Invitation To Burn

The only Christmas that Cassie ever remembered feeling true, unbridled joy for was when she burned down her first Christmas tree. Seeing the searing orange flames that had charred the left corner of their small living room and incinerated the measly stack of presents beyond recognition was immensely satisfying. Even more satisfying, however, had been the look on her parent’s faces. 

Truly, it was a sight to see.

Cassie had been eight. Old enough to tie her own shoes, to make her own bed, and to cook her own meals of macaroni and countless grilled cheeses when her parents were too busy screaming at each other to remember to feed her. Her teacher’s always commented on her independence with a proud smile and approving look that would have warmed most children's hearts. All Cassie felt was an old, tired resignation in her bones, a resignation that is usually allotted to those far older than her. 

Her parent’s had been fighting more than usual, even for them, making the days leading up to Christmas seem less like a thrilling countdown than a dreaded death march. Something about bills. Something about another man. Something about alcohol. Something about something about something about something. It was all the same to Cassie. She would scurry into her room as fast as she could, and if she was lucky, she could even make it back under her soft purple comforter completely unscathed from flying plates or silverware or picture frames. 

Christmas eve, however, things had taken a turn. They had been arguing since the early morning and night had fallen hours before. Cassie hadn’t dared to leave her room all day, but she was beginning to think that her stomach would take a bite out of itself if she didn’t get something to eat soon.  

Carefully, Cassie opened her door a crack. Her mother was obscured by the rest of the wall, but her father was in plain sight. He was in the middle of the living room, his back to the crackling fire he had built in the fireplace. The flames casted shadows on the back of the white-collared shirt that hung off his wiry frame. To Cassie, the flicker of the shadow’s looked like dancing devils, laughing at Cassie’s inability to stop anything that ever happened to her. Her father’s face was livid, but she could see that his cheeks were lined with tear tracks. They ran all the way down into his scruffy gray beard, the one that only made an appearance when he was either too tired or too drunk to find the time to shave properly. Cassie hated that beard. 

Her father screamed in his scratchy, slurred voice. Words that Cassie had long tried to forget. Her mother taunted him in his rage. Her mother had always excelled at making people feel very, very small.

Silently, Cassie slid out from behind the door and moved closer to the fireplace. Her father kept on yelling, her mother kept on mocking him. Cassie huddled at the base of the Christmas tree, basking in the heat of the fire as it burned away from the chill from her freezing house. She watched in something akin to fascination as the tendons in her father’s neck bulged when her mother turned her back to him, his face growing nearly as red as the fire next to her. 

Cassie didn’t see the moment it happened. She must’ve blinked, because one moment her father’s hand was at his sides, and the next it was around her mother’s neck, strangling her. 

For one, horrible moment, all she could do was watch as her mother clawed at her father’s hand that was undoubtedly crushing her windpipe. No, that was a lie. Cassie had been watching her entire life, unable to do anything. Cassie had spent more time listening to their fights than she had going to school, or playing with her friends. Every moment of her life, throughout all of their fights and neglect, Cassie had been helpless.

She didn’t want to be helpless anymore. She couldn’t just sit and watch her father kill her mother.

Cassie crawled to the fireplace, staring into the flames that licked out into the open air, begging Cassie to give in. Inviting her to burn. 

In Cassie’s young mind, her next actions seemed perfectly logical. 

Cassie thrust her hands into the blazing heat, grasping a log between her small hands. The pain was immediate, and extreme. Every nerve in her hand’s lit up and seemed to explode simultaneously, but she knew she had to hold on for just a couple of seconds. She had burned herself on the stove before. This was just a little worse, she told herself even as her skin blistered and bubbled. 

A second later, she chucked the log at the tree. It caught quickly, eating up the floor and the tree and the wall as it had her skin. The flames blurred together through Cassie’s tear-filled eyes, looking as if an artist had painted the terrible scene and smeared it together before the paint had a chance to dry.

The wall of flame that had erupted from the tree stopped her father and her mother in their brawl. Their screams were turned on her, her father shaking her roughly as her mother called her every obscenity in the book. But Cassie just laughed and laughed and laughed, even as tears ran down her face from the excruciating pain in her hands. She had done it. She had stopped their fighting. 

The clock on the wall began to chime; twelve rings that drowned out her parent’s yelling. 

Merry Christmas, she thought. 

She still carries the scars on her hands twenty years later. The scars had puckered and tightened her skin, creating their own mesmerizing topography that differed so drastically from the rest of her smooth, pale skin. Cassie hasn’t talked to her parent’s since her father had asked her to loan him some money a few years back. He had come banging on her old apartment door in a drunken rage, waving a shard of a broken beer bottle in her face. She ended up having to file a restraining order and move. She hadn’t heard from him since.  However, for the most part, Cassie had been able to leave her past behind her. She has money, she has a nice apartment with central heating and no fireplace, and she has friends. She even has a best friend who she loves more than anyone in the entire world. 

But despite the fortune in her life, Cassie couldn’t give up her only Christmas tradition, the only way she ever celebrated the blasted holiday; by burning a Christmas tree until there was nothing left of it but ash. 

Her friend’s knew she hated the holidays. They thought she didn’t celebrate at all. She knew they would find her actions strange–insane, even–but her little ritual was the only thing keeping what she suffered, what she had always been helpless to stop until that night, within her control. 

Buying the Christmas tree this year was a disaster. Cassie always waits until the last moment, a way to ensure she won’t bump into any of her friends–and to make it so she has to look at the tree as little as possible. Only this year, her best friend Camilla had decided to do some last minute tree shopping as well. Camilla had spotted her, and had tried to wave down her friend, but Cassie had darted back to her car as fast as she could. Stopping to talk to Camilla surely meant she would be invited to her parent’s home for Christmas, and Cassie needed to be alone on that day. It is a day for her to remain curled in on herself until the gray sky goes dark, her mind stuck in a past that chases her every winter. Her memories have gnashing teeth, and they are always, always hungry. 

Nevertheless, after seeing Camilla leave, Cassie bought a tree. Some may think that lugging a pine tree up three flights of stairs is hard, and it is. But Cassie has had practice over the years, and she now has become an expert at dragging trees upstairs if not easily, then at least efficiently. 

Upon entering her apartment, Cassie simply drops the blasted tree once she squeezes it through the door, letting the needles and branches bend at grotesque angles as she lets the front half of it fall to the floor. Without bothering to remove her shoes, coat, or scarf, Cassie walks to her bedroom and collapses on her bed, letting herself sink into the soft mattress while staring up at her plain white ceiling. It was barren and boring like the rest of her apartment, which she never had the energy to redecorate after the move. 

A flicker of that old excruciating pain darts across her skin, making Cassie gasp. The old scars always flare up in the winter, when the air is dry and greedy, sucking up the moisture that her hands need. To make things worse, she forgot to use her lotion today. 

And with the pain comes the memories. Not just of that Christmas, but everything preceding and following it. The things she couldn’t help but remember. The tradition was her way of keeping control, of not letting those awful memories consume her. Even if she hid herself away every Christmas, crying and burning and feeling pathetic, it was the indulgence she could afford herself in order to remain afloat. She needs this.

With these thoughts, Cassie drifts into a slumber full of flames and dancing devils.

The next day, Christmas day, Cassie stays in her room. Camilla calls her what seems like a hundred times, but she can’t be bothered to pick up. This is the day where Cassie reverts back into that hurt little child, and she can’t afford to let anybody see. 

She waits for nightfall with reluctant patience. She has always burned the tree at night. The thought of doing so during the day makes her cringe inside for reasons she can’t explain. 

Finally, it’s 8 PM and the sky outside her window is pitch black. Cassie makes her way to the kitchen to grab the matches and gasoline she had bought the week before. With matches in her pocket and the gasoline in hand, Cassie begins the long and tedious process of dragging the tree all the way back into her car in order to drive it to the clearing in the woods she had found years ago.

That is, she would’ve, if Camilla hadn’t been standing in front of her apartment door with marshmallows and dry hot chocolate mix, clad in her long beige coat and tall black boots. Upon seeing Cassie, the same shocked expression overtakes Camilla’s features, confusion sparkling in her brown eyes. 

“Cassie,” Camilla says slowly, as if Cassie were a wild animal she was afraid of provoking. “What are you doing?”

“Uhm,” Cassie pauses, panicked. What could she say? “I’m just going for a walk. I need some fresh air.”

“With gasoline?” 

Shit. Cassie forgot that it was in her hand. 

“Yes.” 

Camilla gives her an incredulous look, but it quickly softens. “Look, Cassie, I know you don’t like the holidays. But I didn’t want you to spend this day alone, especially with how…off you seemed yesterday. So, I thought I would stop by and we could just hang out for a bit. Make hot chocolate, or something.” 

Guilt rips through Cassie like a rusty knife. Camilla spends every Christmas with her parents, and she had left them just because Cassie had been so pathetic yesterday that she felt the need to come over and monitor her?

She needed to do damage control. She needed to make Camilla leave. “Look, Cam, I’m fine,” She forced a smile. “I don’t need you to babysit me. I am just going on a walk, okay? Go enjoy Christmas with your parents, and tell them I say hi.”

Cassie stares at Camilla, hoping she would get the hint and leave, but in standard Camilla fashion, she doesn't. 

“Don’t worry about John and Carol, they’re having a great time without me I’m sure. I want to spend this day with you.” Camilla says. “And I’m not letting you shut me out. So whether you’re really going on a walk or you’re going to burn down that stupid Christmas tree farm with all that gasoline, I’m coming with you.”

Laughter bubbles up within Cassie at Camilla’s words; she isn’t that far off is she? It explodes out of her violently, making her double over with the gasoline still clenched in her grip.

“Cassie? Are you–”

Cassie snaps back up, abruptly cutting her manic laughter off. “I’m fine.” She decides that if Camilla really wants to come, she would let her. Camilla had probably already decided that Cassie was insane, why not prove her right? “Help me carry this tree to my car. I’m sick of this stupid thing.” 

The car ride over was quiet. Yet somehow, despite the cracking of branches beneath their feet and the howling of the wind through the trees, the walk to the clearing was quieter. 

The only light they have to go by was the flashlight on Camilla’s phone, but they reach the clearing soon enough, plopping the tree down on the hard dirt. The pine needles had left tiny, angry imprints all over Cassie’s palms. 

Now that they are here, Cassie realizes how stupid she has been. There was no way Camilla wouldn’t be running for the hills by the time the night was over. Their friendship would be reduced to ash, just like the tree that lies before them would be. 

“Look, Camilla, you don’t have to–”

“No,” Camilla interrupts, holding up a hand to silence her. “I’m not going to listen to you try to push me away, like you do every time.” Cassie looks down, unable to look her friend in the eyes, even if it was so dark she could only see the shadowy outlines of Camilla’s face. Her words were true, they both know it. 

“You’re my best friend,” Camilla says. “And it breaks my heart that you’re obviously struggling with something alone. You can tell me if you want. You can tell me anything.”

“I know,” Cassie says.

“But even if you don’t,” Camilla continues. “Even if you never share this burden with me, I’ll be here for you. Nothing is ever gonna change that. I promise you, Cass.” 

Hot tears prickle Cassie’s eyes, but she chokes them down. She won’t fall apart. She won’t. 

But how she so desperately wants to.

Instead, they set up the tree together and decorate it with the cheapest silver bulbs Cassie could find at Dollar Tree a couple of weeks ago. Camilla was particularly fussy over the arrangement. 

“If this tree is gonna burn it might as well go out in style.”

They finish within ten minutes. All that was left to do was burn it.

This was usually the part that Cassie was eager to begin. Every year, she felt the same satisfaction and joy she had all those years ago as the tree went up in flames. The memories were consumed by the merciless fire, and she would be free for another year from the holiday season. 

But Camilla’s presence changes things. Would she judge her? Most definitely. Would she end up forcing the truth out of Cassie anyways, despite her kind words earlier? Maybe. 

Would she walk away from Cassie, realizing she was too much? That she was crazy?

That was something Cassie didn’t want to know. 

As if sensing her doubts, Camilla goes to her side and whispers. “Go ahead,” Her lips are so close that they nearly brush Cassie’s ear. “Burn the fucker down.” 

Despite herself, Cassie feels a smile tug at her lips. Slipping her hand into her pocket, Cassie takes out the match box. Holding one between her thumb or pointer finger, Cassie roughly strikes the match against the brown strip. She allows herself one moment to examine the small flame in front of her before tossing it on the tree. 

A wall of fire  erupts before her eyes. It’s so hot that Camilla and her take a step back, the heat acting as a vacuum, stealing her breath. 

The flicker of the shadow’s looked like dancing devils–

Strangling her–

Her mother taunted him in his rage–

Cassie thrust her hands into the blazing heat, grasping a log between her small hands–

Inviting her to burn–

A shock runs through Cassie as she feels Camilla’s cold fingers intertwine with hers. They had both discarded their gloves earlier, so she could feel the exact texture of Camilla’s hand, cool and firm against her own. The feeling brings Cassie back to herself. It brings her back to the present she has built, the friendship she has cultivated. 

Cassie looks over to find Camilla looking at her. The orange light paints the side of her face a mesmerizing shade of bronze, and the flames dance in her dark eyes. Yet, they don’t remind Cassie of the menacing demon’s from her childhood. They look beautiful, alive, and merry. 

But that might just be Camilla. 

“Don’t tell my parents,” Camilla says with a smile, sparks twirling in the air behind her, “but this may be the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”

Cassie looks at her friend and feels her heart swell inside her chest so much she thinks it might burst out of her body entirely. She would’ve traded anything for this moment, but here her best friend is, giving her all the love she has ever wanted, for free.

She turns her face towards the pillar of fire before her, refusing to look away even as her eyes water from the heat. How could she? She has never experienced something so magnificent.

“Merry Christmas,” Cassie whispers, and she means it.