* * *
Felicia, to this day, had no idea where they had got the money from, but her parents had allowed her to go on the camping trip, even though she hadn’t begged or demanded again.
The trip was another step closer to doom.
At night, seated around a huge, merry bonfire, the teacher encouraged them to each tell the others why they thought they were special. They were supposed to sum up their talent or special interest in words and if possible give a demonstration. Finally it was her turn and she felt edged on by all eyes resting on her—the quiet outsider, too skinny, too red-haired, too wild-eyed, too strange. In a desperate attempt to catch their attention and prove herself, she said: “I’m good with fire.”
Of course this sparked snorts, disbelieving eyes, giggles and the teacher asking what she meant. Felicia got up, took a few steps closer to the bonfire, higher than herself and radiating warmth on the chilly night, and said, “Watch.”
In a dramatic gesture, she stretched and held her arm right into the middle of the fire, eager to see her classmates’ faces when they realized her skin wasn’t burning and she wasn’t feeling any pain.
She never got to see those faces.
In a matter of seconds, there was mayhem.
The children were screaming, the teacher yanked Felicia back and everyone was in hysterics that she had been about to burn to a cinder. It didn’t help the matter when they were quiet enough to discover her arm was completely unaffected by the fire, and she wasn’t howling and crying with pain. The silence and gawking felt worse than the hectic and shouting. In a strange voice, her teacher stated that she was extremely lucky to have been pulled back before touching the fire, and that nobody was ever to behave so stupidly. She had to sleep in the teacher’s tent, humiliation and anger and remorse warring inside and not letting her rest the whole night.
She choked back a sob. These memories had so long been lying forgotten, buried under the life of normalcy she had built for herself after years and years of being different and getting miserable. What had triggered them?
To prevent another memory from surfacing, she squinted at the page of the book lying open next to her hands, still clenched in shaking fists.
The chapter ended in a series of quotes that centered on self-control.
He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still. (Laozi, Chinese philosopher)
Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage. (Thucydides, Greek author and historian)
If you conquer yourself, then you conquer the world. (Paolo Coelho, Brazilian writer)
She sighed, her eyes lingering on the quotes. How true it sounded. And how very difficult.
Felicia thwacked the book shut and groaned. It was useless to sit here and remember and torture herself and circle around a goal she still didn’t know how to achieve, like somebody scratching around a wound with scabs, not sure if the dry crust, once dislodged, would reveal healed skin or cause new bleeding.
She’d do what had worked on so many nights before: go out and walk around the outskirts of town. There wasn’t much to like about Fairview, but it did have the perfect natural surroundings.
An hour later, Felicia felt better. She had left the suburb behind and was strolling through the forest at its outskirts. The street lights didn’t reach the trees, but she didn’t need their ghastly, sterile illumination. The moon was nearing its full roundness and high up on a cloudless sky. And one of the benefits—if she could call them benefits—of being different had always been her excellent night vision. Like an animal of sorts, a minimum natural illumination was all she needed to find her way in the dark forest. She had no idea why, but suspected like heat and fire, she might carry some sort of light inside her to shine the way.
The walk through the trees was like a balm for the mind and soul.
A slight breeze flew by now and then, ruffling the leaves overhead and lifting her red curls around her head without blowing them into her face. It was a tad cool, probably as she was dressed in a knee-length denim skirt and a red top leaving one shoulder bare, but she didn’t mind. Walking kept her warm enough, although somewhere deep inside she longed for a blazing fire like the other night, some engulfing warmth and light to forget herself in.
The sound of water trickling over stones and winding its way through the wood reached her ears. Had she walked so far? She knew there was a smallish river running through the forest, but she had seldom ever reached it or spent much time alongside it. Water wasn’t her element, in the literal sense. She couldn’t swim. Another item to add onto the list of things making her different.
There was a big splashing sound like something falling into the water, smaller sounds of the same nature following.
Would she see an animal, out for a nightly hunt or drink of water?
With peaked interest and no fear, she turned toward the source of the splash and quickened her steps, taking care at the same time not to make any noise.
When she came out into a clearing and her eyes fell upon the river, her feet stopped walking, and her heart stopped beating.
What she saw in front of her looked like a scene from a fairytale or a romance novel.
Chapter 5