CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The next morning, I change into my running clothes and hit the trails crisscrossing the woods. I sprint around the trees, my sneakers slamming on the dirt-covered surface.
Icy air blasts against my face. The crisp smell of pine fills my nose. My breath is fast, my lungs and muscles aching, my heart pounding. I keep going, letting the exertion of my body take over my thoughts.
But fragments float through my mind like pieces of broken glass.
Max… mazes… Riley Flynn… trolls… a little flower to love… my body… my face… I can’t offer you anything else… you make me like myself again…
I cross a two-lane road cutting through the woods and turn onto a new path. Dried leaves carpeting the forest floor crunch under my shoes. The trees are almost all bare. Winter will be here soon.
I circle around and head back home, keeping my pace rhythmic and strong. I reach the road again and jog along the side to get to the path leading back to Uncle Max’s house. A couple of cars slow and edge into the other lane to pass me.
Shortening my stride, I look over my shoulder to see if the road is clear to cross. A pick-up truck turns the corner and comes toward me. I ease farther off the road to give the truck room to pass safely before I cross to the trail.
The driver revs the engine. My heart jolts. This is a country road with clearly marked pedestrian and bike lanes, not a—
Shit!
The truck careens past me, tires skidding. The rush of air shoves me off the asphalt. I stumble into a shallow ditch beside the road and come to a shaky halt. The speeding truck disappears around a bend.
What the fuck?
My heartbeat pounds in my head, my breath rasping. I rest my hands on my knees and gulp in air. Part of my brain struggles to attribute the close call to drunk driving or reckless teenagers, but another part prickles with terror.
He knows where I am.
I straighten and run across the road, not feeling safe again until I’m deep in the forest.
I let Ghost into the kitchen, then lock the door behind him. I’ll keep him inside today as another layer of protection. I crack open a bottle of water. My heart still races with fear.
Why would David come after me now? Doesn’t he know he scared me enough with his phone call? I’m half-tempted to try and reach him to tell him exactly that, but the restraining order is still in place. I’m certainly not about to violate it.
I ensure all the doors and windows are locked, then feed Ghost and go upstairs to take a shower. For the first time, the creaking of the house is eerie rather than comforting.
When I go downstairs again, Ghost is lying in front of the door, like he’s guarding it. I smile and scratch his ears. “Thanks, boy. You’re a good friend.”
Maybe my only friend.
An unwelcome image of Flynn emerges. My chest aches. The stack of Riley Flynn books and the box of drawings he’d given me yesterday are still on the coffee-table where I’d left them.
Though the shock of discovery has worn off, I’m wary of everything the box contains. All images of me.
I sit down and open a Riley Flynn book, Sea Storm. The elaborate, detailed pictures almost leap off the pages into living, breathing life.
His secret is art.
The illustrations and mazes of the books are already familiar to me. I’d purchased the first book in the series when it was published at least thirteen years ago, enthralled by the vibrant colors and expertly concealed clues of keys, stamps, puzzle pieces, and rings.
I’ve bought the books as gifts for friends and their children, to give as graduation presents, for school libraries. I’m a fan of Westley and Tugg’s adventures. And I understand Flynn’s desire for anonymity much more now than I would have a year ago.
I set the books aside and pull the lid off the box. What had he said—I’d inspired an idea that broke through three years of writer’s block?
I take out a stack of drawings and study them. Yesterday, the naked pictures had eclipsed everything else, but there are only two of them. In the others, Flynn has reimagined me in numerous guises—a sorceress, a witch surrounded by radiance, a fairy nestled in a tulip like Thumbelina. A woman cloaked in red, standing before a full white moon. A warrior clad in armor, a powerful elf pulling an arrow into a bow.
All of them are intricate and aesthetically beautiful, sketched with a deft, talented hand.
I take a worn notebook from the box and open it. My heart jumps. Written in a distinctive black scrawl is the title:
Fiamma
A Fairy Tale
Fiamma. That was the word he’d whispered right before I fell asleep yesterday. The Italian word for flame. “You lit something inside me. Like you were a flame.”
The knot in my chest loosens a bit. I turn the page.
Once upon a time there lived a cobbler’s son who loved a woodcutter’s daughter. The girl’s name was Anne, and she lived with her father in a village that nestled like an egg at the base of a mountain.
Though the father was poor, he always said his life was filled with gold and silver, for that was how he saw his daughter. Her soul was the gold of the sun, and her beauty the silver of the moon. With his sun and moon, his gold and silver, the woodcutter wanted for nothing.
And the cobbler’s son? Jack’s life would have been darkness were it not for the light of Anne. He had loved her since childhood, but never had the courage to tell her. He showed her in small ways—repairing her father’s shoes, helping with chores, bringing them fresh bread. For a long time, he thought that might be enough, that one day she would look up and realize she loved him too.
Then the cold came. Sheets of winter blew down from the mountains and through the forest that had protected the town for countless generations. In the span of a week, the cold had killed all the crops—apples, potatoes, wheat, corn. Anne’s father grew sick, his cough worsening like rocks rattling in a tin can.
The townspeople murmured it would warm up soon, but another week passed, then another, until they were looking back at a month of cold. Then two months. Three.
Now the cold will stop, the villagers whispered.
It did not stop.
It’s a curse, they whispered.
And their eyes landed on Anne, sinking into her like the talons of a predatory bird. For it was not that long ago when a stranger had ridden into town, a man with a pale, narrow face and glittering green eyes. Those eyes chipped away at Anne like an ice pick, leaving her cold and trembling.
He’d pointed a long finger at her. “You are the one I will have.”
Though Anne didn’t consider herself brave, her mind filled with an image of her father and Jack. The two people she loved most in the world.
“No.” The word was weak but firm.
The stranger’s features sharpened like a blade. He turned, the horse’s hooves stirring up a whirlwind of dirt as he rode off in the direction from which he’d come.
Then the cold began and did not stop.
The food supply shrank. Animals starved. The villagers weakened, even as they continued to blame Anne for the curse.
One night after Jack helped Anne with the chores, they sat by the dwindling fire, trying to keep warm and drinking cups of hot water flavored with tea. He set his cup down and knelt by her side. The firelight cast a warm glow over her, like an embrace. All light loved Anne.
“I’m going into the forest.” Jack’s voice was so low, Anne leaned forward to hear.
“What?”
“I’ll hunt for food. I’ll find something. Enough to last us through winter, I hope.”
Anne shook her head. “No one goes into the forest.”
The massive trees and thick foliage protected the village on three sides—or had until the cold invaded—but it was vast, dangerous, spreading over the foothills, the mountains, no one knew how far.
Generations ago, those who had tried to navigate or map the terrain never returned. Even the village dogs and cats didn’t go near the tree-line.
But for Anne, Jack would enter the forest.
I stop and leaf through the rest of the notebook. Flynn’s black-ink penmanship covers the recto side of the pages, the scrawl giving a sense of urgency. And on every reverse side, there’s a detailed sketch in colored pencil and ink. Anne, a young woman with my features, clad in an embroidered tunic and wool skirt, her eyes bright and inquisitive.
Jack, a dark-haired young man looking back over his shoulder, his hands fisted. A little brown sparrow in a forest. A black-cloaked man with a narrow, pale face and brilliant green eyes. A womanly figure rising from a nest of fire, multicolored wings outstretched.
I turn back to the beginning and continue reading, unwillingly captivated by the story.
When Jack fails to return from the forest, Anne summons her courage and goes after him. She searches for hours, befriending a helpful sparrow, before she’s captured by an evil sorcerer, Koldun, who cast the cold spell as punishment for her rejection. He is also holding Jack hostage, lashed to a tree with invisible bonds.
To free him, Anne must solve twelve mazes before the clock strikes twelve. She works her way through the complex puzzles—an undersea maze with walls made of bright, twisted coral and seashells. A star maze composed of bright constellations, a flower maze where thorned roses stick out at every turn. A maze constructed of ancient ruins, an Amazon jungle maze with vines slithering around every corner.
I envision the story as a finished book, each maze captured on the page with painstaking detail, the story sending the reader on the same journey as the heroine.
Though Anne solves every maze, the sorcerer fails to keep his promise. But Anne refuses to give up. She has a vision of a golden egg, and with Sparrow’s help she realizes she needs to break it.
Using a slingshot, she battles Koldun and finds the egg hidden deep in the forest. She fires a stone at the golden egg.
Koldun screamed in outrage. The egg shattered, releasing a foul-smelling black liquid. Gray smoke spiraled upward like snakes. The egg shrieked—a high-pitched noise that made Anne’s head spin. She grabbed another stone and launched it at Koldun.
It hit him square in the chest. His cloak began turning to smoke, his eyes dimming. Even as she watched him change, she was changing too. Her arms took the shape of wings, her body grew brilliant red-gold feathers, her eyes grew glassy and bead-like. A word appeared in her mind, whispered in a woman’s milk-smooth tones.
Fiamma. Flame.
She understood. The egg had contained the wizard’s dark soul, and the one to break it would destroy him and absorb his power. She rose into the air, flooded with strength.
She swooped toward the wizard, lashing out with her wings. Fire shot from the tips of her feathers, striking Koldun down. With every flash, he grew colorless and lifeless, his face twisted with agony. Finally he faded completely, sinking into the forest floor.
The firebird flew to Jack, sending shafts of light to break the invisible bonds lashing him to the tree. He fell. She caught him in her multicolored wings and carried him safely back to the ground. Her wings folded into a circle around them both.
Light shimmered. She became Anne again, and it was her arms embracing Jack, and his face pressed to her hair, and neither needed to speak. Though they had entered the impenetrable forest alone, they would walk out of it together.
By the time I close the notebook, my heart is pounding with both trepidation and a slowly brewing hope. I gaze at a drawing of the heroine in battle.
Is this how Flynn sees me? As a loyal, clever girl, a powerful woman, a creature strong enough to defeat evil?
The answer is here, in every stroke and line of his pencil. He saw me at the secrets wall and thought of a flame. A Firebird. His inspiration.
I pile everything back into the box and close the lid. Ghost pads over to me from the foyer, butting his head against my leg. I rest my hand on his back.
Somewhere deep inside me, in a corner of my soul I’ve forgotten about, a change is taking place. Maybe it started a long time ago. It feels scary and exhilarating, even painful. A seed breaking open, an oak tree shedding brittle leaves, a wound knitting into a scar.
It’s the realization that I wasn’t destroyed or defeated after all, not in the most secret part of my heart. No one ever had that kind of power over me.