“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Merle waved him off. “How did you know him?”
Arthur smiled. “I’ll be in touch.” With that, he picked up both suitcases and squared his shoulders. He was here. Finally, at last. It was time to see what he could see and hope this endeavor would not be in vain. “Your kindness will be remembered. I’m off! Cheers, my good man.”
The dirt road wound its way through the thickening wood, the sun casting shadows that flickered with the breeze. He wasn’t sweating, not yet, but the road proved longer than he remembered. Such is the folly of youth, he thought to himself. Boundless energy where a mile could have been six or seven for all it mattered. Nearing forty, Arthur was in mostly good shape, but the days he could run endlessly were long gone.
He rounded a corner and stopped. Trees blocked the way.
Five in total, they’d grown across the road, trunks so close together it would be impossible to slip through. They reached toward the sky, towering over him, looking far older than they should have—a hundred years, if not more. But they couldn’t be. The last time he’d walked down this road they hadn’t been here, not even tiny saplings.
Which meant it was something else. Rather, it was someone else. Not the trees themselves, of course; no, he was being watched.
He set down his suitcases and approached the tree in the middle. The bark was cracked, rough against his skin as he pressed his hand against it. “Are you there?” he asked. “You must be. These are your doing, I expect.”
The only answer came in the form of birdsong.
“You know me,” Arthur continued. “Or who I used to be.” He laughed, though there was no humor in it. “I have returned to this place in hopes of making it more than it was.” Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead against the trunk. “And I’ll do it alone if I have to, but not without your permission.”
He opened his eyes when the trunk began to vibrate. Moving back slowly, Arthur watched as the trees on the path trembled with a low rumble, roots bursting up through the earth like tentacles. They slithered along the ground, wrapping around trees off the road. Wood groaned as the roots tightened, pulling the trees aside to make an opening.
Only the middle tree remained. It shivered, limbs rattling, leaves shaking. He didn’t flinch when a thin branch caressed his cheek, a green leaf tickling the side of his nose. In it, he heard a whisper: The boy. The boy with the fire has come home.
“Yes,” he whispered back. “I have returned.”
The tree twisted, the dirt road cracking and breaking apart. The tree roots rose up through the ground and he grinned when they acted as feet, walking the tree off to the side of the road. Once it found a place to settle, the roots sank beneath the ground once more. Ahead, dirt rose in the divots left behind, filling them in. A moment later, the road ahead was as smooth as the road behind.
“Thank you,” Arthur said with a little bow. “If and when you’re ready, I’ll be here.” Picking up his luggage, he moved on.
The moment he stepped out of the wood and saw the house for the first time in twenty-eight years was unremarkable. Set back over a jagged cliff, it loomed above him, backlit by the sun. An empty cement fountain sat out front, the basin streaked with green and black mold. The brickwork appeared to have fallen into disrepair, cracked and broken, pieces half buried in the grass around the house. Shattered windows in white frames were surrounded by crawling ivy half covering the front. The turret—a tower that rose twenty feet from the top of the house—looked as if it would fall over at the slightest nudge. Next to the house was an overgrown garden with flowers in golds and reds and pinks, overtaking the gazebo where, at the age of nine, a boy with fire in his blood had carved his initials into the brick to prove he existed: AFB. Arthur Franklin Parnassus.
Set away from the house was a second building, one he’d never seen before. It hadn’t been here when he’d left as a child, crying out against the bright sunlight after having been trapped in darkness for so long, a strong arm wrapped around him, guiding him up the stairs and out to a waiting vehicle. This other building was small, made of similar brick as the house he’d dreamed about time and time again. He knew the so-called orphanage had changed owners a time or two over the years, but as far as he could tell, no one had lived here for quite a while. The guesthouse, for that was what it seemed to be, would do for now. The windows were intact, and the roof looked to be in better shape than the main house, where some of the shingles had been blown off by storms past.
He left his luggage near the porch steps, moving as if in a dream. The path through the garden was difficult to navigate, the plants and shrubbery thick, encroaching. He passed by the gazebo, pushing his way through the wild garden. The path wrapped around the side of the house to the back, and there, affixed to the base of the house, stood a pair of double wooden doors that led underground, streaks of scorched black upon them. The doors were sealed with a rusted padlock. He had the key. He had all the keys.
He didn’t go inside. He knew what was down there. Tick marks scratched into the wall. Blackened stone from when he’d burned. Perpetual darkness, aside from his fire.
A ghost, then, rose behind him, wrapping an arm around his throat, holding him captive. “You earned this,” it snarled in his ear. “You’ll learn your place, mark my words, boy. Say it. What are you? Say it.”
“An abomination,” Arthur said dully as the arm faded away.
He stared at the wooden cellar doors as the sun drifted across the sky.
He couldn’t do this. He didn’t know why he’d thought he could. Too much. It was all too much. Arthur fisted his hair as he walked back around to the front of the house. His luggage was where he’d left it.
He bent over, hands brushing against the handles of his suitcases.
A voice said, “Arthur.” Loud, clear, as if someone stood on the porch right in front of him.
He lifted his head. He was alone.
Except that wasn’t quite true. Because he saw something he’d missed upon his arrival: a tiny yellow flower growing through the warped wood of the first porch step. Barely the size of his thumbnail, the flower had persisted, pushing through the wood until it reached sunlight.
He walked toward it slowly. Reaching the porch, he crouched down in front of the flower, touching the yellow petals gently, sun-warm against his fingertips. Rebirth. Perseverance. Color. Life. Everything important in the smallest packages.
He smiled, and for the first time in a long time, felt something right itself in his chest. “Well,” he said, “if you can do it, I suppose I can too.”
Summer drifted toward autumn, the leaves changing, the air not quite as warm. Arthur stood on the porch, sanding down the railings so he could repaint them. He was thinking white to match the windowsills he’d already redone. Merle had proven to be an asset of sorts, one who grumbled about all the materials Arthur brought to the island on a weekly basis. To be fair, his grumblings subsided upon receipt of payment. He’d even halfheartedly helped load supplies into the back of a maroon van that Arthur had purchased weeks before.
Arthur had almost finished sanding the last railing, and it was time to check the grout between the kitchen tiles to make sure it was drying correctly. He was about to step back into the house when something fluttered at the back of his mind, the gentle touch of butterfly wings against skin.
He looked at the road.
A woman stood there, wearing a long flowing white dress, her feet bare. Her head was cocked, her white afro like a cloud. In her hair, pink and white flowers, opening and closing in the afternoon sunlight. Her skin was a lovely shade of deep brown. She looked ageless, her youthful face at odds with her dark eyes, ancient and unsure.
Her wings—four appendages growing from her back, each longer than Arthur’s arms—fluttered slightly, translucent, the sunlight shining through them and sending a cascade of colors onto the ground. Her bare arms rested at her sides, her delicate fingers shaking slightly.
Arthur walked down the steps slowly. When he reached the bottom, he stopped, more nervous than he expected to be. He wasn’t sure what to say, where to begin.
She glanced over his shoulder to the house before looking back at him. “You’re here.” She sounded like he remembered, soft, melodic, with a tinge of sadness.
“I am,” Arthur said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” he said simply.
She nodded as if that were the answer she thought he’d give. She took a step toward him, and beneath her feet, grass sprouted through the dirt. Behind her, he could see similar grassy footsteps showing her path up the road.
