Fire

The Woman in the Mirror

The car ride seemed to take forever. I was mostly quiet, staring out the window while a million thoughts crushed down on me. Trent seemed to understand, because he was silent for the most part, letting me think. I asked him for the second time how far away we were. I didn’t add what I wanted to say, which was how soon until I meet my mother?

            My stomach was twisting uncomfortably, and I tried to ignore it and listen to Trent’s deep, reassuring voice.

            “We’re almost there, maybe ten more minutes. We’re heading for a safe house, one we took back from the frost jotun.”

            “So the…frost jotun…they’re bad?” I was still trying to work all of this out in my brain.

            Trent’s face darkened, “my people have suffered years of persecution at their hands. When your mother started this rebellion, she did it because she knew her ancestors would have been ashamed that we’re letting ourselves be stepped on like this. They would have been horrified that we’ve allied ourselves with our murderers. It isn’t right,” his knuckles were white on the steering wheel, “so we’re fighting back, finally.”

            “So, frost jotun…they can…” I struggled to find a way to put it without sounding ridiculous, “I mean…I keep having stuff catch fire around me. Does it just…snow a lot around them?”

            Trent’s face relaxed into a grin, “not quite. They can freeze water into ice, well…they can pretty much freeze anything,” he snorted, “which is pretty lame, considering we can produce fire.”

            “Yeah,” I muttered, “but at least I wouldn’t have set my school on fire, I would have just…froze the floors and made people slip or something.”

            Trent smiled at me, making my stomach flutter even more, “Well, I’m glad you’re not one of them. I’m glad you’re like me.” He sat back in his seat abruptly, looking straight ahead again, his lip curling slightly, “until recently I’ve been deep undercover, at the ice palace pretending to be…one of them,” he tugged at a lock of his long hair, “I even had to dye my hair blonde and wear contact lenses. I hated every minute of it.”

            “You were…spying or something?”

            “Gathering information,” he said, “we needed to know how much they know about us. They’ve realized they have a rebellion forming, but I don’t think they’re taking us seriously yet,” his eyes narrowed, “it will be their downfall. Pride brings kingdoms crumbling down.”

            We’d just crested a long, steep hill, and I was suddenly aware that it was growing dark. Trent flipped the headlights on, and we turned into a gravel  driveway that twisted up and up into a forest of thick fur trees. I listened to the gravel crunch under the tires and the gentle rumble of the engine, trying not to let my thoughts dissolve into panic, fidgeting in my seat. I was going to meet my mother. We were almost there.

            As if Trent somehow picked up on my thoughts (or the fact that I couldn’t sit still) he gave me a reassuring smile, and for a split second his hand brushed my knee, sending tingles through me, “It’ll be okay, Jess. She’s waiting to meet you, she’s really excited.”

            I only nodded, not trusting myself to speak without stammering. She was excited to meet me, but was I ready to meet her? What would she be like? How could I face her without anger, someone who’d abandoned me with a person like my dad.

            Lights came into view, soft orange that flickered between the dark trees. The house on the top of the hill stretched up into the sky, Victorian peaks and towers looming over the forest beneath it. It would have looked spooky, like a haunted house, if it weren’t for the warmth of the light spilling from all the windows. There were a number of black cars parked at the top of the driveway, and Trent pulled in between a four by four truck with jacked up wheels and a black and silver smart car.