The Fire Artist

by Whitney, Daisy

  But I don’t have the money yet. That’s the problem.

  We run through our morning drills, the standard stretches and sprints, then we break out into our packs, air artists in one spot, wind artists in another. I move with the fire artists, and we run through our tailored drills—the fireballs, the plumes of flames, the arc of fireworks high overhead. We all peel off these moves as if they’re second nature, because they are.

  But at the tail end of practice a fireball skitters away from me. Mattheus grunts, tells me to pay more attention. I nod, like it’s just a gaffe. Then my chest tightens hard, like a fist gripping my heart. Another sign that the unwinding is near. Soon I’m going to spit up all my sputtering fire, only this time it’s taken me less than two months to come undone, and this time the consequences are far worse.

  I manage to fake my way through my fear, like I’ve faked my way through most of my life. I make it through the final ten minutes without flubbing any more moves, and it’s enough to give me a speck of hope that I can pull off tonight’s show without any problems.

  Gem and I are about to leave and grab something to eat when Raina appears in the locker room, her sculpted arms on display in a sleeveless silk top. I imagine inking her bicep with a cartoon cat stretching its back luxuriously. But the cat’s tongue will stick out. It will have forgotten to pull its sandpaper tongue back into its mouth.

  Raina says nothing, just walks close to us. Her nose twitches when she passes me. It’s as if she’s smelling me.

  “Let’s go get those sandwiches,” I say to Gem.

  After we eat—I opt for a salad instead of a sandwich, back to my good-girl ways—Gem stretches out her leg across mine. She’s wearing shorts, and she points to her muscular thigh. “Now.”

  I take a pen from my backpack, lean over, and begin drawing a don’t-mess-with-me daisy. This daisy scowls. This daisy would wear a leather jacket and light matches on the bottom of her boots. This daisy would toss her desk over in one fell swoop to knock out a bully.

  As I color in the petals, Gem presses for details of my date.

  “We kissed,” I say, grateful to tell her, and then I’m suddenly sharing all details, and I sound like a schoolgirl, not a badass daisy, and definitely not like the fire thief who on her last night in Wonder made out with a guy whose name she didn’t know.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Taj.”

  “Cool name,” she says. “Where’s he from? It’s kind of unusual.”

  “Not here,” I tease.

  “Obviously. But where?”

  I mention Taj’s home country. “His family is from there. But they’ve been here for a while.” A white lie, but it’s close enough.

  “So does he go to school?”

  School. Such a foreign thought. But those of us who haven’t graduated yet—like me—will be tutored come fall and go to school a few hours a day.

  Thinking about the fall reminds me of other things about the fall. Like where Taj will be. Where I’ll be. What will happen to him if I wish for myself. What will happen to Jana if I wish him free.

  Because I’m going to have to make my wish soon enough.

  Sooner than I want.

  Hi. It’s starting again. I can’t wait till August. I’m sorry.

  I’m sorry. I would swim to New York right now if I could.

  Xoxo, Elise

  At the show tonight, I ignite several magnificently tall flames that reach for the sky, that dare to stretch to the stars. I unfurl a series of successively larger canopies of fire that rain over my head, causing gasps and cheers among the thousands here. Then I unveil my twin, my heart and lungs twitching with nerves. What if I lose control of her again? But she behaves, mimicking me as I craft two plumes that howl and hiss and coil around each other. Hers do the same. Then the tip on one of my streaks of fire snaps off. No warning, no shudder in my heart to tip me off. Just a careening, crashing flame that turns into a very ordinary-looking fire when it hits the ground.

  I do what I always do.

  Improvise.

  I fall to my knees and coax the fire back to my hands. Even though I’m fading, I somehow find enough in the reserves to turn the flames back into an arc above me. Then I see my twin. She’s started to wander away from me, heading into the audience. Some stare at her in shock, bend away from her.

  I close my hands and kill my twin.

  They cheer. As if I meant to do that.

  I take a bow, and I see Imran is in the front row again, and he doesn’t look as happy as he did last night.

  Gem and I walk to the dressing room in silence. Words are bottled up in my throat. I want to tell her how I feel, to admit that this insufferable fire is choking me from the inside out. That my fire is sick and twisted, but I don’t have time to say that, because Imran is waiting for me. I can’t read his expression—whether he’s upset or concerned.

  His arms are crossed and his honeyed voice is bare as he tells me, “Aria, we need to talk.”

  Gem meets my eyes, tries to ask silently what’s up and are you okay? But there’s no way to answer and no way to know. All I can think of is Reginald Cramer, the boy from Chicago who was made an example of by the Leagues. Will they make an example of me too? Or will they shoo me away, shut me up, a hush-hush case they won’t want talked about? The thief who slipped into the system.

  Leaden and heavy, I follow Imran, a prisoner being escorted to her own trial.

  I have feared this moment for so long, and now it’s here. I’ve ridden my chances to the edge, and now I have to pay.

  “For starters, Raina has told me you are clean and I am pleased to hear that. I know someone with your abilities might have been tempted to use and to enhance them, especially seeing how powerful your creations are. And we’ve kept a close eye on you, given your family history.”

  The last few words are pointed and cutting. It seems unfair to my brother that they’re eyeing me suspiciously because of him.

  “But that’s not why I called you in tonight. I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  I swallow, a nervous animal backed into a corner. But I steady myself, keeping my feet planted firm, my hands at my side, my head held high. Whatever he says, I’m going to take it. I’m going to take it like I know how to take bad news. I brace myself, ready to hear the words Reginald Cramer heard.

  “It’s about your brother.”

  All that steadiness rushes away. I feel blindfolded and turned around. What is he talking about? “What do you mean?”

  Imran continues. “There were some new car bombings in Winter Springs. He was caught in the act.”

  My brother. My wild and careless brother. The brother I looked up to, the brother I loved, the brother who should have protected his two little sisters but in the end couldn’t even look out for himself. I picture visiting him in prison again, talking to him through bars. My eyes grow hot and prickly, tears forming behind them. I try to blink them back, but one tear slides down each cheek.

  I will miss him like crazy.

  I have always missed him.

  “Ordinarily, I’d give you some time off. I’d even arrange for a flight and let you spend a few days with your parents. But I really think it’s best for you if you stay here and focus.”

  Imran doesn’t want me near my brother. He thinks my family is tainted, that they’ll rub off on me, on the Girl Prometheus. “Sure,” I say, just to say something.

  “I know it’s hard,” he continues. “But we believe in you, Aria. And even in spite of your family history, given all the things that they’ve done, we want you to stay and we know you can rise above.”

  “Of course,” I say through tight lips that want to quiver, through eyes that want to pour out tears.

  Soon he dismisses me, and I check my phone to see that Xavi called and there’s a message too telling me he’s sorry and he hopes I’ll come visit him in prison.

  My mother answers. I imagine her expelling a withering oomph as she reaches for the phone,
a plaintive sort of moan to underscore the gigantic effort of making a movement.

  “Hello?” Her voice is wavering. I suppose learning your eldest child is going back to prison for the rest of his life would be a little unnerving.

  “Hey, Mom. It’s me. I just wanted to check in on you. I heard the news.”

  She gulps and I hear tadpole tears in her throat.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” I’m sitting on a stoop, on the steps outside someone’s Upper West Side apartment building. The stoop is dark brown and the paint is cracked. The windows on the first floor have green shutters, and are dirty.

  “Ohhhh.” That’s the only sound she makes. A sad and defeated ohhhh that loses steam.

  “Are you sad?”

  It’s an obvious question. Of course she is sad. But in my family, we have to ask the obvious question if we even want to circle the answer.

  We talk about Xavier some more, and she cries deeper tears this time, big sobby ones that swim upstream through rivers and fling themselves on shores. I tell her it’s okay, that she can cry with me, because I have a feeling she doesn’t cry in front of my father.

  “I wish I could be there right now. Do you want me to come visit? I can see if I can get away for a weekend or something,” I say, even though I know I can’t.

  “Of course I do, sweetie. But your father’s gone for his fishing trip, and I’m sure you’d want to visit when he’s in town.”

  I snort. Hardly. This actually sounds like the perfect time for a visit, if only I could get away. “How long is he gone?”

  “For about a week.”

  “Does he even know about Xavi?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he went away anyway?”

  “Well, there’s nothing he can do about it, honey.”

  “Except maybe be there for his son, but that’d be too much to ask,” I say, kicking the ground with my boot, wishing it were my father.

  “Oh, darling. Don’t say that about your father. He loves Xavi.”

  “Yeah. Well,” I say, and suck in a breath. “Are you sure you don’t need me? How are you managing on your own?”

  “You need to focus on your job now. Don’t worry about me. Never worry about me.”

  “I always worry about you, Mom.”

  She is small and shapeless. A tiny stain in her papasan chair.

  “Hush, that’s silly.”

  “How’s Jana?”

  “Oh, you know,” she says, as if that constitutes an answer.

  “No. I don’t know. How is she? Her birthday is coming up soon, Mom. Her thirteenth birthday. We’re going to know soon if she’s something.”

  “Yes, in a week. Her birthday is in a week,” she says, stating the obvious, avoiding the implications.

  That’s her answer? “Mom, how is she doing? Do you even see her? Is she staying with Mindy a lot, like she’s supposed to?”

  She must be shifting in her chair, squirming. Tough topics make her uncomfortable, and in this moment I want to lash out at her. She never used to be like this. She always used to talk, to answer, to teach. She taught me to read, to ride a bike, to look both ways when crossing the street. She used to be somebody, she used to be strong. Now she says nothing, does nothing. I want to tell her that right now she’s as culpable as my father.

  “Mom,” I push. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “She’s hardly around, Aria,” my mother says, snapping at me, backed into a corner by my insistence.

  “Is she staying with Mindy?” I ask again. “Please say that’s where she is. Please, please.” I don’t know how much more I can hate myself for leaving her there. But if I have to, I can surely hunt down more self-loathing. Because this is all my fault.

  “She’s always at the pool or the beach, and when she comes home she won’t talk. She goes to her room and slams the door. So there. I have failed her too. She won’t talk to me. She won’t tell me a thing. My son is in prison, my youngest won’t speak to me, and you’re the only one who cares.”

  A tsunami of tears comes next, waves of self-loathing from my mother, her admission—out of the blue—that she has failed.

  I make some soothing sounds, telling her it’ll be okay. But it won’t be okay; she can’t fix my sister, she couldn’t help Xavi, and she can’t stop my father.

  Then my mother surprises me with what she says next. “Jana was leaving for the beach yesterday and I tried to talk to her, I tried to ask her how she was doing. I even got up. I made it to the door, but, Aria, I opened the door—”

  “You opened the door?”

  I haven’t seen her near the door in years.

  “Yes, but I couldn’t make it past the door. I tried to step outside, but it was as if there was a gust of wind that blew me back inside.”

  “A gust of wind?” Maybe she’s going crazy.

  “And then I just felt as if everything had gone dark and black, and I fell down, and when I came to, I dragged myself back to my chair.”

  What kind of gust of wind would knock her out?

  25

  Cooling Effect

  As my boots pound the sidewalk on the way to a grate on Sixty-Sixth Street, I have to fight this flickering inside me. It’s like I have a nervous tic the way my shoulders seize up, but it’s because my chest is an accordion, pinching and stretching all the organs inside it. I’ve never been around so many people when I’m in this state, all raw and exposed, a human body painted on a poster in science class with insides shown and labeled.

  “And this, class, is the dangerous part,” the teacher would say, her pointer aimed at my drawn and quartered heart.

  I keep my head down, my hands laced behind my back, my fingers twisted around each other, so I don’t unleash any flames. I want to sneer and bark at anyone who walks past me, to shout at them to get away, to ask why they’re out at this hour. But it’s New York. It’s not Wonder, Florida, where I can wander around in the wee hours without being seen. Besides, it’s my newfound darkness that makes me feel so mean.

  As I round the corner and turn toward Lincoln Center, to the grate Taj and I picked to meet at, I breathe out this coiled tension, but it has nowhere to go, so it filters back into me.

  I reach the grate and call out to Taj.

  He appears right away. I picture him racing through the tunnels, a rock being slung out of a slingshot, called forth by his wisher. He pops up the grate and asks if he can come up.

  “Of course,” I say, but I don’t smile, because I think it’s awful that he can’t emerge without my permission.

  Then he’s beside me. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” I say, and feel a little less awful. There’s an awkward moment, as if neither one of us knows what’s next and whether we’re allowed to repeat last night, or whether we return to the way it was before. Then he moves first, leaning into my lips. I close my eyes, and his soft lips are on mine. With each second that ticks by, I can feel my chest loosening, a knot unwinding. My body doesn’t feel torqued, and I realize it’s because of him.

  He leans his forehead against mine and asks the simplest of questions. “How was your day?”

  It melts me that he wants to know, and it melts me again that I want to tell him how absolutely awful it was.

  “Crummy,” I say, stepping back and resting against the concrete wall that hems in Lincoln Center behind us. We’re ensconced in a quiet little nook off the street, a semiprivate corner that makes me feel as if we’re alone. “Yours?”

  “It was good. I read a book.”

  “What book? Wait. Let me guess. Something fancy,” I tease. “Moby Dick? Ulysses?”

  “Mock my taste, why don’t you?”

  “I just did.”

  “I read a thriller. Espionage and government secrets and stolen identities across Europe. See, I have a wide range of tastes.” He pauses, then the teasing recedes from both of us as he touches my cheek.

  I take his hand and put it on my chest. His palm is warm against my skin, and his touch shoots
sparks through me. He raises an eyebrow.

  “Do you remember when you first put your hand on my chest?”

  “Of course.”

  “I liked it a lot,” I say, and I know it comes out shy sounding, and it’s not because I’m a shy girl, it’s because I’ve never let myself be vulnerable.

  “Me too.”

  I place my hand over his, closer to me, covering my heart. “But it’s more than just that when you touch me. Because a few minutes ago, all I wanted was to set the world on fire. And my chest hurt, like my bones were being squeezed. But when I’m near you, I don’t feel that way at all.”

  I always thought I’d squirm if I ever told a guy I liked him, if I ever truly opened up to someone. But maybe that’s because every boy I’ve ever known has been too much hometown, and home is what I’ve always wanted to leave.

  “When I’m with you, I feel free,” I whisper, and now I am vulnerable; now I have let down my guard. Instinct tells me to flee, but I resist.

  “I feel that way too, Aria. When I’m with you, I feel free too.” The words are heavy because, of course, he’s not free. He can’t be free unless I set him free. And here I am again, circling the same problem, arriving at the same answer. There are no more nights of waiting one more night to wish. I have to wish tonight. The prospect of losing him pierces me.

  “Hey,” he starts, shifting the conversation in another direction. “Why was your day so crummy?”

  He takes my hand and we walk around the front of Lincoln Center. I feel unmoored again, now that we’re not kissing or touching. I have the faintest desire to flick my fingers, to unleash a few sparks, and I know the contact with him has only cooled me momentarily. I am a steaming teakettle that was taken off the burner for a minute, but now it’s been re-placed and the dial has been turned back up.

  Reprieve doesn’t last for long.

  We reach the front of Lincoln Center and sit on the marble steps. I tell him about my day, about my brother, about the call with my mom, about what I think is going on with Jana. Taj stops me when I mention what happened with my mom, how she tried to open the door but couldn’t.