CHAPTER ONE:
Re-live the burning fire, watch it crackle to the ground.
Why look forward to doing tomorrow what you can do today? Hawk pulled his hood over his face, the unspoken question echoing in his mind as the dark fabric fell to shield his eyes from view. He knew his eyes were a dead giveaway of who he was and where he came from, like neon lights flickering on a highway. And despite it not being his stop for another five hours, he wasn't willing to take any chances of attracting attention – pleasant or otherwise.
In fact, he thought dourly, as he slumped back in the battered window seat, he ought to have been careful even when he left home. He shouldn't have been so impulsive, striding out in a fit of rage and sheer stupidity, thus alerting Ann Bobby (who he suspected possessed telepathic skills anyway) that he was leaving the house.
Perhaps it was partly the fact that he knocked over her potted plants and fell face-first onto the stony gravel, swearing and muttering vociferously, that caused her to rush outside, too.
‘Merlin!’ she said, eyes wide and disapproving, ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’
‘Duncawlmehdaht,’ Hawk mumbled incoherently, face still planted firmly on the ground. He was sprawled out on the steps leading down from the porch, legs sticking up comically. But there was nothing comical about the situation at all - at least not to him, anyway. It was just plain infuriating.
So much for being discreet, he thought, scowling, as he propped himself on his elbows and forced himself to look at Ann Bobby. He could feel the guilt gnawing at him already, though, and couldn't entirely meet her eyes. As he caught sight of the confused expression latched onto her face, he could tell she hadn't managed to decipher his gibberish either.
‘Pardon?’ she finally said.
Hawk sighed. ‘I told you not to call me that. My name’s Hawk.’
Even as he said the words, he knew she wasn't listening – as usual. Bent over the green monstrosity that had once been a plant, she picked up a piece of the broken clay and gave an absent-minded, ‘Mm hmm,’ obviously trying to ignore what he'd just said.
Hawk rolled his eyes and sighed. It was always the same. Even though he’d been living with his aunt for five years, she still persisted in calling him by his outlandish real name. She seemed to be oblivious to the fact that he hated it. Either that or she just enjoyed being sadistic.
‘And where exactly were you going before this unfortunate ... incident?’ Ann Bobby’s demand snapped Hawk back to the present. He had gotten to his feet and was shuffling towards the gate in an attempt to sneak out, unnoticed. He felt annoyed, suddenly. Annoyed with fate for interfering with his decisions. Annoyed with the feeling of remorse that overwhelmed him every time he tried to make his exit. But most of all, he was annoyed with himself for having to hurt his aunt. So he couldn’t help it when he blurted out a biting retort, and said snappily:
‘Out. Why do you care?’
‘I could give you a million reasons, Merlin.’ she said, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at him. But her eyes had softened slightly a split-second later, and Hawk’s conscience began to squirm unpleasantly. He ignored it, however, as Ann Bobby went on.
‘Merlin,’ she said exasperatedly, ‘You need to realize that I am not going to shun you. Have I ever treated you differently ever since I found out about your – your condition? I never sent you to school for your own safety. I home-schooled you myself! Would I do that if I didn't care?’ A single tear trickled down her cheek, and Hawk could see that she was distressed, but he remained impassive, glacial. He knew he was hurting her, but after today, he wouldn't anymore. Sure, his leaving her would break her, but in time she would come to realize that what he had done was for the best. Pain is like a burning fire, a raging torrent that sweeps through your soul. But the flames would simmer down, and she would heal. At least, he hoped she would. After all, Hawk knew more about fire than the average person, and he knew that it wasn't as frightening a reality as the world believed it to be.
Currently, though, the fire within him was tearing him apart, and he felt as though his heart was burning up when Ann Bobby looked him in the eye and said, in barely more than a whisper: ‘You’re like the son I never had.’
That was enough. Hawk could feel a prickling sensation at the back of his eyes and bowed his head, staring down at the ground. A single tear broke free of its membrane prison, rolling down his nose and making a dark splotch where it landed against the pavement.
‘I have to go.’ he said, in a voice that was not his own, with a touch of asperity and finality even he couldn't have expected from himself. Those were the four words that would haunt him for the rest of his life, because he knew that he would never see his aunt again. Yet this was the decision he had chosen to make. And it was the decision that he knew would change his life.
He turned on his heel and jogged away slowly, leaving the little yellow house behind him forever. The house of ivy and fern. It was the place where he would stare out the windows for hours, at the empty fields where the wind sang its laments of solitude. He would return someday, ten years in the distant future, maybe, but he had a feeling there would only be dust and ash to greet him when he did. He would call to the barren winds, to a home he had given up so long ago. But the winds would never answer, and life would go on.
Like it was supposed to.
Hawk set his jaw firmly as he recalled the events of the day, hunched up in a dark corner at the back of the old bus that jostled along the bumpy country roads. He sat in the wake of his own comfortable silence, mulling over his past and anticipating the purpose with which he had set out to scour the world.
To any ordinary observer, it would appear as though the boy was fast asleep, leaning his forehead against the cool glass so that the window was all fogged up. But Hawk was, in fact, wide-awake, and trying incredibly hard to erase the memory of a certain woman he had left perched on her doorstep, her fly-away red hair almost as bright as the flames he had so often seen dance in the darkness of the night; the same flames he saw whenever he closed his eyes...
Hawk breathed in deeply and rubbed the window with his palm to see outside. It didn't make much of a difference, really, since the sun had set a long time ago, and the velvety folds of the night stared back at him. He frowned at his blotchy reflection, and looked away. He was so, so tired of seeing that face. Every day he had spent locked up in his room, just staring at himself; he wished his reflection would at least speak to him. He knew himself off by heart and could trace the lines of his face even in his sleep: floppy black hair, as normal as could be. A pale face with high cheekbones and well-sculpted features. And his eyes … his unnerving, almost frightening eyes…
He had always been daunted by them, even when he was young. No one had eyes like his, he knew. They seemed unreal – alien, somehow; a vivid green-gold with a tiny silver swirl at the edge of his irises. If you were to look closer, you would see the silver making a pattern, changing constantly according to the emotions he was experiencing at the time. And right now, a flame was dancing within them, like a gypsy – something that was out of his control.
Hawk shuddered slightly, but the sparks had already started to trail down his spine, cart-wheeling towards his wrist and down to his fingertips. His hands began to shake and itch uncontrollably; he curled them up into fists. When he opened his palm, he found a flame dancing in the middle, curling and lisping like a dragon’s tongue. Hawk’s eyes widened with fear, and he looked around quickly, hesitantly, just to make sure nobody had seen it happen. But the entire bus seemed to either be fast asleep, or too tired to care. The paunchy man in the seat beside him was dead to the world, the ends of his mustache flying upwards whenever he snored. Satisfied, Hawk stared at the flame for a moment, watching it flicker and trail upwards, like ivy climbing up a trellis, until it was approximately level with his eyes.
And then it was snuffed out, just disappearing – almost as though it had never existed. But Hawk had long ago learnt of the fine line between reality and fantasy, and he knew he hadn't been dreaming. It was as real as the last time, and the time before that.
It seemed so simple, how the fire came and went, leaving nothing but a vacuum inside Hawk’s heart.
A vacuum that not even his scattered thoughts could fill, as exhaustion finally overwhelmed him, and the bus teetered on through the night.
Points: 0
Reviews: 170
Donate