The Fire Artist

by Whitney, Daisy

  He rolls his eyes, shrugs his shoulders, and holds out his hands. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised.”

  “Yeah. I actually am.”

  “Well, that’s kind of a bummer for you.”

  “No kidding. And to think I believed you,” I say, and my throat hitches, but I won’t give in to tears for him. “I believed it all.”

  “That was the error of your ways, Aria,” he says in an admonishing tone. “Because we may be mastered granters, but the real master we serve is the wish to be free. Every day. All the time. Sometimes you do whatever it takes to be free. But you know that, right?”

  He’s kicking me while I’m down. He’s smashing fists and feet and elbows into all the soft parts of me, all the parts that let him in. I should have trusted my instincts all along—the ones that have told me to never trust.

  “Can we please get on with this?” Sorella says in an exasperated voice.

  Barry flicks a long sheet of paper from his hands, unrolling it, a bailiff before the court about to read off the charges. He lowers his aviator shades.

  “According to Wish 5,678,972, made on the evening of August second, exactly seven days ago, you, Aria Kilandros, have agreed to exchange yourself for the granter you received said wish from.” Barry looks at me over his glasses. “That would be granter 542, Taj Rahim. It is now”—Barry lifts his elbow in a sharp robotic gesture—“time to collect upon your payment.”

  Sorella chimes in. “We will take you to your jurisdiction in Manhattan, effectively replacing Taj Rahim from this day forward and placing you in full responsibility for responding to, interacting with, and bargaining on behalf of all granters with any wishers experiencing a need powerful enough to find you on the island of Manhattan. This is your sole jurisdiction, and no other granter shall infringe upon it, and you shall not infringe upon the jurisdiction of any other granter. You will uphold all the rules, regulations, quid pro quos, provisos, and quibbles, recording all wishes in strictest accordance with the Union of Granters forevermore and into perpetuity throughout your servitude, so help you God.”

  Sorella’s face is stony as she reads, but when she reaches the last words—so help you, God—she chuckles. “Assuming there even is a God,” she whispers, like we’re in on this together, as if we’re coconspirators.

  That makes Barry laugh. “Higher authority,” he says with a snort. “As if.”

  Taj joins in, and the three of them are cracking themselves up with their insider granter jokes. I’m one of them now, or about to be, but the joke is on me.

  Soon, the three of them settle down.

  “One more item,” Sorella adds. “You will be allowed one phone call per month during the times when you’re in existence, but otherwise granters are forbidden from seeing their family members. We will escort you to your quarters so that you may begin your new position as granter 892,” she tells me. “You will no longer use your last name.”

  “I’m just going to say good-bye to my mom and my sister,” I say, and I try to push Taj and the way he deceived me out of my mind, even though it’s my whole and healed heart that hurts more than it ever did. I knew we weren’t going to have a happily ever after today, but I thought we’d have a bittersweet good-bye, a moment when he confessed he loved me too. Instead, I am the butt of the joke. I turn to the two people I can truly trust. My mom and my sister. We’ve been saying good-bye all week, but even so, those preparatory farewells could not have readied me for the real one. I find my sister in the kitchen. A tear is sliding down her face.

  I wrap my arms around her, hold her tight.

  “Who’s going to go pool hopping with me?” There’s a hitch in her throat.

  “First of all, I hear it’s cold in Jersey, so good luck with that. Second, Mom will. She’ll swim with you and make it fun again.”

  “Like you did for me,” Jana says.

  “Yeah.” Then I pull back, grip her by the shoulders, look her in the eyes. “You need to listen to Mom, okay? Give her a chance to be Mom again. Do that for me?”

  “I will.”

  “And whatever you do, have fun. You can do anything. Paint houses, make clocks, travel the world. Weave water or don’t weave water. Do whatever you want, Jana. Promise me?” I hold her face in my hands and wipe away one of her tears.

  “I promise.”

  Then I turn to my mom. “Take care of Jana. Don’t ever stop. Don’t ever go back to how it was. To how you were.”

  “Never,” my mom says, the Mom of old, the Mom of new.

  The three of us hug, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again, if we’ll ever have anything more than the phone calls, like Taj had with his mom. I return to the door where Barry, Sorella, and Taj are chatting. Taj looks animated, as if he’s just been telling them a story, and they both smile and laugh before they look at me. Everything is business as usual for Taj. I want to hate him, but maybe I’d have done the same. I looked out for me before I looked out for him. So who am I to judge him?

  Sorella speaks again. “And now we make the exchange.”

  Sorella and Barry each take hold of one of Taj’s wrists, press hard, then let go. I expect him to disappear, to flit away, to flap his arms and be able to fly off into the sky. But he’s now been stripped of all powers. He has no more magic. He’s human, and when Barry and Sorella take my hands, I feel a surge of warmth and of power erupt in my body, as if my veins are flushed of blood and replaced with something else, something liquid that becomes sweet smoke to bestow the greatest gifts at the greatest price.

  “And now granter 542 has been officially relieved of all granter duties from this moment forward. And granter 892 has taken his place,” Barry says, then writes down the time, date, and location that I’ve taken over.

  We’re gone, traveling at the speed of light through time and space and nothingness. When my feet touch ground again, we’ve arrived at the sidewalk grate outside the Chrysler Building. Barry lifts it up, and the pair of them walks me through the tunnels—tunnels I can now see clearly, I can now navigate through as if I’m wearing infrared goggles—to the library that used to belong to the boy I fell in love with, the boy who used me to get out of this prison.

  31

  Reflected Back

  I stumble into the library, and I try to lunge for the registry of wishes, still wide open on Taj’s desk. My desk now. But my breath is racing, and I’m sucking in air through the slimmest of straws, and my neck is squeezed by a thousand mighty hands. The light goes out and the walls close in. The ceiling compresses down on me, as if I’m buried alive. I’m choking as I’m crushed, and then just like that, it’s over …

  An alarm goes off. I can’t hear it, but I can feel it, all over me. My body has become a rooster, the crow that starts the day. My skin, my senses, my eyes and breath and brain are rattled awake. Not gently, like a nap. But crudely, the morning after a very late night, when all you want to do is slam the snooze button and sleep more.

  My legs are heavy concrete blocks weighing me down. My arms are logs. But the alarm is stronger, and I’m pulled awake, yanked from this hibernation into …

  A loud pop, like Bubble Wrap stepped on by someone wearing heavy shoes.

  I look down, and the pop is me. The snapping sound of my body being reshaped from nothingness into somethingness. I hold my hands in front of me—they’re hands, my hands, then legs and arms and belly and face. And I’m all here, after months, weeks, days, or could it be hours of not being here? I don’t know, but I lift my feet, wiggle them one by one, getting used to being corporeal again, after being evanescent. Then I notice how I’m dressed. I’m in tailored slacks and a white button-down blouse and a pair of patent leather black flats.

  I must look hideous. I’d never dress like this. Where are my clothes? My combat boots, my jeans, my short skirts, and black cotton tees?

  I hunt around the library, but they’re not here. Nothing’s here but shelves and shelves of books extending as far back as I can see. Just like when Ta
j resided here.

  Taj.

  His name is a pang in the chest, as the full memory of the last time I saw him collides into me. He made a mockery of me. I was played like a fool, such easy bait. And I hurt so much too. Every organ inside me aches because I miss him. I hate that I miss him. But I fell for him for a reason—he was so kind, and he was so handsome, and he understood me in a way no one ever had. How could I not fall for him? But I was selfish too, just like him. So what right do I have to be mad at him for tricking me to free him? We both played the other. We were both in it for our own needs.

  As I search for another outfit, I can’t focus on him or myself or the pangs inside me. Because I find myself drawn to the door, and I’m no longer in the library, I’m walking through the tunnels, and it’s not absolute blackness anymore. It’s bright light, beckoning and clear, and it guides me to the underside of a grate.

  That’s when I realize why I’m awake, why I’m alive again, what the alarm bell sounding inside me was.

  I’ve been found.

  We are found in the wanting.

  I’ve been summoned on my first official call as a granter, and I don’t even know what day it is, what time it is, what year it is. But I know this—I’m no longer nuclear. I’m not running at Aria temperature. My blood feels light, my veins flooded with a wispy, smoky granter magic that’s so different from the fire I’m used to living with.

  I push up on the grate and climb out. It’s midday, late afternoon by the sun’s position in the sky. It’s warm, but no longer hot. I see a group of schoolkids across the street, backpacks slung over shoulders. I see a newsstand and take a quick look at the date on the paper. It’s September. Two weeks have passed.

  No one notices me, a pristinely dressed seventeen-year-old in New York City, but this is how granters dress. I begin walking south on the avenue, and I bump into a girl a year or so younger than I am. She has a plain face and mousy hair pulled back in a low ponytail. She’s got on jeans tucked into lace-up, scuffed-up boots. I feel a stab of jealousy that’s quickly displaced by a reminder—as if someone is talking quietly in my ear—that I don’t get to have feelings or emotions, because I exist to serve and I’ve found my wisher.

  “Hey. What are you up to?” I ask.

  The girl shifts her eyes side to side. “Looking for someone.”

  “I suspect you’re looking for me.”

  “Why would you say that?” She sounds suspicious.

  “Call it a crazy hunch. Or call it my own experience,” I say, and though the words roll off my tongue easily, they taste so bitter.

  “But who are you?”

  That’s the question, isn’t it?

  “I’m the person you think can solve all your problems. Rub my lamp, and I’ll give you whatever you want and life will be good again,” I say, somehow sliding right into my first day on the job. I feel slippery and smarmy, the snake-oil man in the bazaar. I’ve become sarcastic too, and I don’t like it. The old Aria tugs at my mind, but the granter inside me is in charge now.

  “How do I know you’re a granter?”

  “Ah, the proof test. You want proof. It’s so cute. I once wanted proof too,” I say, and it’s as if I’ve been plunged back in time, only I’m on the other side now, and I’ve become the Taj from the first night.

  Correction. There was only one Taj. The Taj from all the nights. The facade of Taj. But his bluffs worked on me, so I borrow from his playbook.

  I disappear and reappear on the other side of the avenue.

  The girl crosses over. “You really are a granter,” she says, kind of awestruck. She reminds me of the occasional fans I’d encounter after Wonder shows. That time seems so long ago. I’d only made one big mistake then; I had so many more to make.

  I curtsy a thanks, and I find myself wondering where that came from. I’m not a curtsier, I’m not a pencil-skirt-wearer, I’m not super-outgoing-friendly. I’m mad as hell that I’m stuck, but yet I have to curtsy. The curse of the mastered granter. This girl is my master now.

  My stomach growls and grumbles. I haven’t eaten in ages, but it’s not up to me to eat. It’s up to this girl, and I’ll have to convince her to grab a bite.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Blake Vater.”

  “Are you hungry, Blake?”

  She shakes her head. “No, I just ate.”

  “So you don’t want to get something to eat?”

  She shakes her head again. “No. Not really.”

  “Because I could really go for a sandwich,” I say, and I hope Blake is nice enough to suggest getting at least a snack from the corner deli, but she seems preoccupied. “I would love it if we could chat at a deli, please.”

  “Maybe you can eat later. Because I need something so badly,” she says as we stand on the street corner and afternoon traffic rushes by in a flurry of exhaust and honked horns.

  “Okay. What do you need?” I ask, and part of me is coldly impressed that Blake is all business in a way I never was. She’s ready to dive in, and getting to know her granter doesn’t even cross her mind. I’m not a person. I’m a shortcut to her problem.

  “There’s a boy I love, and he doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

  “Blake, sorry to break it to you. But I should let you know that there are three preliminary conditions and exceptions to wishing. I can’t make someone fall in love with you, I can’t bring someone back from the dead, and I can’t grant you more wishes. So as you can see, we’ll have to call it a day,” I say, then decide to add a warning all on my own. “Besides, the best way to get someone to fall in love with you is to trick them into it.”

  She gives me a curious look as she tucks a loose strand of stringy hair behind her ear. “I didn’t say I wanted you to make him fall in love with me.”

  “What do you want me to do then?”

  “I want you to make me beautiful, so he’ll notice me.” She’s so dreamy and hopeful, like this is a movie, like she can just rub a lamp and a happy, cheery genie will appear to deliver pizza and earth, wind, air, or fire.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  I sigh. I want to tell her that it’s what’s inside that matters. I want to deliver some wise, pithy adage she’ll remember forever about beauty being skin deep, and that it’s what’s in your heart that counts. But honestly, her heart doesn’t seem that beautiful either. She couldn’t be bothered to take me out for something to eat, and I feel like I’m starving.

  Besides, what do I know about love? What do I even know about beauty or true hearts? I know nothing because everything I’ve felt has been turned upside down.

  “You can do that, right? You can make me beautiful, right? I want blond hair, and I want green eyes, and perfect cheekbones, and I want to be thin and tall and have one of those faces that makes everyone look at you,” she says in a voice full of a sick and fetid kind of longing.

  “Yes, I can do it. But do you really want to?”

  “Of course. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “You find a granter, and you wish for beauty? You’re not going to wish for health or happiness?”

  She tilts her head and gives me a sharp and loathing glance. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to look ordinary? I bet you don’t. But I’ll tell you what it’s like. It’s awful. It’s like an awful trap, and I want out of it.”

  We all have our traps, I suppose. This is hers. “Okay then. Let’s talk payment,” I say, because this is her wish, her life, her choice. I might as well let this girl know what’s at stake, so she doesn’t feel used as I was. “Wishes come at a cost.”

  “Okay. So what would it cost?”

  “Your soul. Your love. Your heart. Yourself. You name it. You could give me one of your hands, and we’d be even,” I say, and she cringes, but I keep going, and this must be granter magic too, this instant knowledge I have of how she’d need to pay. “Your firstborn child and it’d be a deal.”

  Blake recoils.

 
“You could subtract twenty years from your life, and we’d be good then.”

  “Twenty years?”

  I tilt my head to the side, considering. “Twenty years. Yep. That feels about right. Twenty years off your life,” I say, and I’m still not entirely sure where the words have come from, but I know them to be true.

  “That’s how people pay for wishes?”

  I nod.

  “But what about—” she begins, but can’t finish the sentence.

  I finish it for her. “It’s called a Faustian bargain. It’s called that for a reason. It’s like a deal with the devil.” My voice is harsh and clipped, and if I could I’d shake her by the shoulders and slap some sense into her. But she’s calling the shots, not me.

  She doesn’t speak right away. She breathes out hard through tight lips, as if she’s considering. I offer a faint wish to whoever is in charge that she’ll see the light and walk away. But I believe in nothing anymore, so I don’t even know who I’m wishing to.

  “Fine. Twenty years from my life. I’ll give you twenty years of my life in exchange for being beautiful.”

  If I were a jackass granter, I’d take the twenty years right now. I’d grant her wish literally, age her up to thirty-five, and make her a beautiful thirtysomething woman in a fifteen-year-old’s life. But I am a mastered granter, so I take out the notebook, write down her wish, and tell her, “The terms are satisfactory.”

  Then I escort her to the nearest park, find a quiet corner, and ask her one more time to make her wish.

  “I wish to be beautiful,” Blake says.

  “Your wish is my command,” I say, and mist pours forth from my hands, swirling around her, transforming her limp hair into lushness, her plain face into model features, her short and squat body into a tall, statuesque one. She is gorgeous. She is stunning. She will turn heads. And no one she knows will recognize her.

  Her parents won’t know she’s her. Her classmates will no longer know Blake.

  Someday, maybe in fifty years, maybe in ten, someone will knock on her door, maybe me, maybe someone from the Union, and they will take her life twenty years before she would have said good-bye to this world naturally.