Nia’s mouth parted in confusion as she stared at him. Brow furrowed, she meant to ask what he meant, but he continued on with, "Did you know that for centuries, people have been told tales of caves and tunnels deep inside the Earth?"
"No, I didn't," Nia replied quietly, staring at the boy in awe. He hesitantly raised his eyes into her purple ones and gently reached out and touched her hand. The bathroom door swung open.
“Nia—you could have gone in my room!” Kenzie bent down and picked up the sleeping bag once more. She paused when she saw the two of them in the door way and her eyes widened in disbelief. Nia straightened up, pulling her hand away from the boy's and quickly scuttled out of the room.
The boy’s eyes narrowed at seeing his sister and he slowly reached out and pushed the edge of his door, swinging it outwards so that it closed with a snap.
Kenzie agitatedly sighed. “Wow. I'm surprised he actually let you in his room.” She glanced at the door and hugged the sleeping bag to her chest. “Lance doesn’t know how to associate socially with people too well. He’s autistic.”
"Is he? He didn't seem it to me. He read my cards."
"Really?" The look of disbelief on Kenzie' face turned into fascination. "That's huge for him. He must really like you Nia. You should feel privileged."
Nia frowned slightly, her eyes still staring at the blue painted door; on that door was a tiny sign that was still swinging back and forth with an air of portend, that read: Fortunes Read, 5 cents.
* * *
“I think Brenden Shanahan is the most handsome man in the universe,” Kenzie sighed, stretching her leg against the frame of her bed.
Fiona snorted. “He's a hockey player.”
“So?”
“So?” Fiona propped herself up onto her elbows and stared incredulously at Kenzie from the floor. “So? He's a hockey player! He's not going to have any teeth by the time he's forty!”
“Teeth, Fi?” Kenzie paused and breathed slowly through her nose. “I don’t care if he doesn't have teeth—” she continued, the hint of a smile in her voice, “-he's still a hunk...”
Fiona made a strangled noise of disgust underneath the sound of her laughter.
Nia breathed slowly, in and out, staring out at a piece of the moon while listening to the other girls’ mindless banter. It was strange—she had been expecting to talk more about the Mystical Knights talk or about Axel—or minions. But not a whisper had been mentioned about those things. Nia had half anticipated the three of them to huddle together and talk more of the attack at her house, but it was as if the battle had never taken place.
There had been a lot of laughter tonight; even Fiona cracked multiple grins throughout the evening, throwing in a few jokes here and there. Way more emotion than Nia had expected to get from the silvery eyed girl. She wondered if the boys had gotten along just as well during their bowling match.
“Nia?” The bedsprings creaked quietly as Kenzie’s head loomed above her, a silhouette in the darkness.
“Yeah?”
“Did you have any premonitions...about meeting us?” The way she was whispering made the question sound as if it were very personal. It was asked in the way one might ask to use the restroom during an exam. Her face suddenly became bright red. "Oh, I'm sorry. You probably get asked silly things like that a lot. I was just curious."
"It's okay. I don't get asked a lot about this. To be honest, not many people know what I can do." Nia pursed her lips thoughtfully, her forehead crinkling. “I don’t think I had any premonitions.” She racked her brain, trying to remember the weeks before her mother passed away. But every premonition she had during that frame of time was about that tragedy. “I was distracted by something else going on...” Nia rested her cheek against her palm and looked around at the girls. “Did either of you know,” she bit her bottom lip, “about all of this?”
“I moved here in the seventh grade.” Nia could hear the contemplation in Kenzie’s soft voice. “Not from far away—I used to live in the Berwicks back when my parents—” she hesitated, inhaling a tiny gasp as she did so. When she began to speak again, her voice sounded heavy. “I met Fiona on my first day here—we sat next to each other in science-”
“She had no idea what was going to happen,” Fiona interrupted briskly, cutting Kenzie's story short. “Neither did Quinn, and he moved to Willow Creek when he was eight. I knew him then—we had the same teacher—”
“Did you know, Fiona?” Kenzie asked. “I've never asked you this before—but did you know when you met Quinn what we really were?”
Fiona was silent and whether it was in thought or for dramatic effect, Nia couldn’t tell. She could just make out the lanky shadow of Fiona’s thin body lying next to her own, hands clutched over her heart as if remembering something that had caused her great pain.
“When I met Quinn,” Fiona began, “I was young—too young to understand, too naïve to care. I had always known I was different,” she said frankly, shrugging her shoulders where she lay. “I couldn’t discern what different meant. I thought I felt the way I did back then because I had been adopted. But my assumptions never explained why I would wake up screaming in the middle of the night—frightened out of my wits by dreams that were just...out of this world.” In the dull moonlight, Nia watched as Fiona shut her eyes, remembering her past as though it were the present. Nia sympathized for Fiona in that instant; she knew what it was like to wake up, cold and alone, terrified about dreams that would soon come true...
“It was the summer before seventh grade when I realized that both Quinn and I were a part of something bigger than all of this.” Fiona blindly motioned around the room with her hands. She sat up, stretching out her back. Her eyes looked to Nia and then Kenzie. “Did you know that in my entire life I’ve never been sick?” she questioned indifferently. She shook her head side to side almost regretfully. “I never had the flu—never had the sniffles. No chicken pox or measles or mumps. My parents,” and she chuckled as if it were a joke, “thought that I had a very efficient immune system. They brought me to doctors of course—for yearly physicals and such—and the doctors always said, ‘My, what a healthy little girl you have. You’re so lucky.’” Fiona smiled grimly, clenching her jaw tight. “I never scarred—never bruised. Sure, I took the occasional spill off my bike or fell while wrestling in the yard with Quinn. I always assumed I just healed well—or my mom knew what she was doing when she did my bandages. I never once considered that I was what I am. But the dreams...every night, I would wake up screaming—and as I got older, I learned to hide the screams.
“The summer before seventh grade, Quinn and I convinced his grandmother to let us go to Crest Pond. We had went there with our class just before school let out once and we had heard about older kids jumping from the Leap. Amateur cliff diving, if you will. That was our intention that afternoon—we were young and adventurous; always willing to find the thrills and spills in our tiny lives. So Quinn’s grandmother dropped the two of us off and we waited until she drove off before racing across towards the trails. We laughed, skipping and roughhousing all the way through woods...I shoved him off the path a time or two, he’d clobber me in the head with the beach bag—you know, good old fun.”
It was hard to imagine Fiona—who was so controlled and levelheaded—as a little girl; no less, a rowdy, giggly little girl. Nia tried to create an image of a tiny Fiona in her mind, but it was like looking through murky water.
“...we broke through the forest, and there we were—high above this pool of water. There were some older kids there, jumping off the rocks carelessly.” A small smile was unfolding across her lips, a faraway look in her eyes as she spoke, remembering. “I remember that we were laughing—hysterically almost. We were going to jump off, and it would be our little secret—just ours and ours alone. God, if only our parents knew—the trouble we would be in! I wanted to jump first—I always wanted to be first for things like that—and Quinn let me, being the gentleman he is. So I took off my s
hoes and socks and inched my way over to the edge. The older kids were barely paying attention—a lot of them were on the other side, farther away from us—that’s important to remember. They were farther down from the ledge. It was my idea that we jump from the highest peak. I took a deep breath and leaped outward, and I fell.
“I didn’t fall straight—not that it would have mattered anyway,” she swallowed hard and let out a trembling breath of air. “I screamed as I flipped downward through thin air—it was the most intense rush of...adrenaline I had ever felt in my twelve year old life. The wind was ripping past my ears so loudly, I couldn’t hear the screams and hollers from above. There is a trick, you see—a trick I didn’t know about jumping from the Leap. There is a sandbar, directly under the highest ledge. If you don’t jump far enough out...you’re in trouble. I was small—there was no way I would have been able to make the jump even if I tried. But I didn’t know. The older kids were screaming, trying to get my attention—but I was freefalling, caught in a world that was all my own. Even if they had managed to catch my attention, it wouldn’t have done any good.
“I felt myself falling forward—I didn’t even put my hands up to brace my fall—why would I need to? I thought. The top of my head touched the surface of the water. I sucked in all my breath and squeezed my eyes shut—” Fiona did just that—squeezing her eyes tight. Nia saw the shudder of her shoulders in the darkness, saw the grimace ripple across her face as she whispered. “I heard the crack—everybody did—the crack of my neck as it snapped on impact. I heard it—but I didn’t feel the pain I expected to feel. I knew something was wrong—I had opened my eyes and saw the clear water tinged with red. I tried to move, tried to sit up to tell Quinn that I was okay. But the harder I tried to move my legs, my arms...the more numb I felt. I couldn’t even feel my chest burn in protest as I drowned in a little more than an inch of water. I know I must have choked on the water—I can remember smelling the metallic taste of blood as I laid there, not even feeling the tremor of water splashing around me, the older kids reaching me before one of the adults could.
“The fact that I was dying—or quite possibly already dead—never crossed my mind once during that instant. It was like I was being suffocated—there was light at the end of the tunnel, and I reached out for it—but it just pushed me backwards—back to the numbness. And then I felt it—the pain that was stitching down my back, that feeling of blood pulsing in my ears. I blinked—and I pushed myself up, doing my best to ignore the ache that shot up my spine, or that tingling sensation that rushed down my arms and legs. The older kid that jumped in after me was almost there—he yelled at me, told me not to move, that I’d hit my head. I slowly reached up and touched my head, felt the brand new scab that had formed right across my hairline. I was confused—baffled, even. I knew I had fallen, and quite possibly broken my neck—but I felt fine. In fact, that pain I had felt before was gone. I looked up and saw Quinn staring down at me, his face just as pale as his hair. He looked sick—as though he had seen a ghost.”
“How were you able to sit up after falling like that? Did you go to the hospital?” Nia asked.
Fiona laughed darkly. “I wish it was only that simple. I was startled out of my mind. After that day, I tried anything and everything to hurt myself. I jumped from trees, twenty feet high, deliberately crashing my bike...I even tried to make Quinn drive over my legs with his Gran's lawnmower...” She shuddered, shaking her head so that her loose red curls bounced along her shoulders. "He would never, though..."
"And nothing ever happened? That's...that's not even possible," Nia said.
Fiona’s tone became as tense as a taut wire. “I’m Silver Phoenix. What are phoenixes known for?” The redhead shook Nia’s shoulder roughly, her fingernails digging into her flesh.
“Rebirth,” Nia answered, yanking her shoulder away while giving Fiona a rueful look. “But aren’t we all reincarnations in some way?"
“Not all of us.” Fiona sounded very irritated now. “I was created this way, out of the fire and ash. I was made to keep the cycle—to make sure the Zindel'Tyr's dying wish was kept.”
With a jolt of energy, Nia’s eyes snapped open. She gasped, looking at Fiona incredulously through the dark before swiveling her gaze towards Kenzie who had been strangely quiet throughout the entire story. “You mean—”
“That’s right.” Fiona solemnly nodded, her angular face hidden in shadow. “I can’t die.”
Chapter 8: The Sword of Dreams
“You can't die?”
The world seemed to tilt from underneath Nia momentarily, and she found herself digging the tips of her fingertips into the carpet in a desperate attempt to hold on. This story completely tore away everything Nia had been taught to understand: We are born, we live, we die, and sometimes we come back. Nia swallowed the lump that had formed uncomfortably in the hollow of her throat, staring at Fiona in mild disbelief.
“Not in the literal sense,” Fiona calmly explained. “There comes a point in my...existence...usually around the age of eighteen—when things start to happen to my physical body. My hair will start to fall out. My body will begin to weaken and malnourish and my abilities will slowly dilapidate.” Her smile was a poignant one. "And then the next cycle begins and I am reborn again."
“What happens when you are reborn?”
Fiona let out a strange laugh; it was colored with humor and bitterness. “I spontaneously combust, pretty much. When the fire is done, my ashes are simply swept away with the wind—and when it comes time for me to be reborn again,” she shrugged, unsure of what else to say. “Sometimes when I’m reborn, my hair is a different color—but nine times out of ten, I look exactly the same.”
“But your parents?” Kenzie asked, swinging her feet over the side of the bed, “Do they just come home one day and...you’re just not there?”
“That’s how it used to be—in the beginning,” Fiona explained carefully, playing with the hem of her nightgown. “But over the years, it’s become harder and harder trying to detach myself mentally from my parents before my rebirth is about to cycle. For the past couple of decades, I’ve written my parents notes—explaining to them that I went off to find my birth parents—or just to find myself.”
For the past couple of decades? Nia, no longer tired, stood up right out of her sleeping bag. “You've really been around since ancient times?”
The corners of Fiona’s mouth turned upward wearily. “Sometimes, it feels like it has been much longer than that."
Nia was silent; Tep Zepi really happened....She pushed her palms into her forehead idly as if she could squash out the useless tidbits her memory decided to keep so that she could make more room for the more important things. “Your pendant? Did you find it sometime after your incident at the Leap?"
Fiona smiled—it was achingly bittersweet. She touched her pendant-the silver Celtic knot glittering off of her white nightgown. “I’ve had this for as long as I can remember,” she replied softly with a voice that couldn’t belong to someone who looked so immovable. “When I was a little girl, I used to believe that my birth parents had given it to me before they gave me up, sort of as a piece of them for me to remember them by.” She cleared her throat, blinking hastily. “When the school year started, Quinn found his amulet,” Fiona went on to say, laying back against her pillow. “And then we met Kenzie—”
“I found my amulet in the washing machine!” Kenzie added, sounding jubilant. Nia’s eyebrows arched inquiringly, while Fiona provided Kenzie with a look of pure irritability. Kenzie scoffed at their unenthusiastic reactions, swinging her left leg. “Well I did...”
Fiona cleared her throat. “...In the eighth grade, Rowan moved here. And Thor moved from Texas the summer before ninth grade,” Fiona slumped back into her pillows, her long hair pooling out around her in an elegant fashion. "We were starting to wonder if you'd ever show up. For some reason, Nefertiti's descendants are incredibly difficult to find. Or just incredibly stubborn."
; "Most definitely stubborn," Nia said under her breath. Fiona smirked, fiddling with her amulet. Kenzie was looking intently at her phone, a frown forming across her lips.
"Everything okay?" Fiona asked sharply, sitting up. Nia's brow furrowed with concern.
“It’s late.” The tone of Kenzie’s voice was wrong. It was monotone and empty as though the life and excitableness had been sucked from the depths of her spirit. She tucked her phone firmly underneath her pillow and laid down. “I’m going to bed.” The bed softly protested as she rolled onto her side.
“Okay... G’night,” Fiona yawned softly, shoving her head into the crook of her elbow, her sleeping bag curling around her shoulders.
“Night...” Nia murmured too, her eyelids fluttering closed.
She watched the colorful pinks and yellows blink and dance against the dark easel of her imagination as she succumbed into slumber... Somewhere in the distance, she could hear sniffling, but sleep had already sunk it's claws in tight.
She knew that this wasn’t an ordinary dream; the colors blurred together like cold condensation on the outside of a water glass and this dream smelled like burning metal and sulfur. Nia wrinkled her nose as the rank scent enveloped her like a tourniquet. Fighting the urge to choke, she stumbled through the dying forest. Though the sky was black, the trees were covered in vibrant leaves that rustled dangerously as the wind rippled by.
The Mystical Knights: The Sword of Dreams Page 8