by Starr West
He still held my hand and squeezed it a little. Phoenix held my hand often and normally I considered it to be a method of reassurance, as I’m sure it was and still is, but for me, the intent had changed. His hand was warm and definitely reassuring, but there was something more. I couldn’t move for fear that I would cause him to move, but I couldn’t think beyond the presence of his hand and the closeness of his near naked body. Still, I didn’t know where these feelings were coming from. I had not considered Phoenix to be more than a friend before this very moment, and I didn’t know him long enough to have developed anything more. But the intense feelings remained.
“If the prophecy is part of your purpose, any decision you make will just bring you back on track. If it’s something you need to deal with, the patterns in your life will return you to this same path until you finally deal with it.”
“Then there is no decision to make? If I always end up where I started… back here making the same decisions? That doesn’t seem fair.” I wondered if Phoenix had more invested in my decision than he was letting on. Was he trying to convince me or was this actually the truth?
“Then why did Libby tell me that I had to choose?”
“Because she wants you to decide for yourself, accept your role and be a willing participant.”
“Do you have any idea how tiring it is?” Navarre smiled, “I don’t mean to sound mean, but you either need to get with the program or go play with the kids.”
It must have been the mellow mood that had developed in the room because this didn’t upset me as it should have. I knew I was behaving badly… childish even. “You’re right, but I don’t seem to have any control. Maybe it’s because I’m new here and everyone seems to know what’s going on except me. I’m not used to feeling so stupid.”
“Not everyone knows. I only heard about it these past few days. I knew about some stuff, but I’d never actually heard the prophecy,” Navarre answered.
“I thought Raven knew; she said some things that made me think she knew everything. But she stopped before she finished. I assumed she was talking about the prophecy,” I told him.
Phoenix shook his head, “She doesn’t know anything about the prophecy. She knew you were having a hard time after your mum died, but that’s all. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“Correct me if I’m just imagining things, but I don’t feel like I’m a part of the life here. I hardly know anyone. I don’t contribute anything. I’m just a freeloader. I don’t like it and I don’t think it helps my situation. That’s probably why Raven hates me so much.”
“I’ll talk to Libby and see if we can organise some community time mixed in with some free time. You’ll be amazed at what everyone gets up to. It will be a nice surprise, I think.”
“I think the rain has stopped,” I commented. We hadn’t noticed, but realised now there was no wind or rain, and the thunder had stopped long ago. “I don’t want to see what a mess the storm made.”
“I just want to stay here, it’s nice and warm and the company is good. What more could a man ask for?” Phoenix smiled and rubbed my hand with his fingers. Maybe Phoenix did feel the same as I did. My stomach flipped at his words, I blushed and bit my lip, “but we can’t stay here all day,” he added.
I wanted him to kiss me, right then, more than anything I’d ever wanted. My stomach was like an ocean in a storm, with the waves washing sensibility from my mind. As Phoenix moved to stand up, his face came within a few centimetres of mine, his breath hot across my lips. He smiled and reached down to help me up. My breathing was a little erratic and I blushed. I really wanted him to kiss me, but I stood and we walked to the door.
As we stepped through the door, a new world faced us. Instead of the fresh flush of green we expected to see, our world was white. And beneath the cover of snow was a scene of devastation and chaos, frozen in the slush and mud the storm left in its wake.
The view before us mirrored the devastated world we lived in. Trees were uprooted and twisted, leaves and branches were strewn across the yard, and everything was covered in a film of powdery white. Several sheets of tin lay twisted on the ground, but they too were growing white under the falling snow.
“Oh my…” Libby had woken up and was standing behind us. I shot her a look of sympathy. Her beautiful garden was nearly ruined, not completely destroyed, but there were certainly casualties.
“Flamin’ hell...” Navarre remarked as he stood beside me.
Pepper was running around the yard, digging for bugs and pushing the debris and snow with his nose. At least, he’d found what he was looking for. Icy water pooled in hollows, making small islands appear, which caused him to leap and splash as he filled his tiny belly. The snow continued to fall and turned brown and sludgy as it landed in the muddy puddles.
“It doesn’t snow here!”
“Let’s go. I fear we have bad news to deal with, and there’s nothing we can do here today,” Libby said as she slipped her feet into a pair of purple gumboots. I noticed a tear fall across her cheek.
Phoenix took my hand as we walked in silence behind Libby. No words could take away her pain, yet I feared that the worst was yet to come. As we entered the remains of the forest, we realised the damage wasn’t limited to the garden. The forest had suffered too. Many trees were down; some were twisted in place, but remained standing, while others had become half trunks, sheared and splintered. The path was no longer an easy trek with barriers of fallen trees blocking our way and preventing any progress. Navarre climbed up over the uprooted and thrashed limbs and claimed they were safe. Libby hesitated, but followed. Then Phoenix and I did the same.
We eventually stumbled out of the forest and into a scene far worse than any of us expected. Tahinah’s beautiful garden was a broken and jumbled mess, but on the ground, surrounded by our friends, lay a body.
Chapter 14 ~ WHEN REALITY BITES
The people stood surrounded by chaos, encircled by broken trees and debris, while the snow continued to fall. These people seemed beaten, pale and visibly weakened by the scene before them. I couldn’t see what they were looking at, but Libby knew. She stood tall and squared her shoulders and I became aware of the importance of her presence. Libby was their strength whenever life appeared hopeless and cruel. She wouldn’t let them down today. The crowd parted to make way for her. I saw it then… stretched out on the earth… the lifeless body of Basil Huxley, Libby’s oldest friend.
Libby knelt beside the man and held his hand in hers. There was no need to take his pulse or listen for signs of life - Basil was obviously dead. The blanching of his skin was no contrast to the snow that surrounded him. A deep wound on his head and the red blood that caked his hair and streaked his face were proof enough.
Basil had lived in the area his whole life. He and Libby had been friends since childhood. Basil was the last of Libby’s old friends who was still in the area. If the truth be known, he may have been Libby’s last living friend.
Slowly, the group withdrew to give Libby the space she so obviously needed. I had no idea what to do. My relationship with death was new and the pain too fresh for me to be detached or offer any comfort. I could feel my legs weaken and wobble beneath me and an ache began to grow in my heart. I slowly stepped back, until I was as far from death as I could be without entering the forest. No one noticed my absence and I thought it best if I just went home. This was their grief. Each one of them had known Basil for many years and his death would be felt sorely by everyone.
Phoenix was beside me before I’d made it over the first pile of trees. “Where are you going?” He didn’t really need to ask, so I just looked at him and said nothing. “You can’t go home and you shouldn’t be alone! Besides, you’ll probably get lost.”
As I started to speak, I realised I was close to tears. The words caught in my throat and exposed the fragile grasp that held my emotions in check, but the façade didn’t fool Phoenix.
“You don’t have to go near Basil or Libb
y if you don’t want to, but you shouldn’t be alone either. You’ve fought so hard to deal with the grief of losing your mum, wallowing in misery now won’t help. If you want to talk about it, we can sit for a while.” He pointed toward a wooden bench embedded into the base of a tree. “But if you need to cry, that’s okay too. I’m your friend. You can always cry on my shoulder.”
He was right. I was on the precipice of darkness, looking down the mouth of the monster that had held me in its grip for three long months. I forgot that Phoenix had been there, forgot that he watched me while I waited to die. He was there the morning I chose to live and had been there ever since. My mind was crowded with dark thoughts fighting to gain control and take me back to that dark place… but I couldn’t lose the fight, not this time.
I brushed flakes of snow off Phoenix’s bare shoulder, “Aren’t you cold?”
When he didn’t answer, I sucked in a breath of freezing air and waited for the tension to leave my body. It didn’t. So we sat for a while longer. Words wouldn’t come and my lip trembled each time I tried to speak. The salty taste of unshed tears burnt the back of my throat and filled my mouth with the sharp taste of acid. Trying to stop the tears was hard. Finally, with aching cheeks and burning eyes, I turned to Phoenix and cried. But I didn’t feel defeated. I’d simply allowed the sorrow to exist for a moment.
The sorrow never fully left. It couldn’t. It possessed me like the monster that haunted my dreams.
“What do we do?” I looked around at the mess “I don’t know what else to do… but go home and be alone. I’m good at that.”
“We’ll wait and see what the others say. We have adults to tell us what to do.” Phoenix smiled and led me over the debris toward the house. The cleanup began before we arrived, but most of the yard was still littered with broken twigs and leaves. Scattered here and there were piles of logs and remnants of larger trees that had fallen.
Basil’s cause of death came from Emily, she and Luke being Basil’s neighbours – or at least, they were. Luke went to check on the old man as soon as the rain had eased up and found him on the floor of his old house. Part of the roof had blown off and at first it looked as if one of the beams had collapsed on Basil. Luke carried the old man to Tahinah, in case there was anything she could do. They would have taken him to Libby, but couldn’t get through the forest. When Tahinah saw Basil, she knew the truth. His death wasn’t caused by an accident, Basil had been shot, murdered by raiders who struck during the storm.
Chapter 15 ~ FROM THE ASHES
The men organised us into working parties while the women took care of Basil’s body. I stayed with the working party. Clearing the pathway to our house was one of the first jobs and this was obviously the best place for me. The job required little skill and provided me with a reason to stay and work. There seemed little to do other than drag and pull at the branches and trunks until the path was clear. I stood looking at the pile of twisted wood and thought it would be easier to make a new track than clear the old pathway. Lachlan and Seth walked up and stood beside me. They too surveyed the pile of wood.
“We’ll knock this up in an hour, I reckon… what do you think, Seth?” Seth still looked pale but obviously no longer sick enough to be bed-ridden.
“Maybe less if we can get the logs dragged out for us. You up for that, Psyche?”
I looked at the two men. “This job should take at least a week or longer.”
Lachlan laughed the same big belly laugh I recognised from the party. “We might be back to basics, but we ain’t livin’ in the dark ages yet, love.” Lachlan swung a huge chainsaw up in front of him like he was a cast member in the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. “We keep technology for the big jobs, and this would qualify as a big job, I reckon.”
Seth had a crooked smile and found Lachlan’s humour amusing. “Go round up that boyfriend of yours and see if he can help us drag out the logs.”
I was going to tell them that he wasn’t my boyfriend, but Phoenix could deal with that misunderstanding.
In much less than an hour, the path was clear. I was amazed at what two men and their chainsaws could accomplish. Phoenix and I dragged out most of the smaller logs and branches and created soaring piles that would provide us all with firewood for many months, once the timber dried. The remainder of the timber was rainforest hardwood and would be reserved for future building projects.
There was a little daylight left when we finished clearing the path. A simple meal had been prepared and laid out for hungry workers to come and eat as they pleased. I wanted to avoid seeing Libby, but knew I was being stupid. I still didn’t know what to say or what to do. Libby had been there for me, but I had no idea what to say to her.
“Quite mild for a cyclone.”
“Too much damage for a storm.”
“Far too intense either way.”
“Snowing? How crazy is that!”
The discussion went round in circles, but the greatest mystery seemed to be why no one saw it coming. Old Basil could smell a storm three days out and Libby never even missed a shower of rain, yet this one took everyone by surprise.
I began to think that the storm was connected to the veil or the magick in some way, but I didn’t even know if that were possible. I was beginning to identify a pattern - when confusion and mystery surrounded us, the answers always entailed magick. New magick or ancient magick it didn’t seem to matter. It wasn’t appropriate to ask Libby now, but perhaps it was a mystery I could explore by myself.
It had grown quite dark, with no moon. The stars shone brightly, sparkly and twinkling in the sky like any other night. I was growing tired and wanted to head home, but I knew Phoenix wouldn’t let me go alone. He was talking to Lachlan, Seth and Ruben and close enough to notice my departure. I hoped he set them straight about the boyfriend thing. The conversation was loud and boisterous and Ruben was laughing at the two other men. He slapped Seth on the back and walked away, toward the house. I thought the mood would be solemn this evening. They had lost so much today, perhaps even more than they realised.
Libby appeared at the top of the stairs with Tahinah and Abigail, who were ready to leave. It would seem to an onlooker that I was part of the group, discussing the weather and chatting with friends, but although I sat with them, I wasn’t participating or even listening. When I stood up, Phoenix arrived at my side, ready to escort us home, as I knew he would.
“Stay, Phoenix. We can find our own way home tonight.” Libby looked much better than I expected and her voice was soft and calm.
“It will be safer if I walk with you. It’s a moonless night and we don’t know how safe it is to walk alone.” Phoenix wouldn’t take no for an answer. Tahinah handed him a lantern. It didn’t provide much light, but was better than stumbling in the dark.
“Phoenix, you be sure and light the fire and make Libby a pot of tea. She’s had nothing for hours. Psyche, please get her to eat something.” Tahinah spoke in the same manner she always had and I could see she truly cared for Libby.
“Phoenix, I want you to stay tonight. I don’t want the girls there alone. I’ll send Navarre over at midnight. I don’t care how you organise it, but I want one of you awake and on alert at all times.” Ruben finally had the support he needed to organise a full-scale defence system.
The night was pitch-black and the terrain no longer familiar. Large logs still lay in some places and tiny branches and leaves covered the path. Snow made it slippery and a horrible sludge coated everything.
By the time Phoenix lit the fire and made tea, Libby was in bed. So the simple snack I’d put together was offered to a very hungry dragon that consumed it with gusto. Pepper seemed pleased to have us home. I tried not to get too fond of him, in case he wanted to join his fellow dragons one day, but it seemed that Pepper was behaving more like a pet than a wild dragon.
Phoenix and I barely spoke on the way home, but he sat with me now and offered me a cup of peppermint tea.
“Shouldn’t we be drinking cha
momile at this time of night? I thought peppermint was a ‘pick me up’.” I was slowly learning about the herbs and their uses and benefits.
“It is better in the morning, but I think we should talk. We don’t get a lot of time alone and I don’t want you falling asleep just yet.”
“Ooh, that sounds a bit mysterious.” I intended to make a joke of what he said, but he was so serious, I kept my comments to myself and waited.
“I just need to talk to you alone and we always have either Libby or Navarre with us. We will bury Basil tomorrow, and with the storm clean-up, we might not get another chance for a while.”
“I thought it might have been about the ‘boyfriend comment’ that Seth made this afternoon. I hope you set him straight.”
“Well, not actually, but a lot of that was because Navarre and I arrived home in our underwear.” He nodded toward the clothes hanging beside the fire.
“Oh, I didn’t even notice.”
“That’s what I told them, but they wouldn’t leave it alone.” I thought Phoenix was about to blush, but he turned away “We’ll be hearing about this for a long time. Navarre doesn’t help. His version is that you couldn’t decide between him and me and wanted to see us naked. Sorry, Psyche, I did try.”
“That’s okay, but wait until I see Navarre. So that’s it? That’s what you wanted to talk about?”
“No,” Phoenix said as he took a deep breath. “Today was supposed to be about telling you everything. No secrets. Remember? But we couldn’t continue with Navarre here and the storm completely interrupted our plans.”
“Oh, I thought you’d pretty much covered all the basics… just the details were missing.”
“It’s the details that hold the secrets and I don’t want you to be upset every time something new is revealed. I figured if I lay it all out today, you could get upset once and then, perhaps, we can move on.”
“So you’re going to upset me?”