From the Ashes

Chapter 9: Where the Heart Is

That night, when it cooled down, Ash dropped the potatoes into the fire whilst I crunched on apples. I was starting to get sick of them, but I was so fiercely hungry, it was like a badger was gnawing away at my stomach. At that point, I could eat Argyros.

Ash left for a short while whilst I looked over the potatoes, making shadow puppets in the dancing flames, and came back with bloody hands, holding a pigeon by the neck. It was dead, and dripping. She flinched away from the blood, as if scared.

"Is that for us?"

"Yeah," she said. "Won't be ready for a while, though." She started plucking from neck down- bloody feathers were burning in the fire. I looked away whilst she gutted and cut it up, poking at the potatoes with one of the knives. It went through, so I flipped two out of the flames, sizzling on the ground. I pulled my sleeve over my hand and used it to cradle the hot potato, and offered the other to Ash.

"Put it to the side," she said, hands covered in blood. I smiled weakly, and peeled back the blackened skin with my fingers, wincing as it burned my skin. It was so hot, when I bit into it I didn't taste it- but I felt the warmth slide into my stomach.

Ash had finished with the bird. She dropped it into the heart of the flames, which crackled loudly, and went off, washing her hands of the blood, scrubbing so hard I winced.

"Maybe the apples will taste better roasted too," she said, patting her hair down with her hands. I noticed she always did this when her hands were wet- maybe she thought her hair was too frizzy. "At least it'll be a different."

I skewered two apples on two sticks, holding them into the fire. Ash ate her potato. Her cheeks turned red with heat, and she looked like a much nicer person in the warm light.

The apples didn't take long to cook. Once they did, they were mushy and sweeter, warm and much easier to stomach. I ate mine in three bites. Ash ate it in five.

"Is the pigeon cooked?" I asked.

"Not for a while." When she got up, I felt air rush past me as she walked past. It was icy.

"Where are you going? To hunt?"

"To take out the lamp." She came back with the lamp, and, with a stick, transferred the flame to the wick encased in glass. She hesitated. "You should go to sleep. I'll keep watch, and wake you up later- and I'll leave some of the pigeon for you."

Sounded good to me. "Sure." I got up, and she passed me the lamp. It was beautifully warm- my fingers buzzed with the heat. I took it inside, and rested it carefully on the ground before lying down. Rocks and clumps of dirt prickled my back, and I shifted around uncomfortably.

It was hard to get to sleep. I never knew when I crossed the line into dreams, when my vision blurred black and then bright. I dreamed that I was back in the tournament. Justice was dead, Reo was dead, but their smiles and their eyes and their noses and lips were burned into my memory.

I was fighting against a girl. A faceless girl- one moment she was strong and powerful, and the next she was lithe and elusive. She dodged and weaved, and it was all I could do to keep alive- until I felt a pounding pain in my head that grew worse and worse. I stumbled and fell- and the ground was disappearing, like when Hades transported me to the threshold of the Underworld; I was falling into an abyss whilst the nameless girl smiled from the edge of the clifftop.

I woke up, head and heart pounding, shivering. The smell of smoke reached my nostrils- I turned and saw the wick, burned out and trailing smoke. My head throbbed, badly- I had banged it against something, but I didn't know what.

"Xavier? Are you okay?"

"Yeah." I touched my head gingerly- the sore spot was at the back of my head. It felt tender.

"What is it?"

"I think I hit my head on something."

"Oh."

"I can take over now."

"You still have half an hour."

"It's fine. Won't make any difference."

She raised her eyebrows a little, then shrugged. I grabbed a hoodie and went outside, into the chilly air. When I sat down, she dropped something in my lap- the watch I had given her last night.

"Thank you."

"No problem."

I sat outside the tent, pulling on the hoodie. It was less cold than yesterday- the temperature had increased significantly- but still cold. Even if it hadn't been, I would have felt unprotected in those bare areas- even before I pulled on the hoodie, my arms and neck prickled, and whilst pulling it on, I did it quickly, not wanting to miss anything.

My eyes picked up the sounds and smells. Grass- it was getting near hayfever season, which made my nostrils prickle with apprehension. Dirt, foliage, and that clean, fresh scent that came with nature. I held the handle of the knife I had wrapped up in the hoodie tighter. I was not entirely unprotected.

But I didn't have enough. What use was a knife against a wolf, or a bear?

It was the bear that freaked me out the most. Forty miles an hour in midrun, a speed that it could maintain for minutes- a bite strength of 1200 PSI. And large, too- eight feet tall, nine hundred pounds of pure strength.

I began to feel rather scared.

Pull yourself together, I thought. It wasn't like I was completely unprotected. I had the knife, and my agility. And yeah, I had Ash.

I picked up a stick from the ground. Could I bind a rock to it, and make a club? Bind it with what? I touched the strings that tightened or loosened the hood of it, then decided against it. There was no telling that it would hold.

I saw a glint of rust, and a fox flashed between the bushes, then out of sight. It was mangy and rather small. The forest-creatures quietened at this imminent threat, then started chattering again, like a thousand fey creatures.

I drummed my fingers on the ground. Sometimes, I found it hard to keep still. I was diagnosed with mild ADHD when I was eight. It didn't affect me much- people gave me weird looks sometimes. Teachers told me to keep still. Sometimes they told me I was rude- I didn't understand why, until Amelia told me to stop interrupting people. I stopped.

For a while.

But it was hard to. I was likeable enough anyways, but I had a feeling it lost me some friends. On me, of course.

I started playing instruments since before I remember. Dad had a violin, Mum had a cello. I learned drums first. One day, I found Dad's violin, and plucked the four strings. G, D, A, E. I found, if I pressed down one a strong, the note would go higher. Dad bought me a small violin, back when we had money to spare for small violins, and I learned from there. He taught me a folk song at six, and I mastered it a few months later. He taught me another, and another. Mum taught me the cello, which at the time I saw as a large violin. She was always upset that I didn't learn the cello first.

The first song I learned was a Latin song whose name I didn't know- the same one that I first played on the violin. I had lots of friends who were from different countries- Poland, Italy, Korea. I learnt Bella Ciao and Tong Hua and Strawberry Moon and Despacito, even though I didn't understand the words.

I didn't like the silence. The coldness of it all. So I started to talk. "Hey. Good morning. Or is it goodnight now? Or good dawn? Is there any such thing as that?" I laughed nervously. Who was I talking to? I chose Henry. "Henry, how's Amelia? Have she and Dominic finally got together like we predicted in year two? If they have, that's great, but- oh, how I wish I could have been there to see it." I pressed my lips together. "I miss you, man. You don't really like saying that stuff- you say that I know it already- I agree, but I think sometimes you have to repeat it, so you never forget it." I turned next to imaginary Mum and Dad. Dad's hair was greying at the roots. Mum was looked weatherworn, trying to hold back any trace of emotion. It was sad how that was my first conjured image of them. "Mum, Dad- I miss you too. And you miss me too. I'm really sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to you, Dad. Maybe you found it too hard to." I swallowed now. "I'm coming home, Dad. I'm coming home."