Firebirds Rising

by Sharyn November

  “Go on. You two young ones keep the fire going,” my grandmother said, waving us toward the door. “We’ll come out later.”

  So I pulled on my gloves and my winter coat and my fur-lined boots and followed Jake out the kitchen door. The snow had stopped falling but lay thick on the ground like acres of profligate diamonds. The bonfire was a brilliant living jewel against the sere dark. The air was so cold that for a minute I lost the ability to breathe. I ran through the snowdrifts and hovered as close to the fire as I could bear. Jake followed more slowly but came just as close. For a while we stood in silence, stretching our hands out to the flames, inhaling the scents of cedar and spruce and snow.

  It occurred to me that Jake was not the most talkative of people, and that the night was going to be extremely dull and extremely long if we passed it in silence, and that if I wanted conversation, I was going to have to initiate it myself. I glared resentfully into the dark, and then sighed and glanced over at him.

  “So, Jake,” I said. “I take it your family lives in Thrush Hollow?”

  He eyed me uncertainly. “Some of them. An uncle and some cousins.”

  “Do you always spend Wintermoon with them?”

  “No.”

  I waited, but he had no more to add. “Where do you come from? Did you ride the stage all the way from Oakton?”

  He nodded.

  I found myself starting to wish I was keeping the Wintermoon vigil by myself. “What do you do there? I’m guessing you have a job?”

  He nodded again. “Had one. Worked in a carpenter’s shop. I did a lot of the staining and painting. I wasn’t that good with the lathe and tools.”

  I could hardly miss his use of the past tense. “But you don’t work there now?”

  “Now I’m moving to Thrush Hollow.”

  “To be with your uncle?” That elicited another nod. “That’ll be nice.” He shrugged.

  I let the silence run out for a good long while. Long enough for the flames to die down and for Jake to carefully pile on a few more logs. Long enough for him to glance at me, glance away, look back at the house, cut his eyes in my direction again. I was feeling anything but kindly, but I gave him a nod meant to be encouraging. Go ahead. Your turn to ask questions.

  “Um,” he said. “So they call you Lirril?” I nodded. He said, “I never came across that name before.”

  “It’s a mirror name,” I said. He looked blank. “It’s the same forward and backward. My grandmother’s and grandfather’s names, too. Hannah and Bob. It’s something our family does.”

  “And you live here with your grandparents?”

  “No. I live in Wodenderry with my mother and father. But we always come to Merendon for Wintermoon and I didn’t want to miss it this year just because—” I shut my mouth with a snap.

  “Because?”

  I shrugged. “Oh, there’s a ball there, and everyone wanted to attend, but I didn’t want to go, I wanted to be here, and so I came to the inn while they stayed behind. They’ll be here tomorrow, though, with my aunt and my uncle and my cousin Renner.” I shot a look up at the sky. “If it’s stopped snowing. If the roads are clear.”

  “Why didn’t you want to go to the ball?” he asked.

  Why would he think to ask that? And his voice was so soft, so serious, as if he really cared to know the answer. I shrugged again, not quite so pettishly. “Because my feelings were hurt. Because I was afraid it would make me sad. There’s a man I know and he—” I hunched my shoulders. “And I’d rather be here. I love it here.”

  “I would, too,” he agreed. “If I had a place like this to go to? I wouldn’t wait till Wintermoon. I’d stay here all the time.”

  I was starting to think I could guess the answer for myself, and I didn’t even want to know it, but I asked anyway. “So where are your parents?”

  “Dead,” he said flatly.

  He added nothing to the single word. “I’m—that’s—I’m sorry,” I stammered. “When did—what happened?”

  Now he was the one to give a shrug. “My mother died a long time ago. My father last year.”

  I could scarcely imagine such a thing. “What did you do without them?”

  A ghost of a smile. “Worked. Found a place to stay. I did all right.”

  “But what about your family? Your aunts and uncles and grandparents? Why didn’t you go to them?”

  “I’m going now. To my uncle.”

  I had a sudden dreadful premonition. “Does he know you’re coming?”

  Jake almost laughed. “No.”

  “Will he be happy to see you?”

  Jake looked lost for a moment, young. My age or even younger. “I don’t know. He and my father hadn’t spoken for years. He doesn’t even know my father’s dead. I just thought—it was worth a try. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Why couldn’t you stay in Oakton?”

  “I could. I’ll go back, I guess, if things don’t work out in Thrush Hollow. But the carpenter I worked for sold his shop and the new owner had sons of his own to do the work and I—there wasn’t a place for me there. I was always curious about my uncle. Seemed like as good a time as any to find out what he was like.”

  I felt so sorry for him that I almost despised him. Who could be so wretched and alone? Who could be so adrift in the world? I didn’t want to wonder what his life might be like, so different from my own. I closed my heart and glanced away.

  “I’m sure you’ll like Thrush Hollow,” I said, my voice indifferent. “Everyone says it’s very pretty.” He caught my tone, rebuffed as I meant him to be. He merely nodded and did not answer. He watched the fire a little longer, then added a few more logs. The old ones collapsed in a shower of sparks, which flung themselves into the snow and hissed out. Neither of us so much as winced away.

  Now a determined silence held us both. My feet were numb inside my plush boots, and my cheeks ached with cold. Overhead, the sky was impossibly clear; the hard stars looked merciless. The full moon was so white and so brilliant it could have been sculpted from fresh snow. I wondered how much longer we had till midnight.

  Jake added more fuel to the fire, then stood a moment with his back to the flames, as if to warm the other half of his body. I noted crossly that his coat was too thin. He must be even colder than I was.

  “You should be wearing something heavier than that,” I said.

  He just looked at me for a moment. “This will do,” he said.

  I shrugged. Fine. If he didn’t want to go in and put on a sweater, I didn’t care.

  We were quiet for another long stretch. The fire shifted again and the flames contracted, licking their small orange tongues around the charred embers of the bottom logs. Jake knelt to poke at the templed branches, teasing the fire back out. I accidentally glanced down at the bottoms of his feet.

  “You have holes in your shoes!” I exclaimed. “What are you—you could get frostbite out here on a night like this!”

  He gave me a dark look but didn’t answer, merely continued prodding at the fire till the blaze caught again. He knelt there awhile longer to make sure the fire was really going, then he stood up. “I’m fine,” he said. “I rarely feel the cold.”

  I stared at him. “Everybody feels the cold on a night like this! Why don’t you—I’ll watch the fire. You go put on another pair of shoes.”

  “This is the only pair I have,” he said quietly.

  I stared at him a moment, hating him more than I had ever hated anyone in my life. “Very well,” I said, through gritted teeth. “You watch the fire.” And I stomped back into the house, so angry that I almost slammed the door behind me, so furious that I was almost blinded by the emotion. Or blinded by something. I bumped into the kitchen door and stumbled a little as I turned into the hallway. I wasn’t crying, though. No, I certainly wasn’t. I brought a candle with me and set it on the hall table, then peered into the closet and began to root around.

  Ten minutes later I was back outside, and I practical
ly flung a few items to the ground at Jake’s feet. “Here. Put that on. It’s my father’s coat.” No surprise that Jake didn’t answer. I continued in a hard, fast voice. “He never wears it unless he’s here and the weather’s so cold he can’t endure it. He says it’s the most unfashionable cut imaginable and no man with any taste would ever wear it.” I nudged the other pieces over with my toe. “Same thing about the boots. He won’t put them on. He keeps trying to give them away, but no one will take them. They’re ugly, but they’re warm. I brought you some socks, too.”

  Jake didn’t make a move. “I can’t take those things.”

  “Well, you can wear them for a night, can’t you? No one else needs them this very minute. It’s stupid not to put them on and then freeze to death because you were proud and stubborn.”

  His eyes dropped; he looked longingly at the warm wool coat. “I could pay you something,” he said.

  “No, you couldn’t! You could just be reasonable and put this coat on. And these boots. Here. Give me your coat. Give it to me right now.”

  And I stepped up to him and started unbuttoning his own garment, tattered and miserable as it was. Two of the buttons came off in my hands; something else to tie to the wreath if we had a little time and some extra ribbon. He resisted a moment, his face creased with doubt, but I started yanking at the sleeves, and he gave in. A few moments later, wearing his new coat, he was sitting on his old one and tugging off his shoes and his thin socks.

  “Socks first,” I said, handing him a thick, scratchy roll.

  He hesitated. His bare feet looked so white and so cold that my own toes curled in sympathy. “No man wants to lend his socks to someone else,” he said. “He’d never want them back.”

  “Fine. Don’t give them back. My father won’t mind.” My father wouldn’t mind because he didn’t even know he owned this particular pair. I’d bought them as a rather uninspired Wintermoon gift. “Jake. Put them on.”

  Either my tone convinced him or he was too cold and tired to argue. He pulled on the socks, then laced up the boots, then rose to his feet. Unfashionable it may have been, and too big for him it definitely was, but the long dark coat gave Jake some needed weight and a certain air of grace. He looked taller, broader, older, and very, very serious.

  “I wish you would let me pay you something,” he said.

  I stamped my foot, almost bruising it against the iron-hard earth. “It’s just a stupid extra coat!” I exclaimed. “You don’t owe me anything!”

  “Still, I should—”

  “Shovel the walk, then! Chop some firewood. My grandparents will be delighted.”

  “Yes, but you’re the one who—”

  I was so furious. He was so stupid. I gave him impossible tasks. “Make me a necklace of icicles.”

  “I meant something I could actually—”

  “Find roses in the snow. Write me a poem.” Why had I said that? I rushed on. “Bring a bluebird to breakfast.”

  He was silent, merely watching me with those earnest eyes. I couldn’t tell if he thought I was cruel or ridiculous. “Or just say thank you,” I said. “That’s all that’s required.”

  He made a stiff little motion that could have been a bow. “Thank you,” he said. “Lirril. You are—thank you. This was truly kind.”

  Now I really did want to weep. “It wasn’t kind. It was mean,” I said in a muffled voice. “I just didn’t want to have to feel sorry for you. So there.”

  Now he smiled a little. “A generous impulse born of an ungenerous thought,” he said. “But I’m still warm.”

  “It’s so unfair,” I burst out.

  “What is?”

  “That I have—it shouldn’t be that way! I have so many people who love me, and you don’t have any.”

  “That’s the way the world goes,” he said.

  I stared at him. If I cried, I thought my tears might freeze to my face. “But don’t you want more than what you have?” I whispered.

  “Of course I do,” he replied. “I want a place where I fit in, people who love me, friends who come when I cry for help. I want to do work that matters, make a home that’s full of happiness. I want to be the friend who goes to others when they call out. I want all those things. Who doesn’t? Maybe I’ll find them in Thrush Hollow. I haven’t given up. I’m going to keep looking.”

  My mouth had formed a little O, and I stared at him by ragged firelight. Who would have expected such a passionate speech from him? He must have realized how much he astonished me, for his face softened as he looked down at me.

  “And what do you want, Lirril? What wishes did you tie to the Wintermoon wreath?”

  Everything I had ever wanted in my life now seemed trivial and trite. Trevor to notice me. My friends to envy me. My parents to buy me explicit and expensive presents. “I wished—just—for little things,” I stammered.

  “That man,” he said. “The one you didn’t want to see at the ball. Did you wish for him to fall in love with you?”

  Nothing so specific, though it had been Trevor’s face I envisioned when I wrapped the ribbon around the wreath. “Even if I did, he never will,” I said. “He’s very fond of another girl.”

  “You don’t need to worry,” Jake said. “You probably have no idea how many others are just standing ready, waiting for you to notice them.”

  It was so untrue that I had to laugh. “When I’m back in Wodenderry, I’ll look around,” I said.

  After that, strangely, it was easy to talk to Jake. He told me a little about his father, a somewhat feckless man who had painted lovely landscapes and sold them for pennies. I told him about my own father, filled with such laughter, and my mother, whose standards of honesty I had always found it hard to live up to. He liked music but did not know how to dance; I was an excellent dancer but could not play an instrument if it would save me from hanging. We had nothing in common and yet, somehow, much to discuss. I was a little shocked when my grandfather pushed through the kitchen door, the wreath in his hands. Midnight already? My grandmother was right behind him, carrying mugs of hot tea.

  “Gracious, it’s cold out here!” she exclaimed, as if we might not have noticed. “Here, I brought something to warm you both up.”

  We gratefully gulped the steaming liquid, and then Jake set down his cup so he could help my grandfather hoist the greenery onto the fire. The flames shot up, greedy for a taste of our heartfelt desires. I saw my embroidered ribbon turn to red fire, to black cinder, to gray smoke. My dreams of romance drifted through the star-scattered sky and crossed the face of the wide-eyed moon.

  “That was a good wreath,” my grandfather said approvingly. “There’ll be a lot of wishes come true next year.”

  “You two go on into the house,” my grandmother said. “We’ll watch the fire till dawn.”

  “Are you sure?” Jake asked. “It’s so cold. I could come back out in a few hours and spell you.”

  “They always stay out from midnight till morning,” I said, stepping up to my grandfather and kissing his cheek. “May all your Wintermoon wishes come true,” I murmured in his ear. He replied in kind.

  Then I kissed my grandmother’s soft skin, and we exchanged wishes as well. I was so cold and so tired that I wasn’t absolutely certain I could cross the lawn and find my way back inside the inn. I yawned and my grandmother gave me a little push toward the door.

  “Go in, now,” she repeated. “You’re about to fall asleep on your feet. Oh, and show Jake to his room! He’s on the second floor, in the green room.”

  I nodded and hurried for the house, Jake behind me. Candles awaited us in the kitchen, and we carried them upstairs, their flames wavering against the hands that we had lifted to shield them. The green room was right off the stairwell, a big and cheerful chamber with the most comfortable mattress in the house. Still yawning, I pointed out the amenities.

  “If you need anything else, the rest of us all sleep on the top floor. No one gets up much before noon, but you can help yourself to
food in the kitchen tomorrow morning. If there’s a commotion anytime, don’t worry—it’ll probably be my family arriving from Wodenderry. My father has a loud voice. That’s how you’ll know it’s him.”

  Jake had set his candle down on the dresser across the room, and now he was watching me with those grave, intent eyes. “Thank you so much for everything you’ve done,” he said.

  I shook my head, too tired to argue. “I didn’t do anything.”

  I turned for the door, but he surprised me by catching my arm and turning me back to face him. Bending slightly, he blew out my candle, so that we were standing in nearly total darkness. I looked up, surprised, and he took the opportunity to kiss me. His mouth was warm. His hands, raised to cup my cheeks, were cold. Fire and moonlight.

  I pulled back, too amazed to say anything, either to scold or flirt. Even in the darkness, I could tell he was laughing silently. “Good night, Lirril,” he said. “May all your Wintermoon wishes come true.”

  The noonday sun came through my bedroom window the next day with such force that it seemed to be muscling its way into the house. I lay drowsing in my bed a few moments, allowing myself to slowly remember the evening before. Wintermoon. My grandmother’s richly satisfying meal. The glacial vigil at the bonfire. With Jake. Who had kissed me at the door just before I ran out of his room—

  Well, that might make for an awkward moment or two at the dining room table. I felt a small smile play around my mouth. Jake would be more embarrassed than I. He would expect me to be angry or distant or cool. Instead, I would treat him exactly as I had at dinner the night before, as if he were a not very interesting stranger. He would not know what to think by the time he left on the stage for Thrush Hollow.

  That made my smile disappear. I had forgotten. Jake would be moving on as soon as the roads were clear. He wouldn’t be staying in Merendon long enough for me to tease him.