Caloric

Phoenyx was thirteen. She skipped down the sidewalk after school on a warm autumn Wednesday, swinging her lunchbox back and forth gaily, eager to get home and tell her parents about her invitation to Cynthia Masterson’s upcoming birthday party on Saturday. Cynthia was one of the more popular girls in the seventh grade, and they recently became friends. Cynthia was an only child and only had her wealthy father, so she was usually spoiled with everything she wanted. Her parties were always the talk of the school. Getting invited to Cynthia’s party meant Phoenyx was making real friends, and not just forcing people to like her.

She saw her front yard peek out past the large mesquite tree and ran over the sidewalk and up the stairs, through the front door.

“Mama! Mama!” she called out, darting her head quickly all around.

“In here, dear,” Her mother’s voice came from the kitchen. “What is it?”

Phoenyx dashed into the kitchen.

The tall, slender, middle-aged blond woman was chopping something on the counter, facing away from the kitchen entrance.

“Mama, I got invited to Cynthia Masterson’s birthday party on Saturday! Can I please go? Please? It’s gonna be a slumber party and I’ve never been to one before.”

“Ah, that sounds like fun,” her mother said, turning to smile at her. “We’ll talk to your father about it when he gets home and see what he thinks, okay?”

“Ooookayyy,” Phoenyx said, stretching out the syllables adolescently.

She went to her room and picked out the clothes and the toys she would bring while she waited for her dad to come home. She was so excited. She had never been to a slumber party; she never had enough girlfriends. Before middle school, most of her friends were boys, and you can’t do anything fun and girly with boys. Girls tended not to like her. She discovered a few years ago that it was because boys liked her so much. Like-liked. She always got the most valentines on Valentine’s Day. The pretty girls, the popular ones, could be really mean when they didn’t get the attention they wanted. So Phoenyx decided that middle school would be different. She wouldn’t even talk to any boys. If she ignored them and tried being really nice to the girls, she might make some real friends. It was actually paying off. Who needs stupid boys anyway?

At around seven o’clock, she heard the front door shut. She keenly hopped to her feet and ran out her bedroom door. She found her father in the kitchen, popping open a can of cola.

“Hey kitten, how was school?” he asked as he scratched his tailored brown beard and took a sip of his soda.

“It was great, Daddy!” she said with excitement. “I got invited to a birthday party—a birthday slumber party, and we’re gonna paint each other’s nails and have pillow fights and everything—just like in the movies.”

“That’s great, honey.” He chuckled fondly. “When and where is this slumber party?”

“Cynthia Masterson’s house on Saturday at five p.m.,” she replied, almost panting.

Her father’s expression fell from one of indulgence to one of restraint.

“Is her father chaperoning the slumber party?” he asked, his tone dry and deflated.

“Yes, and her aunt too,” Phoenyx went on in her enthusiastic manner, not quite aware of, or perhaps choosing to ignore, the change in his demeanor.

He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Phoenyx, but you can’t go to that party.”

Her excitement caught dead in her throat and she was completely dumbfounded. “But…why?”

He sighed. “It’s…complicated. You’re just gonna have to sit this one out, kiddo.”

She frowned.

“Daddy, you have to let me go,” she implored. “This is the first time I’ve ever been invited to a party like this. If I don’t go, Cynthia will think I don’t like her, and then she won’t like me, and then her friends won’t like me. I’ve been doing all my homework and I never get into trouble at school. Don’t I deserve to go?”

“It’s not about that, kiddo,” he said, invariable.

“Then what is it about?” she asked, almost demanded.

“I don’t trust Mister Masterson, and I certainly don’t want you spending the night at his house.”

She cocked her head back, bemused. Mister Masterson was a really cool dad. He was always super nice to Phoenyx whenever she came over. He treated her like another daughter.

She wanted to go to this party. She couldn’t afford to miss it.

“Dad…,” she began, reaching out her hand toward his arm.

“No, Phoenyx,” he said sternly, jerking his arm away from her. “Dammit, that’s the reason for all of this. Don’t you get that?”

Her face blanched and she gasped, stunned at both her father’s action and his words. He never jerked away from her like that. What did he mean? Did he know about what she could do? Did he know that if she touched him, she would make him let her go to the party?

“You can’t always have what you want,” he said. “You’re not going, and that’s final.”

She didn’t understand any of this. Why was he so mad? It was just an innocent party. Why was it a crime for her to go? Why was he being so mean?

She felt something stirring up in the pit of her stomach, something similar to the way she felt when she influenced people but this time driven by anger. It was an uncomfortable warmth which began in her very core, and quickly spread through her abdomen.

“You can’t make me stay here,” she said snottily, that warmth making her lose the control she would have normally kept over herself. “I’m going whether you say I can or not.”

“No, you’re not! Now, go up to your room and stop being such a spoiled brat,” he yelled.

That was the first time he yelled at her since she was a little girl. The words “spoiled brat” coming out of his mouth and aimed at her pushed that feeling in the pit of her stomach past the boiling point, and she felt both a sense of shame and of outrage.

At that instant, the stove top spontaneously caught fire, and the flames quickly raced over the counter top behind her father. The smoke detector began to beep and the argument was forgotten.

“Oh, my God,” her father gasped, turning around to stare at the flames as they reached up their tongues to lick the ceiling.

Her mother ran into the kitchen. “What is all this commotion—oh my, what happened?”

“Jane, get the fire extinguisher,” her father yelled.

Her mother ran out as her father pulled up the sink hose and began to spray at the fire.

Phoenyx stood still in all of this, gawking at the flames, her mind blank as in a trance. This must be a dream. This can’t be real. What started the fire? One second the kitchen was fine and pristine and the next it was up in flames.

Her mother ran back into the kitchen, empty-handed.

“I-I can’t find the fire extinguisher!” she cried frantically.

The water from the sink hose didn’t affect the fire in the slightest, and despite it, flames engulfed the cabinets and drawers.

“Ah Hell!” her father cursed, threw down the hose, and swooped up Phoenyx as he ran out of the kitchen.

Smoke filled all the air and stung at Phoenyx’s eyes and throat.

Her blank mind filled with fear. Their kitchen was on fire. At the rate it was spreading, soon the whole house would be, and there wasn’t anything they could do about it. How could this be happening?

“Jane, get Phoenyx out of here and call 9-1-1,” her father instructed her mother. “I’m going to grab what I can. If the fire spreads to my gun rack, we’re screwed.”

Her mother nodded.

Her father grabbed her mother’s face in both hands and kissed her. “I’ll see you guys soon.” Then he took off down the hall.

Her mother grabbed Phoenyx’s hand and they hurried outside. Heat and smoke rushed out the door with them as the cool night air smacked their faces with a kind of harsh relief. They kept running until they reached the street. Her mother whipped out her cell phone and dialed with fumbling fingers.

Phoenyx looked back at the house as her mother spoke to the operator. Flames scratched at the legs of the door frame like cat paws, and small glowing embers flitted out into the night like fireflies.

“Come on, Dad; come on, hurry,” she whispered her urgent prayer. Why did he have to stay in there? Forget the guns, forget everything, she didn’t care about anything they owned, she just wanted him to come out now and be safe.

Several eternal minutes passed and the flames only spread more rapidly all around the house, with no sign of her father. She couldn’t wait anymore; she had to get him out!

She bolted across the yard and sprinted up the stairs, only faintly hearing her mother scream after her to come back. She brushed past the flames at the doorframe, emerging unscathed into the living room. Flames danced across the carpet, twisting and tangling around each other like twirling dervishes.

“Dad!” she called out, the taste of smoke filling her mouth and forcing her to cough. “Dad, where are you?”

She ventured into the hall where she last saw him disappear. It was getting really hard to see anything but she pushed on. She looked around the corner, squinting for any sign of movement. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the flames right beside her. She turned her head and saw that the very place she was resting her hand was on fire.

Why couldn’t she feel it? She literally felt nothing. As she stared, the bright oranges and yellows blazed on over her hand and wrist, as if they were passing right through her, as if she was a ghost they could not touch.

The image and what it might mean triggered an instant cold fear in her stomach, and then immediately after, the fire began to gnaw at her flesh and she felt her skin sizzle.

“Ahhh!” she groaned, ripping her hand off the corner and hugging it against her chest. “Dad, please!” she cried.

Before she could take another step, large rubber-coated arms wrapped around her and picked her up. Elated that her dad had found her, she turned to look at his face but it was not her dad. It was a man she didn’t know, a fireman, and he was carrying her out of the house.

“No!” she yelled, struggling to get out of his embrace. “No, I have to find my dad!”

He pulled her, kicking and screaming, back into the street, as other firemen rushed toward the house with fire hoses.

The fireman released her and she was immediately recaptured by the embrace of her mother, who coddled her and wept over the fresh burns on her arm. But Phoenyx didn’t care. She kept her eyes glued to the house, praying desperately that her father would emerge any moment.

Suddenly, there was a boom, and then a louder boom, and then the back end of the house exploded, throwing pieces of wood and embers up into the air, only to land angrily on the ground all around.

“No!” Phoenyx moaned. “No! Dad, come back!”

“No!” Phoenyx mumbled, the sound of her own voice pulled her out of her dream as she snapped up into a sitting position, swatting at invisible hands that no longer restrained her.

She looked around, reorienting herself for a moment. Lily was sleeping soundly, and Phoenyx was grateful that her restless sleep sounds hadn’t disturbed her. There were sweat beads on Lily’s forehead, calling attention to Phoenyx’s own sweaty body. It was surprisingly hot in this room. In fact, if she didn’t know any better, she could swear the bars of their cell were glowing ever so slightly, and radiating waves of heat.

She turned to her left to check on the guys. Sebastian was snoring faintly, a line of drool dripping on one side of his open mouth. How was it possible that even snoring and drooling he was adorable? She moved her gaze to Skylar, whose own gaze was on her. She gasped, surprised to know that he was awake, and that his eyes bore into her, seeing right through her. What had he seen?

“Can’t sleep?” she asked, ignoring the elephant in the room.

“No, it’s too hot and uncomfortable in here tonight,” he said.

“Yeah, you would think they could at least turn on the AC down here,” she said. His eyes were still on her, making her push her hair behind her ear self-consciously.

“Sorry,” he said, looking away. “I don’t mean to pry. Force of habit.”

She nodded. “It’s okay. You probably can’t always help what you see.” She swallowed. “So…you saw my dream?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry about what happened to you.”

She nodded. “After years of thinking about it, I understand the reason why he didn’t want me to go to that party. Obviously, he knew about my power. How could he not? I’d used it on both him and my mother so many times. He had to know I had used it on Mister Masterson too. I couldn’t see it at the time but there was something unhealthy about how much Mister Masterson liked me, and my dad knew it. It was all because of the way my power makes people feel. I brought it on myself. That’s why my dad didn’t trust him. He was afraid that feeling would lead to…something else.”

“That’s why you stopped using it,” Skylar said. “You blame yourself for what happened to your dad. The fire wasn’t your fault. Did you ever find out what started the fire?”

“The insurance investigators said that all they could figure was a fuse had blown,” she explained. “They couldn’t explain why the fire spread so rapidly. After the explosion caused by the can of gun powder my dad kept, it was hard to tell what really happened.

“Of course I blame myself for what happened. We were yelling and the next thing I know the house is on fire. I was being a rotten spoiled brat; my dad was right and, because of it, God or whoever punished me. That was a lesson I made sure I heeded.”

There was that years old nagging fear coiling in her gut like a snake but she shook it off, refusing to let it surface where Skylar could see. That was one skeleton she wanted to keep buried forever and forget completely.

“Anyway, thanks for listening to me,” she said. “I haven’t talked to anyone about this since it happened. Actually, I avoid it at all costs most of the time. Thank you for not prying. I can’t imagine you want to see people’s nightmares.”

“You’re right about that,” he said. “Although Sebastian’s dreams are quite entertaining sometimes.”

“Oh yeah?” She brightened up. “What’s he dreaming about right now?”

Skylar looked down at Sebastian. “He’s in a field that is basically a giant pizza. The ground is all cheese, there are giant mushroom cottages and trees made out of pepperoni…and he just dived into a marinara sauce lake.” Skylar laughed. “Damn, his hunger is making me hungry.”

Phoenyx giggled, picturing the scene of Sebastian’s delicious sounding dream.

“Well, I’m going to try to go back to sleep,” she said. “See if I can’t at least dream about getting some food too.”

“Good thinking,” Skylar said. “Hey, it’s not so hot anymore. Isn’t that strange?”

Phoenyx thought for a moment and noticed that all the heat had dissipated and the cement was once again exuding cool like the other side of a pillow. Then she lay back down flat against the cement and let the cool soak into her skin as she closed her eyes and begged for sleep to come soon.