Phoenix by Jennifer Mason-Black

Author:Jennifer Mason-Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Musa Publishing
Published: 2012-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

The shadows were taking over by the time she woke. We’d been playing checkers, not even paying attention, just moving them around, when Gabriel looked up. He jumped to his feet and headed over to the nest. I followed.

She was sitting up, her attention on the window across the room. She looked older, her face drawn a little more tightly. Gabriel knelt beside her, and she pulled her knees to her chest. The two of them stayed like that for a few minutes, nothing but their silence and the buzz of a fly against one of the windowpanes.

Then, “I know so much more now.” She sounded sad and relieved. It made me feel a little like crying to hear her.

“It’s okay,” Gabriel said. “Let me get you something to eat.”

“Twelve of us,” she said. Gabriel rocked back on his heels. “All sent to wander. Just like you.” She touched his face with the flat of her hand.

“Shhhh.”

She looked at me, her kaleidoscope eyes even greener in the last dregs of light. “People can love you and not want to know. People can be loving you and holding their fingers up to your lips so you can’t tell them.”

I felt like she held some essential piece of me in her hand, like my heart beat there on her palm, and it hurt, making me want to double over with the pain. I could see my mother and her sad eyes watching out the window.

“Fuck this. I need to go out.” Gabriel shoved off of the floor to stand, his grace gone.

“But—” I said.

“She’s not going anywhere. All you need to do is feed her and listen to her crazy shit.” And he left, slipping between the tables and out the window without a backward glance.

Kelsey just sat there, motionless, watching me. I was afraid of her, a little. Okay, a lot. Afraid of whatever she’d done to the girl, and of her craziness, and of the way her crazy sounded on the edge of sane to me. But then she sighed, and all I could think about was her wandering all alone the way she was, and of what had happened to her by the river, and maybe other places too, and the sadness rose through me again.

I took the bag of muffins and sat down beside her.

“When we were little, we would sing for our mother and she would feed us. We hatched from shells, you know, and she saved them. When we sang they would glow and make the whole room warm. Would you like me to sing for you?”

I wanted Gabriel to come back. I wanted to feel safe, like I had when I was little, before I understood how different I was, before the world took those differences and twisted them like barbed wire tight around me.

“Sure,” I said.

She swallowed, looked toward the window, opened her mouth, and began. I can’t explain what she sang either. It wasn’t in any language I knew, and the tune didn’t feel like a regular song.

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