Fire & Flint

Almost everyone who has lived to adulthood has seen the portal to the other world at least once in their life.

We’ve all witnessed people being drawn into it, returning as spirits—ghosts resembling younger, more beautiful, translucent versions of themselves. They wander the streets at night, announcing that they now reside on the other side, happier than ever.

Lucky them, I muse as I polish the counter in Marco’s gothic art store yearning to be one of those fortunate ones. Longing to escape from this creepy place where I'm a cashier, a salesgirl, a coffee fetcher, and more—an all-in-one servant to Marco’s whims. Why can’t it be me who crosses that threshold to a better life?

“Arianna, I’m heading home for the night. You can leave once you’re done with everything,” Marco’s voice interrupts my thoughts.

“But remember,” he adds with a menacing tone, “if anything goes wrong and my most cherished treasure disappears, I’ll make sure your ex knows who put him behind bars. And when he gets out, he’ll come for you.”

He leers at me licking his thick lips, the smile on them not even close to reaching his black hooded eyes.

I make a point of directing my own eyes at those dark empty orbs to ensure he believes me when I say, “don’t worry, I will lock up everything just the way you taught me, I promise I’ll do it exactly like I did yesterday.”

For a moment I imagine him advancing towards me, his fist ready to connect with my face. Like the other day when I accidentally put on the white lingerie instead of the black as he had ordered. And in a rage, he punched my cheek just under my left eye. The bruise still throbs, especially when I wash my face in the shower.

But instead, he waves his big hand splaying all five fat fingers in my direction as if dismissing me, wipes the sweat off his forehead with his rumpled bandana, and stomps out into the stifling heat of the hottest summer on record. Nature’s worst punishment for those whose lives are in danger due to the high temperatures, like someone I’ve come to know well in the last few weeks. Things have only gotten worse with each day the mercury rises because the forests surrounding our town are being ravaged by wildfires burning out of control. Even now, in the late summer evening, I can still see the ominous haze from the smoke turning the setting sun an apocalyptic crimson and smell the burning wafting through the open door as it stings my eyes. I’m relieved when it finally clicks closed.

Double-bolting the door behind Marco, I immediately taste the salt of the first tear rolling down onto my swollen lip, and as more tears cascade down my face, I suddenly jump. The high-pitched shrill scream, coming from the back room, sends a jolt of electricity through my entire body.

Leon Segreti was my boyfriend for over a year until six months ago, when I testified as a witness who saw him break into a house where a young university student was assaulted and almost died. This resulted in Leon going to prison, along with a bunch of his hoodlum friends. All but Marco, his best friend, ended up charged and incarcerated, while Marco stayed free as he wasn’t there that night. But that didn’t make Marco any less dangerous than the rest of them. Leon used his fists on me, my body as his punching bag, and the minute he was sent to jail, Marco took his place. But Marco’s hold on me was simply blackmail and nothing else. I would never willingly be with a buffoon such as him unless he could prove to Leon, I was the one who ratted him out to the cops. Which he could, because he found the photos I had taken with my cell phone of Leon climbing into the house through a window with his mask in his hand rather than on his face. They were clear and sharp; zoomed-in images, brilliant in the light of a big January moon.

When I’ve finished the last of my work, my heart pounding fearfully the entire time I’m trying to ignore the piercing screeches, the wailing that inevitably turns to moaning, I rush towards the back room. Grabbing the key from the secret hiding place, I unlock the heavy steel door.

And there she is in all her glory.

Imprisoned in a wrought iron cage that sits in the middle of a large circle about the size of a kids’ swimming pool, she’s a sight to behold.

A real live fairy, so rare and ethereal, so beautiful and dangerous at the same time.

Like the cage, the circle is also made of iron but has flames dancing from it, surrounding her; a perimeter of heat to keep her trapped, an extra layer of protection preventing her escape.

“You evil girl,” she screams at me at the top of her lungs, “it’s about time you got here.”

“I’m so sorry Azaline,” I cry, wringing my hands, “I had to finish my tasks or Marco would be pissed and hurt me again.”

She stops swinging on the miniature trapeze Marco made for her and squints her big almond-shaped heavenly-blue eyes at me. Her pointed ears twitch like the nose of a mouse smelling danger in the air, and she stops pumping her slender dew-kissed legs protruding from her silk skirt.

“Is that a black eye, evil girl?” she asks.

I sniff and mutter, “yes, Azaline, you’ve already seen it yesterday and the day before that, I’ve had it for a while now, it’s just turned a darker purple today, that’s all.”

Azaline twirls a lock of her silver hair and inhales deeply, her navy-blue corset and humongous dragonfly wings moving up and down with the exaggerated breathing exercises she starts doing.

“First of all, evil girl,” she begins screeching in that awful nails-on-chalkboard-voice, “stop calling me Azaline, that’s not my name and secondly, did you decide to go along with my plan to free ourselves forever from this imprisonment? We’re bloody well running out of time, you imbecile.”

Sulkily, I whisper, “You won’t tell me your real name. And Azaline is a beautiful, enchanting, and mysterious name, it means sapphire blue. Plus, I have been nothing but nice to you these past few weeks. I’ve no idea why you call me evil girl; I’m not bad, I’m good, and I care, and I feel sorry for you. I do want us to escape. I’m just scared of getting caught, is all.”

When her tone changes to something less menacing, my stomach flutters.

“You really are young, aren’t you evil gir– I mean Arianna?” she says.

“How old are you anyway?” she probes, adding, “the kind of life you’ve led being a teenage runaway and all the messes you’ve gotten caught up in, you’re probably street wise but still too young to be truly smart, aren’t you?”

I flinch at her words but nod, "I'm nineteen, but sometimes it feels like I’m still that scared sixteen-year-old who ran away from home."

Azaline’s—or whoever she really is—face softens for the first time since Marco found her a month ago, nearly unconscious on his outer window ledge with none of her powers intact due to her allergic reaction from the heat outside and cooled her back to life.

Not only does Marco’s house have state-of-the-art air-conditioning, one of his many maids was paid an exorbitant amount of cash to find and purchase several of the most exotic orchids in the world so that the nymph could drink their nectar. The syrup is one of the most powerful healing liquids for the fairy, and given the abundance of money in Marco’s world, splurging on anything his heart desires is what he likes doing best.

Back then, Azaline told Marco she had no idea how she had ended up here on this side of the portal in this dimension, grateful for his help. But once she realized too late that he had tricked her, caged her, and planned on using her for his own nefarious and selfish purposes, she stopped talking to him. Then I discovered her in the backroom a few days later, and she’s been trying to get me to help her ever since.

“Ariaaanna, I can help us both,” she sing-songs softly, a whole different inflection in her pitch now.

“But you need to trust me and follow my instructions to the letter. If we fail tonight, there won’t be another chance, I know for a fact that Leon has been let go early on some ridiculous legal technicality I can’t even get into right now. He’s out of prison as we speak.”

I gasp at hearing the terrible news, then will myself to fill up on courage. With a surge of clarity, I wipe my tears and take a deep breath, the meditative effect of the flickering flames making my resolve burn brighter.

“Ok, I’ve made my decision,” I tell her.

“I brought the flintstone and the witches’ butter, neither of which were easy to find; I had to order the flintstone on Amazon and I spent hours searching Asian restaurants for the soup mushrooms, or witches’ butter as you call it. But–” I sigh, giving her a shaky thumbs up, “– I got lucky, here they are,” I squeak, holding them up for her to see.

She nods, her wings opaque and lustrous in the firelight.

With no time to waste now, breathlessly, she gives her instructions.

“Slide the flintstone and the witches’ butter through the bars at the top of the cage, and I’ll balance on the trapeze and hold out my hands while you drop them. As you know, I can’t get near the wrought iron, it’s deadly for all fairies and especially if there’s fire leaping from it. The heat, at a certain proximity, not only causes an adverse effect inside me which takes away my superpowers, but the flames themselves are lethal. The flintstone and the witches’ butter are the only antidotes for me. As soon as I eat the mushrooms and hold the flintstone in my arms for three seconds, I will be able to slide past the iron bars and walk through the flames without any harm.”

My heart pounds as I carefully lower the stone and slimy yellow fungi, hands trembling as I drop them into her tiny, cupped hands. Just as she’s about to squeeze through the bars after swallowing the jelly toadstools, the room shimmers and Marco’s laughter fills the air, echoing ominously.

But instead of just Marco appearing, it’s also Leon– his spirit, younger and more handsome despite the ugliness within, standing in the doorway with an outstretched hand.

“Arianna let’s all go together with the fairy to the portal, I too know where it is, one of my cell mates in jail told me and I went and it’s fantastic there. The fairy will be saved, and so will you as I will never beat you in that world ever again. I will be a gentle, loving boyfriend, a decent, honorable man, I might even ask you to marry me,” he says with a wink, grinning from ear to ear. “And Marco will be a better human being too, we can all save ourselves from this messed up world and thrive in that other one ,” Leon pleads in a way I’ve never heard him speak before.

I hesitate, looking between Leon’s alluring figure, and Azaline’s glowing tear-drop eyes. The fairy, free at last and flitting about in the air high above the cage, nods and exclaims with more passionate glee in her voice than I’d ever thought possible, “yes, it’s a wonderful new land, full of hope and happiness. Let me land on your palm Arianna, and I’ll use my newly restored magical abilities to fly us all there.”

I don’t even feel the prickle of the heat and smoke or register my fear of heights as we sail through the air all of us flying upright, our feet dangling and swaying like we’re treading water in the ocean. I barely acknowledge cars honking, sirens blaring, engines revving on the roads beneath us. Before I know it, we are in a forest free of the wildfires, a cool place hypnotizing me with the smell of fresh pine and a clear bubbling brook, as we land in front of a huge cedar tree.

This is the portal, the one we have all stood in front of at some point or another wishing for the miracle to pull us in, to give us a better life on the other side.

The tree begins to float upwards, its gnarly, thick roots exposed stretching from the ground, revealing a golden door. When the door opens and Azaline flies through, she drags the two men in with a seemingly magnetic force as they yell at me to follow quickly.

At that moment Azaline comes to a screeching halt. Turning around, thrusting her palms in my direction, she sends me flying backwards. I’m trying to stay upright; I’m trying not to fall and desperately using all my strength to run at her and make it through the door before it’s too late.

But it is too late! The door suddenly slams shut in my face with so much force, it’s as loud as a crack of thunder. And in fact, just then a bolt of lightning splinters across the sky, a silvery streak above the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

Azaline appears before me, her eyes wide in horror.

“Stop Arianna! That realm is not what everyone thinks. All the spirits that come back here looking better than they ever have are trickster ghosts trapped in the awful specter realm on the other side of this door forever!”

She squeezes two fat tears, the color of lilacs in the spring, out of the corners of her eyes, and says quietly, “only evil beings cross over into the world I’m from and we the fairies, rule over them there with cruelty, judgement and revenge. It is not a happy place and Leon and Marco just wanted to entice you there so that all you feel is pain for the rest of your life. But you don’t belong there Arianna, you belong here where your life can begin again, and Marco and Leon are no more,” she pauses to catch her breath before continuing.

“Listen to me carefully Arianna. You must go to this lawyer’s office tomorrow,” she instructs, handing me a business card that’s materialized out of nowhere, one she can barely hold between two of her teeny hands.

“Tell them you are the sole owner of the art shoppe and you’ve lost your copy of the deed but know that one exists with your name on it, and you would like a copy of it. The barrister will have it. The building with the art store is on a prime lot and worth a lot of money. You can sell it and buy yourself a new life anywhere in the world. I must go now but do as I say, be at the office tomorrow morning as soon as the clock strikes ten.”

“But wait!” I cry as she begins drifting backwards toward the door,

“how can I ever thank you and what is your real name?”

She smiles mischievously, flutters her silver eyelashes at me, and says “Hope Humanity Soul. I’m the creator of endless possibilities for those in this world once I help them get free from their pasts, from their cages, from their captivity. But only the ones who deserve it. The others are… shall we say… not treated the same in that other domain,” she drawls, cocking her head toward the door behind her and curling her fingers into her palm.

“In the kingdom that I preside over,” she says sweetly, “I do so with a bit of an iron fist, pun most definitely intended.”

I can hear the laughter in her voice tinkling like sleigh bells.

Hope smiles, waves at me, and goes bursting through the door, her wings expanding in a brilliant display of light.