mom’s entire face is before me, just as it was that night.

  Her grimace is like a photograph imprinted in my brain. My words rip into her, tearing her apart. Her mouth drops open, her face contorts.

  Mom’s grip loosens on the steering wheel. The flash of headlights. The squealing of tires. Dad’s terrified shout. The soundless, slow-motion roller coaster moving weightlessly through the air, somersaulting. The slamming jolt as we hit the ground, followed by the tearing and ripping of metal as we flip over and over and over down the hill. The air grows still. I hang upside down by my seat belt. “Get help,” Mom whispers, her voice sounds raspy and weak.

  I’m shaking Dad. I’m touching Mom’s bloody face. I’m unbuckling my seat belt, pushing the door, crawling out into the snow. I’m halfway up the hill when the sound of crunching metal and squealing tires explodes in the air. A black car sails off the cliff above, soaring like a bird before crashing down on our car. Metal crunches metal. I lurch back down the hill, screaming, begging.

  Grief sits heavy on my whole body, a thousand elephants this time, as I lie splayed on the dirt floor. I sob, panting loudly, a crumpled mess of bones and skin.

  I made that happen. I killed them.

  The elephant. The elephant. Nothing can take away the elephant… nothing but Trinity.

  I hear Xintra’s voice. “Look upon this broken girl, ye gods, transfigured souls and spirits of the dead.” Her voice vibrates, as if giving a sermon. “Thine spirits of the dead will say ‘Here I am!’ and you will take her place. She will be mine. She a slave and I the master.”

  Fight. The word comes tearing across the highway of my mind, but after a moment, the sound of the lapping ocean waves blocks it out. I watch the word, the feeling, the shimmery red power of it float up into the sky. I grasp for it with my fingertips, but they only brush the edges before it floats out of reach.

  I lie there unmoving, an empty vessel of a person, until this strange world begins to slowly transform into a white waving and pulsing light, a place where my body becomes weightless and invisible to me. Floating. Humming in my ears. Something cool runs up and around my arms like rushing water. Something soft and billowy wraps around my legs. A metal taste fills my mouth.

  The chanting continues, softly at first and then louder. Printed patterns of color spool in front of my eyes. Oil black. Blood red. Chrome silver. The sound of a yummy, dark tune. A pop song.
Then a quiet, beautiful sound rings over it.

  “Oshun. Your name is Oshun.” A quiet pulse echoes in my ears, sending a wave flowing through my body. It’s delicious and pleasing.

  I want to hear that name again. My name.

  “Oshun. Powerful. Oshun.”

  No, Ember, no. Don’t let go.

  The pulse again. I love the pulse. I love the name. My name.

  Please, say it again.

  The story continues…

  Get Oshun Rising: Trinity Forest Book 2! http://amzn.to/2z6fcRM

  * * *

  PLUS: Unlock extra digital content about Trinity Forest: videos, see the Crazy Woman Notebook, quizzes, character pages and more. Tell me where to send the goods.

  www.TrinityForestSeries.com/find-out-the-scoop

  Acknowledgments

  This story would not have made it out of my head and onto the page without the help of so many people:

  Kate Angelella, whose hand is so clearly etched on this book. Your guidance, queries and encouragement transformed Ember Burning and the Trinity Forest series. This is our book. Thank you!

  Corey Ann Haydu, prolific author of OCD Love Story, who mentored me, who encouraged me and shepherded this story from inception to end. You helped me craft the vision and helped me take this from a dream, a whacky idea, to reality.

  Anne Cunningham, Ingrid McGinley, Jaimee Rindy, Bella O’Donnell, Paige Lubich, Jacob Beauprez, Kelly Dwyer, Eliza and Saphira Klearman and Amanda McHugh who took the time to read and give me invaluable insight as early readers.

  To the Pizza Girls: Brianna Young, Chantal Willoughby, Montana Gubrud, Tyler Beckum and Jaimee Rindy, who generously offered me a small but perfect window into teen lives.

  A heartfelt thank god to Jessica Gardner, whose red pen and profound attention to detail found all the flaws in this story. Brilliant.

  Caroline Teagle, whose talent and creativity gave birth to unique cover designs that finally made everything real. You went out of your way for me.

  The people at Reedsy.com, who opened up the world of indie publishing to me and offered me access to the pros.

  Family and friends who listened to me talk ad nauseam about Ember and friends. My parents, Judy & Nick Alsever, who always encourage and support me. Last of all, but most of all, Kevin O’Donnell, my husband, my best friend and biggest cheerleader. You breathe life into everything.