Firelight

nodding. Nodding as if every bob of her head increases her determination to do this.

“A fresh start. Just us girls,” she proclaims in an overly cheerful voice. “Long overdue, right?”

“Right,” Tamra agrees from the back.

I glance over my shoulder at her. As twins, we’ve always shared a connection, a sense of the other’s thoughts and feelings. But right now I can’t read past my own fear.

Tamra smiles, staring out the window as if she sees something in all that black night. At least she’s finally getting her wish. Wherever we’re going, she’ll be the normal one. And I’ll be the one struggling to fit in a world not made for me.

I belong with the pride. Maybe I even belong with Cassian. Even if it breaks Tamra’s heart, maybe it’s right. He’s right. I don’t know. I only know that I can’t live without flight. Without sky and moist, breathing earth. I could never willingly surrender my ability to manifest. I’m not my mother.

How can I fit in among humans? I’ll become like Tamra, a defunct draki. Only worse. Because I would remember what being a draki felt like.

I once saw a show about an amputee who lost his leg and still feels it. He actually wakes up at night to scratch his leg as if it’s still there, attached to him. They call it a phantom limb.

I would be like that. A phantom draki, tormented with the memory of what I once was.

5

Air struggles up my throat and past my lips as Mom talks with our new landlady. Even with the air conditioner working at full blast, the air is thin, dry, and empty. I imagine this is how it feels for someone with asthma, this constant fight for breath. As if you can’t ever fill your lungs with enough air. I glare at Mom. Of all the places in the world to relocate, she had to choose a desert. I’m certain she’s a sadist.

We follow the waddling Mrs. Hennessey out the back door of her house, instantly plunging back into the arid heat. It sucks at my skin, pulls the moisture from my body like a great vacuum, and makes me feel weak. Only two days in Chaparral, and the desert is taking its toll. Just like Mom knew it would.

“A pool!” Tamra exclaims.

“It’s not for your use,” Mrs. Hennessey injects.

Tamra’s frown is only momentary. Nothing can dent her optimism. A new town, new world. A new life within her grasp.

I fall behind Mom and Tamra. Each lift of my foot requires enormous energy.

Mrs. Hennessey stops at the pool’s curled lip. She motions behind us toward the fence. “You can come and go through the back gate.”

Mom nods, bouncing against her leg the rolled-up newspaper where she’d found the ad for this rental.

The keys jingle in Mrs. Hennessey’s hand. She unlocks the door to the pool house and hands the keys to Mom. “Next month’s rent is due on the first.” Her rheumy gaze skitters over me and Tamra. “I like it quiet,” she says.

I leave Mom to give assurances and enter the house. Tamra follows. I stare at the dismal living room that smells faintly of mold and chlorine. If possible my heart sinks even lower.

“Not bad,” Tamra announces.

I give her a look. “You’d say that no matter what.”

“Well, it’s only temporary.” She shrugs. “We’ll have our own house soon.”

In her dreams. Shaking my head, I check out the other rooms, wondering how she thinks that’s going to happen. Mom counted change to pay for dinner last night.

The front door shuts. I dig my hands into my pockets, rubbing the lint in the corners between my fingers as I move back into the living room. Mom props her hands on her hips and surveys the house — us — with what seems like genuine satisfaction. Only I can’t believe that. How can she be so happy when I’m so… not?

“Well, girls. Welcome home.”

Home. The word echoes hollowly through me.

It’s evening. I sit at the edge of the pool, dipping my feet in. Even the water is warm. I tilt my face, hoping for wind, missing the mist, the mountains, cool, wet air.

The door behind me opens and shuts. Mom lowers down beside me and stares ahead. I follow her stare. The only thing to see is the backside of Mrs. Hennessey’s house.

“Maybe we can get her to change her mind about the pool after we’ve been here awhile,” Mom says. “It would be nice to swim this summer.”

I guess this is her way of trying to cheer me up, but the only words I hear are after we’ve been here awhile.

“Why?” I snap, swishing my legs faster. “You could have chosen a thousand other locations. Why this place?”

She could have picked anywhere to live. A small town nestled in cool misty hills or mountains. But no, she chose Chaparral, a sprawling city smack in the middle of a desert, ninety miles outside Vegas. No cooling condensation to nourish my body. No mists or fogs for cover. No easily accessible hills or mountains. No arable earth. No escape. It’s just cruel.

She inhales. “I thought it might make it easier for you—”

I snort. “Nothing is easy about this.”

“Well, it will make the choice for you.” She reaches out and brushes the hair off my shoulder. “Nothing like a barren environment to kill off a draki quickly. I should know.”

I cut her a glance. “What do you mean?”

She sucks in a deep breath. “I lived here during my tour.”

I pull back and stare at her. Lots of draki take a tour to gain exposure to the outside world. For a short time anyway. A year, maybe two. But never to someplace hot and dry. Never in a desert. A draki needs to know how to fake being human for survival. Occasionally, rarely, a draki chooses to remain in the human world.

“I thought you went to Oregon. You and Jabel took your tours together and shared an apartment there.”

Mom nods. “I started my tour with Jabel, but after a few months I decided…” Here she pauses for breath. “I decided I didn’t want to go back to the pride.”

I straighten. “How come I never knew this?”

Her lips twist. “Clearly, I came back. I didn’t need everyone to know that it took a bit of arm-twisting.”

Then I get it. I understand who did the arm-twisting. “Dad,” I say.

Her smile softens. “He never toured, you know. There wasn’t any point. He never wanted to be anything but draki.” Her lips wobble and she touches my cheek. “You’re a lot like him.” Sighing, she drops her hand. “Anyway, he visited me once a month in Oregon…and every time he tried to persuade me to come home with him.” Her smile grows bleak. “He made it very difficult.”

She looks me squarely in the face. “I wanted to get away from the pride, Jacinda. Even then. It was never for me, but your dad didn’t make it easy. So I ran. I came here.”

“Here?”

“I figured your dad wouldn’t find me here.”

I rub one of my arms. My skin already feels dry and chalky. “I should think not.”

“Almost at once my draki began to wither. Even when I broke down and risked flight a few times, it wasn’t easy to manifest. It was working. I was on my way to becoming human.”

“But you went back.”

“I finally faced reality. I wanted to give up the pride, but I missed your father. He couldn’t live without being a draki, and I couldn’t live without him.”

I stare out at the water’s surface, still and dead without the faintest ripple of wind, and try to imagine loving someone that much. So much that you would give up all you ever wanted for yourself. Mom did that.

Couldn’t I make a sacrifice for those I loved? For Mom and Tamra? I’d already lost Dad. Did I really want to lose them, too?