Phoenix

Jewel put the car in park.

I blinked my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. I looked through the car window and there was the hospital.

They’d brought me back to the hospital.

There weren’t any fire trucks or crazies. Apparently the chaos from the fire earlier had been straightened out.

“Je-wel,” I said, drawing her name out. “What are we doing here?”

“Nix,” she said, her voice sounding scared. “You’re sick. You need help.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m not crazy.” It felt good to finally say that out loud. All along, I really had believed that I was crazy. It was good to finally hear the truth from my own lips.

“No,” she said. “You aren’t. But I think you’re confused.”

The stitches in my wrist throbbed. The bites on my skin burned. Somewhere deep inside me, I felt another burning, a different fire.

My soul.

“Jewel,” I said reaching to take her hand. It was cool in mine. She looked down at our joined hands. “Eloria is real. You’ve been there.” She pulled her hand away, fiddling with the keys like she was doing something important.

“Pete,” I said turning around to look at him. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

His mouth formed a thin line and his eyebrows knit together. This was not the face of a friend who was going to support me.

“I think you need to stay here, Nix,” he said, The pain on his face was obvious and I didn’t care. I poked my chin at him, clenching my teeth.

“Fine,” I said, grabbing the handle to release the door. Frigid air wheezed into the car through the crack between the door and the body of the car.

“What are you doing?” Jewel gasped.

“I’m getting out,” I said. “Unless you’re going to drive the car into the lobby, that’s how going back in there works.”

“Just like that?” she asked. Her green eyes shimmered. I think she was going to cry, or trying not to. She kind of deserved to cry. With her insight into Eloria should have believed me. But she didn’t.

“Yeah,” I said. “I tried to show you the truth. And of everyone in this world, you should believe me. You see it. But you don’t have any faith in me at all. So I guess I’ll see you guys later.” I pushed the car door open. A blast of cold air engulfed us.

“Uh,” Jewel said. “Do you need me to walk you in or anything? I mean, it feels so weird to just drop you off.”

“Honestly,” I said, knowing my next words would cut and not caring. “It feels weird to be abandoned like this.” Pete shrank back in his seat, suddenly very worried about his fingernails. Jewel

I got out then, slamming the car door behind me. I didn’t look over my shoulder as I entered the hospital, the white fluorescents casting strange shadows over everything.

None of this is real, I told myself. I tried to make myself switch back to Eloria, but nothing happened.

I shrugged down into the hoodie, pushing the button for the handicapped doors to open with my hip. The doors came open slowly with a rush of warm air. I made my way through, glancing up at the security camera.

I liked to think that I was important enough to the Darkness that the people in this fantasy would come running the minute they saw my face staring at them through the camera, but somehow I wasn’t. I tried to think back to the stories Lucius told us that night at the feast. Stories of the other worlds he visited. Had this been one of them? Could it be possible that it was real, just not for me?

No one came running

I walked to the information desk. A woman sat reading a magazine, idly flipping pages as though she was only looking at the pictures. I cleared my throat. She looked up and smiled at me.

“Can I help you, hon?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” I said. “I escaped from the psych ward earlier and I thought it might be a good idea to come back.”

“You what?” she asked, dropping the magazine.

“I escaped from the psych ward,” I said. “During the fire.”

She grabbed a handset and punched a few buttons. Her hands were shaking.

“But I thought it would be a good idea to come back,” I explained. I hoped she didn’t think I was going to try to kill her or something. She seemed way too scared. Her eyes darted back to me and she tried to smile, but only half of her face seemed to work. It looked kind of like a snarl. She tried to speak surreptitiously into the receiver, but I heard every word.

“Um, yes,” she said. “I’ve got a young man here who says he escaped from the psych ward—“ Her eyes traveled me up and down. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, he does look like that. Uh-huh. Okay.” She let the handset slide down her face and caught it with her hand. Her eyes were huge as she watched me. “Why don’t you just have a seat over there?” she asked, pointing to the chairs by the doors. “Someone will come to get you.”

“Okay,” I said. I turned to go to the chairs.

“No,” she said into the receiver she’d put back up to her ear. “I’m alright. He seems like a really normal kid...Really? Really? Are you sure it’s the same boy? He doesn’t seem—uh. Okay. Thank you.”

I couldn’t help a smile. What? I don’t seem crazy? Well, it’s because I’m not. I walked over to the chairs and flopped into one. I looked out the window and saw Jewel’s car still sitting there by the front doors. The headlights were on, but I could see Jewel and Pete sitting inside. They seemed to be shouting at one another. Their faces didn’t look happy.

I wondered if they were talking about me.

I picked up a mountain biking magazine and flipped through the pages, reading a few words here and there, but mostly looking at the pictures. There were alpine forests on glossy pages, blue skies, and guys with top-of-line gear. I turned the page and a vista of dusty, bright red rocks stared back at me. Utah was printed in white letters across a picture of an arching rock formation. My heart beat a little faster. That was it. That was the red desert from my vision. I had to get there. In both worlds, somehow.

And getting there in either world was unlikely.

Two orderlies dressed in white jumpsuits came bursting through a set of double doors into the lobby. They were big, beefy guys. Their faces were wild.

I waved at them and closed the magazine before standing up.

The two guys just stood there like deer waiting to be hit by a semi, staring at me. I walked over to them.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m back.”

They didn’t say anything. One walked in front, leading me through the hospital. The other trailed behind, making sure I didn’t bolt. I didn’t know where they were taking me exactly, but I followed through turn after turn, through double doors and down cold hallways. We ended up in an entirely different wing than where the psych ward had been before, probably because of the fire. The orderlies walked me up to the round nurse, Ellie.

She dropped her clipboard, her mouth falling open.

“You!” she said. I grinned at her. I didn’t know if it was a good idea to grin at her, but her round face in its round fury just struck me as funny.

“Me,” I said. Her mouth scrunched up in a wrinkly knot.

“Your little stunt might have cost me my job,” she hissed. “Why did you run off?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. What else was I supposed to say? “I came back though.”

“I almost wish you hadn’t,” she said under her breath, bringing her hand up to pat her blonde curls. “Come with me.”

I followed her to a room and she handed me a pair of sweats and a T-shirt.

“You know what to do with those,” she said, turning to go. I looked at the clothes in my hands, feeling the smoothness of the cotton, the weave of the sweatpants.

“None of this is real,” I said quietly.

“Oh,” the nurse said, tilting her chin down so her forehead was a mass of wrinkles and she looked at me from over the top rim of her glasses. “Some of it is real.” She closed the door.

I dressed in the clothes and laid down on the bed.

“Lexia,” I said. The light in the room was dim. It was the middle of the night. I stood in silence letting the sound of my voice fade away. Was she going to come?

Was she too weak?

“Lexia,” I said again. The word had an edge of pleading to it. I didn’t know I was desperate.

I lay down on the creaky bed, staring at the ceiling. Blood pulsed against the stitches in my wrist, raged against the bites dimpling my skin.

The door swung open. I lifted my head to watch the old orderly man with the horseshoe of silver hair enter. He nodded to me and went to sit in the chair by the lamp.

“You’re back,” I observed, letting my head fall to the lumpy pillow.

He didn’t say anything.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “Am I on suicide watch again?”

He still didn’t say anything.

I drew in a deep, shaking breath.

This place is the fantasy.

My best friends had abandoned me. Lexia couldn’t come. And I seemed to be stuck here. Maybe sleep was best.

“You are back,” Lexia breathed. Her eyes fixed on mine.

“Was I gone long?” I asked her. I was worried now that I would spend too long in the other place. I didn’t want the Darkness to take me like it had Lucius. I felt my heart in my throat. Wind blew through the burned forest, scattering ash. It was so difficult to tell time here, with the daylight shrinking and the dark growing.

“Long enough,” Lexia said. She looked me up and down. “Do you think you could light us a little fire: one that does not threaten to swallow us?”

I thought about a fire burning and immediately my hands began to sweat. Shouldn’t I be over that now? I tried to slow my heartbeat, but I couldn’t. I swallowed, gathering in the heat, the flames, of my soul. I felt energy, magic, surge through me, waiting to be released, waiting to strive. Waiting. Building. Burning.

Am I really Phoenix of Eloria? Phoenix the Scarred? Phoenix the pyromancer?

“Phoenix,” a familiar voice said. I opened my eyes to see Dr. Banks leaning over me, looking down at me.

I drew in a sharp breath and sat up.

Sweat beaded on my forehead and chest.

“How are you doing, son?” Dr. Banks said.

“Don’t call me son,” I said quietly. Dr. Banks eyed me sideways, walking around the bed. The room was dim, but not dark. I saw her nod.

“What happened?” Dr. Banks asked. She didn’t stop her slow pacing around the bed. She seemed like a lion to me, ready to strike and waiting for the opportunity. It set my teeth on edge. “Have you been drifting back to Eloria?”

“How do you know that name?” I asked, sitting up.

“We talk about it all the time,” she said, sliding her glasses up on his nose. “It’s your fantasy land. It’s where you go on your breaks from reality.” I shook my head, but didn’t disagree. This doctor was some kind of tool of the Darkness, but fighting with her was not worth my effort.

“What happened tonight?” Dr. Banks asked.

“Do you mean before or after my room started on fire while I was strapped to bed and the nurse saved me?” I asked.

“Is that what you think happened?” Dr. Banks said. She stopped pacing to stare at me above the rims of her glasses.

“Yeah,” I said certainly. “That’s what happened.”

“Phoenix, Phoenix, Phoenix,” Dr. Banks said softly, shaking her head.

“What?” I barked.

“Your room just happened to light on fire?” she asked. She held her head tilted to the side, like an adult listening to the garbled words of a toddler and trying to make sense of them.

“Yes,” I said.

“The fire just happened?” he asked me.

What was he saying? A feeling lurked inside me that I knew exactly what he was saying.

“I was strapped to a freaking bed!” I shouted. I wanted to jump off the bed and throttle him. But I didn’t. “How could I have started a fire?”

“And the fire that killed your sister?” Dr. Banks asked. “Did that one just happen as well?”

I went cold. Matches, gasoline, anger. The cabin at Entiat. I remembered the smell, the heat.

“No,” I said. “No. That didn’t happen.” Lexia told me it didn’t happen.

“Phoenix,” Dr. Banks said, trying to make her voice soft, pleading. “Are we really back to that? You killed your father and sister with that fire.”

She’s not dead, I told myself, but the loss of her ached through me.

“You have a problem, son,” Dr. Banks said quietly, stopping her pacing and sitting down in a chair by the door. Her face wore the wrinkles of false concern.

“You have no idea,” I huffed.

It was an accident, a little voice in my mind said. I think it was my voice. I didn’t mean to—

Shut up! I told it.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” she asked, her voice soothing.

“Why don’t you take a flying leap off the bridge?” I asked. I felt the sneer on my lips, heard it in my voice.

Dr. Banks rolled her eyes and shook her head, pulling in her under lip until her chin wrinkled and turned white. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or trying not to laugh.

“Hostility serves no one,” Dr. Banks said. “Your restraints were empty. There was a book of matches in your room. Tell me how those two things happened.”

I just stared at her.

“What?” I asked.

“There was a book of matches in your room,” Dr. Banks said slowly. “I don’t know where you got them. Honestly, son, I don’t know if you’re playing some kind of game with me. I half think I should call the police instead of trying to talk to you.”

“You think...” I didn’t want to say it out loud. It might make it true. “I started that fire?”

Dr. Banks leaned back, crossing her knees, lacing her fingers over her knee. Her eyes bored into mine.

“You did start it,” Dr. Banks said with certainty.

“And you think I magically escaped the restraints?” I asked. Incredulity colored my voice. “I would have died if Ellie didn’t come rescue me.”

“You ran away,” she said. “And the nurse who let you out of the restraints?” She raised his eyebrows, looking for recognition. “She may or may not have a job here in the morning. That depends on you. Tell me how you got the matches.”

“Why don’t I just show you how I started the fire?” I asked.

Dr. Banks’s mouth fell open. Whatever she thought I was going to say, this obviously wasn’t it. She sat there watching me for a minute and I watched her back.

“You’re not doing anything,” Dr. Banks observed.

“You think?” I said. “I’m doing exactly what I was doing when I woke up with my room on fire. If it wasn’t for that nurse—You know what?” I snapped, cutting myself off. “Just get out. I’m being shipped to Seattle in the morning anyway. Let’s stop wasting our time.”

There was a pause while Dr. Banks just stared at me.

“As you wish,” Dr. Banks finally said. The door clicked softly closed.

I fell asleep and, for the first time in a long time, I dreamed. The sun rose above snowcapped mountains that resolved into Mission Ridge. Light glinted from choppy waves on a shining lake before settling down into the glassy surface of the Columbia. Faces swirled around me, faces I knew. Both faces I knew. Lexia the elf, Lexia my human sister. Eremil stood side by side with Pete and both crossed their arms across their chests, scowling at me with identical expressions on slightly different faces. Elandril dressed in armor drifted into my dad, wearing the old blue Northface. But then there were people who seemed to have no counterpart in either world. Sominette, Dr. Banks. And Jewel.

The dream shifted, moving away from the people I knew.

King bounded across an endless field of wheat, his black form bobbing up and down before changing to Might, running through the wheat head high, tail high.

Stars shone in an inky black sky and were consumed one by one till all that was left was the darkness.

The Darkness.

Sominette’s sweet face looked down at me, her gentle hand stroking my hair.

“I need you to help me save the world, my son,” she said and then her face changed. Aged. Grew sharper. She stood before me, shrouded in black mist, the weight of menace rolling out from her. “Kill her!”

I sat up gasping before I was fully awake. The door of my hospital room sprang open so hard it rebounded from the wall.

“What’s going on?” I demanded. I trembled, my body having a hard time shaking off deep sleep.

Pete stood in the doorway, looking so much like Eremil in my dream, down to the scowl on his face. Pete’s broad shoulders took up most of the space in the doorframe, just as Eremil’s would have. The hard angles of his face drew tight, ready for a fight. Jewel stood behind him, looking around as though she thought something might be sneaking up on them.

“You’re not crazy,” Jewel said over her shoulder, her eyes darting to meet mine. She rocked a little from foot to foot, looking like she was ready to run, her lower lip caught between her teeth. “Eloria is real. I’ve seen it.”

“What?” I said. But the question melted away without being answered. “How did you even get in here?” I asked. What had they done? You couldn’t just walk into a psych ward. There were double buzzered doors and security guards and...

This wasn’t the psych ward, I remembered. This was a regular ward.

“We’re taking you out of here,” Pete said. His eyes met mine and he smiled, the expression sparse on his fierce face.

“Come on,” Jewel said, slipping out the door.

“Let’s go,” Pete said. “Get low. Try not to be seen.” Pete hunched down, his head swiveling as his eyes darted left and right. I felt myself do the same.

Jewel just looked at us, shaking her head.

“Trying to sneak out?” she scoffed.

I nodded.

“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,” Jewel said. “Just walk. Keep in your head that you have every right to do what you’re doing. Just walk.” She stood straighter, visibly forcing herself to appear natural. Then the “forcing” melted away and she was natural. She belonged there. She started walking down the hall toward the lobby. I tried to make myself look like her and followed, Pete doing the same.

He sucked at it.

My heart pounded so hard I was sure it was going to explode. I was going to die. But somehow I didn’t. I kept walking with Jewel, Pete trailing behind us. No one even looked twice at us, except the janitor who took a double eyeful of Jewel and pursed his lips when he thought she couldn’t see.

Jewel pushed the button to call the elevator and we waited, trying to seem as much like our normal selves as we could. And then I saw her coming. Dr. Banks. The rest of the staff might not know me on sight, but Dr. Banks would. I tried to hide behind the plant which stood beside the elevator.

“What are you doing?” Jewel hissed, her eyes going wide. “You’re going to blow our cover!”

“It’s her!” I said. “Dr. Banks! She’s going to see—“

She grabbed me by the shirt and swung me around so my back was to the elevator and then kissed me with such ferocity I forgot we were trying to hide.

Green rolling hills, snow-capped mountains, sun rises, and sun sets flashed through my mind. It was Eloria as it once had been, before the wars, before the Darkness. Before Hope was destroyed and Light was stolen. It could be that way again. It would be that way again.

Hope rocketed through me. It felt like flying.

“It’s you,” Dr. Banks said, grabbing Jewel by the shoulder and pulling her away from me.

Jewel’s eyes went wide.

“Dang it,” she whispered. “Physical displays of affection are supposed to make people uncomfortable enough to look away.” Nerves always did give her verbal diarrhea.

There was sudden movement and the sound of Dr. Banks hitting the floor. Jewel shook her fist to get the blood flowing back into her knuckles after the impact. Dr. Banks lay face-down on the floor, not moving.

“You hit her,” I said to Jewel. She looked at me with furled brows. “You just hit her.”

“Yeah,” Jewel said. “The diversion wasn’t working.”

“Oh crap,” I said. “We’re in trouble now.”

Jewel moved fluidly into the elevator that had finally arrived. I followed her as though I was iron filings and she was a magnet. Pete came last, looking at the ceiling and swallowing.

“You guys okay now?” he asked. His voice was rough. “No more kissy face?”

“Oh come on, Pete,” Jewel said, completely back to normal. Was she trying to tease me? “I had to hide him from the doctor. What else did you want me to do?”

“But you had to know that wouldn’t work,” Pete said. “That was the cheesiest, over-done, trick ever. It’s in, like, every movie ever made.”

“I knew no such thing!” Jewel said. “Kissing in public makes people uncomfortable and they--“Jewel’s cheeks burned bright red and she suddenly becoming very interested in her fingernails.

“Where’d you get that from?” Pete asked. “A book?”

The elevator dinged and the doors came open to the lobby.

I offered Jewel my hand and she took it, smiling shyly at me. Pete rolled his eyes at us. We walked out of the hospital and into the night as though we had every right to do so.