The Fire Artist (7 page)

I was drawn to his marks the first time I saw them, the first time I visited him behind bars. He told me they branded him the second he walked through the doors of the penitentiary, even though he was a juvenile, just seventeen when he was locked up. But his crime warranted the punishment of an adult, so that’s what he was given.

Four years and permanent marks.

Arson will do that to you.

The first time I saw him, I gawked at the black
X
s. A sign he used his powers for a crime.

“Your hands,” I said, pointing.

“As if a little mark can stop me,” he whispered darkly. “Tell me about life on the outside. Have you set the world on fire yet too?”

I hadn’t had my own hands set on fire yet.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think I’m anything. I don’t think I’m like you or Dad.”

Xavier had been a beautiful fire artist. He had woven flames
as if he were conducting an orchestra. He’d been on the Wonder team since he was thirteen, the earliest a fire artist had ever performed in the southern farm circuit. I went to all his shows, sat in the front row, and followed him around like the proverbial puppy dog.

But Xavier liked fire too much. He’d disappear after shows sometimes, and when he returned home a few hours later, he’d rap on my door and tell me what he’d done, like a confession, but guilt-free. “I lit a fireball in a tree. Watched it flame up for a few minutes.”

“Then what?”

“Put it out, of course.”

Next it was garbage cans, then a few Dumpsters. Each time, he’d put out his own flames. He didn’t want to get caught. But maybe he did. I don’t know. All I know is he became careless. Or angry. Or proud. Because he started setting cars on fire. Cars he’d find in empty lots late at night. Cars parked along the beach after midnight. He’d set them aflame, watch them burn, and then douse his own fire, leaving behind the charred remains.

I’m not entirely sure what drove him to my dad’s junkyard one night. Maybe he had a beef with dear old Dad too.

When he returned, he woke me up, told me the story of how he watched the cars burn, how he presided over them, inhaling the smell of the burning tires, noxious and thick, and the scent of the seat belts smoking. How he watched as a dented, faded red door slowly peeled away from a Mustang.

Dad’s favorite model.

Then he extinguished the flames.

My dad was the first to see the destruction, and he crafted
a cover-up for his boss and for the fire department. He claimed a lit cigarette had wreaked the havoc, even though he didn’t smoke. But he needed to protect his son, his first hope for fame, for money, for glory. Besides, it was a junkyard, a wayward land for broken-down parts, smashed-up pieces, and really, a cigarette being flicked there could have done that kind of damage. It was plausible enough.

When our dad yelled at Xavier for what he’d done, my brother just said, “What do you expect? You gave me your fire. You made me this way!”

Xavier laid waste to many more cars in our town. Late at night, like some sort of avenging ghost rider, he’d pace down the streets, flick his wrist, and watch Fords and Buicks and Cadillacs ignite.

He was arrested quickly for the car bombings.

Xavier Kilandros wasn’t just a fire artist. It was as if the fire in him had twisted too far, forked in on itself, and made him destructive.

Then again, that may be what fire powers do to us. That may be another part no one understands. That behind our hardened skin, we are driven mad by our so-called gifts.

Xavier has been out of prison for one month now. Sometimes, I wonder if my dad would have set my hands aflame if Xavi hadn’t been locked up. If Xavi had continued performing and rising to the top of the Leagues. If my dad had another fire artist, a true and pure one, to focus his energy on. But then, maybe my dad was programmed—in his own sick way by his father—to hurt his kids.

I don’t blame my brother for anything. I’m just happy that he’s home.

He takes a sharp right and guides us onto a long stretch of empty road, only a few houses on each side. The homes thin out more, and we pass an orange grove, then a field. Soon he turns on a hard-packed dirt road, and I grip my handlebars tighter because the wheels of this bike weren’t made for roads like this. I’m looking down, and I barely notice where we are.

The abandoned mental asylum in nearby Winter Springs.

“Why are you taking me here?”

“I’ll show you why.”

We pedal up the road that leads to what was once a serene and tranquil setting for those who’d lost their minds. A sprawling mansion that a Florida couple donated to the state for a mental institution, in memory of their daughter who’d suffered from schizophrenia—the Elizabeth Jane Hansen Center for Respite and Care. It was like a stately southern plantation, but now its big wide steps are cracked and crumbling. The once-white home has turned gray and dirty, like an unwashed back windshield begging
wash me
in fingerprint. The grounds are overgrown with grass, unkempt and wild. The massive front doors have fallen off their hinges, and they hang open, lifeless. A Florida sugar maple tree’s untrimmed branches poke into a broken window on the second floor, as if the tree had been grabbing blindly for what lay beyond.

Xavier and I walk through the broken-down doors. Inside, the mansion is dead silent and still as glass.

I wrap a hand around Xavier’s arm, and he ushers me up
the stairs, the walls lined with old portraits hanging limply at sad angles. I peek into one of the patient rooms on the second floor. A basin has fallen on its side, with brittle bits of porcelain trailing from its bowl. Another room contains medical equipment, an old gurney, withered over the years, and a series of bizarre contraptions with straps and buckles that must have been for restraint.

“That’s where they housed the especially crazy ones,” Xavier says as if he can hear my thoughts.

Xavier leads me into a larger room that must have once been the baths. We’re surrounded by the shells of old tubs and the carcasses of showers and sinks, with dust and dirt under our feet. I cough. He lets go of me and turns in a full circle, his arms spread out. “This is where I will make fire again.”

I half want to smack him. “You’re crazy. And you’re a jerk for taking me here for that reason.”

“I’m serious, Ar. There’s a bunch of us who are forbidden from making elemental arts, but we’re going to do it here. I visited this place after work the other night and it’s perfect. Off the grid, you know. No one ever comes here, but we’ll have our own shows here. A new kind of show.”

“Like a rave? Some underground theater spectacle?”

He nods enthusiastically and his eyes have the glint of an inventor.

“Why would anyone come here though? Why would they see a show here when there are shows in less creepy places?”

“Because we don’t make the same magic anymore.”

“What do you make?” I ask with a sick curiosity. Maybe he
has a trick to teach me that will get me out of town. Anticipation balloons in my lungs.

“Watch,” he says, and takes a few steps back.

He holds out his hands, the gorgeous way he used to when he stood in the same park where I’ll perform for the scout. He spreads them like a magician. As if they’re steely knives, he slashes his arms through the air, releasing plumes of fire. I watch, mesmerized, as the flames race to the ceiling high above us, then he calls them back down before they burn a thing. But on their descent, I notice something amiss about his flames. They’re taking shape, they’re curving and curling, and when he relights them, they are more defined.

They are forming his mirror image.

He made a fire twin.

He made the legendary trick that hasn’t been seen in years. One that’s whispered of, talked about in hushed tones. One that’s supposedly incredibly hard to execute.

I am frozen. Speechless. I point at him, barely able to comprehend what he’s made.

A flaming, shadowy replica of himself. Tall and sinewy like Xavier. Shimmering next to him. Mirroring him. Arms moving as Xavier’s arms move. Lips curving into a grin as Xavi’s do. A burning carbon copy of my brother the arsonist.

“You. You’re making …” But that’s all I can say.

“Cool, huh?”

His face is lit up like a child’s. So is his twin’s. It’s creepy but completely mesmerizing. He steps toward me. His duplicate steps too. I back away, but I can’t look elsewhere. I can’t stop
staring, not as he raises a hand and beckons me closer to him. As they both do. I shake my head, but then I’m following his twin’s lead. Inching nearer.

His twin’s fire is quiet. There’s no crackling or hissing from its flames, and there’s a part of me that’s tempted to stick my own hand through the shadowy copy of my brother. But then the fire starts to fade, quickly flaming out.

The twin is gone.

He looks at me with expectant eyes. “You like?”

“I’m horrified and amazed at the same time. How did you do that?”

“I learned.”

“But how? No one has done one in years. You didn’t make that when you were in the Leagues,” I say, as if I can point out the unimaginable in what he’s pulled off—old, dark elemental magic.

“Aria, we can do anything with our gifts if we focus, if we train them.”

“Did you learn this in prison?”

“Yes,” he says, his tone light, as if this is all in a day’s work for him.

“How, though?” I ask, and I want to clutch his shoulders, demand an answer for the incredible feat he’s pulled off. “How on earth do you do that? Did it take years? Did you work on this the whole time you were in there?”

He shakes his head. “Didn’t take me long.”

“Then why doesn’t everyone make a fire twin? The Leagues have been dying for someone to make a fire twin since the last time a fire artist pulled it off a few years ago.”

“I have a theory on why I learned it quickly. Because when they make you stop, like in prison, I think the fire, or the water, or the air, or the earth—it builds up in you.” He grabs at his own chest for emphasis. “It builds inside you, and it’s like it’s all bubbling under the surface, and when you can’t let it out, it starts to turn into this. Some of us did this in our cells at night when the guards weren’t looking.”

I know a little something about fire building inside me. Would my fire turn to a duplicate me if I didn’t drown the extra in the canals?

“And you’re going to perform like that?”

“Yeah. I can make beasts too. Lizards, snakes, and all sorts of horned creatures,” he says. Those aren’t as rare—but audiences don’t tend to care for my snakes very much. Though some audiences might. “I think there’s a certain segment of society that would be pretty game to see the other side of the gifts.”

I grab his arm as a new worry punches my chest. “Xavi, I don’t want you to perform here. You might be tempted again.”

“To burn more cars?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah,” I say as if the answer is obvious. Because it is. “And I don’t want you to be tempted. I don’t want you to be sent away. I want you to be safe.”

“I won’t let it get out of control again,” he says, his voice reassuring, but only because I want to be reassured, I want to believe. Because we’re the same. We’ve both broken laws, we’ve both abused the elements, and the only difference between the two criminals standing in this abandoned insane asylum right now is who’s been caught.

And because we’re both outlaws, I ask him the next
question, knowing he’ll say yes. “I need to know how you do it. Can you teach me?”

“You want to know?” he says in a rough voice that’s part protective and part willing. He’s the older brother looking out for me, but he’s also the guy who can’t resist the dark side.

“Yes,” I say firmly. This is my ticket out of here.

“You really want to know how?” Xavier asks again.

“Yes.”

He takes a step closer, places his palms on my shoulders. The muscles on his arms are corded and strong. “Ar, I can tell you, but you won’t like it.”

“It can’t be any worse than anything else,” I say, thinking of the smell of my own skin burning in the garage a few nights ago.

“It can be.”

“Tell me. Please tell me.”

“Ar, you want to know why they don’t teach you how to do this? Why no one in the Leagues or the circuit or anywhere is teaching this?”

Xavier is a chemistry professor, in a darkened classroom, teaching his morbidly curious student how to mix elements in a most unnatural way. Making sure the student is ready, making sure the pupil can handle the underbelly of the lesson.

I am ready. “Why?”

“Because they don’t know how. Because they don’t want to even contemplate how. Because of where it comes from. To make the fire bend into the dark shape of yourself, you have to go to a dark place. This type of fire art comes from your fear, from your pain, and most of all from your anger. It comes from
every dark thought you’ve ever had. Your fire twin is like the manifestation of all your darkness. Why do you think I learned how to do this while locked up? Why do you think I learned to do this with the other guys? Because we all have that stored inside us.”

Like a gasoline station. Tap into it and you’ve got the fuel you need. Anger? Yeah, I’ve got gallons and gallons of that. I’ve got tankers full.

“How hard is it to do though? Is it like a quadruple flip in gymnastics or a quad jump in skating or something?”

“Yeah. It’s hard. But you and me, we’ve always been the best. We can do the hardest tricks. But the other reason why it’s hard and why artists don’t want to do it? It messes with your mind. When you go to a dark place, it makes you a dark person.”

I’m already that person.

“I want to try,” I tell him. I flash back to the other day at practice. The faint outline of a pair of eyes I saw when I threw that last fireball at the concrete wall. Thinking of my dad. “I know I can do this.”

Two hours later—two hours of picturing my father and all the ways I’ve daydreamed about using my powers on him—I’ve managed a crude outline of arms, legs, the beginnings of my face in fiery form. It does my bidding. It moves with me.

This trick could be my ticket to saving everyone.