Sember (Forestfolk, Book 2)

When a girl can make a pair of pants burst into flames with her bare hands, people tend to be afraid of her. Or in this case, me. Only my brother, Goben—who is fireproof—ever dared to argue with me. Everyone else? Well . . . “Oh! I’m sorry,” said a woman I didn’t know very well. I had just entered the commons for breakfast when we’d both reached for the same tray. “I didn’t mean to get in your way.” “It’s fine.” I offered her the wooden tray. “Go ahead.” She took a step back. “Actually, I just remembered something. I’ll eat later. You have a good meal.” She scurried away before I could say anything else. With a small sigh, I began piling my tray with berries, corn cakes, and dried meat. Foresthome was a collection of rough-hewn cabins and shacks. Originally a refugee camp for displaced Plainsmen and persecuted Gifted, it had grown into a community of people who all helped each other. Hunting, weaving cloth, carving spoons, whatever their abilities, everyone chipped in. It was pretty great, even if most of them were scared to talk to me. I sat alone at a table, not giving the polite but skittish woman any more thought. Those who knew me liked me, and I had decided long ago that anyone who didn’t just didn’t know me well enough. Chewing absently, I brought a hand up and concentrated on gradually directing my heat there until it glowed faintly, attempting to maintain the same intensity without fluctuating. Warm, almost hot, but not scalding. It took me months to perfect this seemingly simple task. Destruction was so much easier. “Sember, there you are!” I snuffed the glow from my hand at the sound of Nirrin’s voice. She was two years older than my sixteen years, same as Goben, and talked to me all the time. I wasn’t sure if it was because not many could tolerate her incessant prattle, or if she felt sorry for me since I had few friends. “Did you hear about Wender getting sick?” She plopped down next to me. “Wender? But I was just with him yesterday to help him collect honey.” Smoke made bees sleepy, so I wasn’t without my uses. “That’s the fourth one to get sick this week, right?” “Yes! It’s so nasty! I don’t think I could stand being covered in rashes and coughing up blood.” She shivered with disgust. “It seems really bad. And contagious. You didn’t go near him, did you?” I was getting ready to scoot away from her if she had. “I know how much you like honey.” “No way! They finally set up a quarantine cabin so it’ll be easier to avoid them.” Nirrin stole a berry from my tray and popped it into her mouth. “They’re using Siena’s old cabin. Remember when we were kids and we used to sneak in there to talk to her?” “You used to sneak in there against Bren’s orders. I understood the concept of privacy.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Siena never complained.” “Siena never complains about anything,” I pointed out. “Unlike some people.” “I am not a complainer!” Nirrin flipped her long hair over one shoulder. “I just state my opinions, that’s all.” Did she ever. I decided to change the subject. “When do you think Siena’s coming back from visiting the tribes?” She shrugged. “It’s been a week, right? But she probably loses track of time when she gets to spend it trekking around with Remi. Am I right?” She waggled her eyebrows and nudged me with an elbow. I sighed and shook my head, but smiled anyway. I was glad Siena was happy now. The first day I ever saw her, ten years ago, is still crystal clear in my memory. It was at a community meeting. The entire population of Foresthome had been talking about the young Iceling who had been rescued in the forest and brought in. I remember thinking she was sort of small and skinny for her fifteen years as she marched to the center of the meeting circle, but I was entranced by her pale blue eyes and hair the color of the yellow plains in summer. I was jealous, really. My hair was thin, messy, and flaming red. “I hope she gets back soon,” I said. I thought about how far Siena had come since those early days, when she was lost and afraid of everyone. Now she was the resident healer, sharing her gift with everyone, including the Plainsmen tribes who used to persecute the Gifted. Her level of kindness went beyond my understanding. I would have told those stupid Plainsmen to go suck a toad. “We need her. This sickness seems to be spreading fast.” “Yeah, seems like it. Hey, what’s Goben doing today?” I glanced at her, wondering what she felt for my brother, if anything. As much as she liked to talk, she rarely shared anything private. “He’s going hunting, since Remi’s gone.” Remi, our best hunter, was the one who found Siena all those years ago. And now they were inseparable, living together and doing practically everything together. “Those two are so adorable! I wish I had someone like that.” She sighed dramatically and stroked her lustrous brown hair. “You will.” It was a platitude, but I didn’t know what else to say. After breakfast, I brushed the crumbs off my deer hide pants, waved goodbye to Nirrin, and jogged down the lake trail. Two women holding gathering baskets stopped chatting with each other when they saw me and practically jumped off the path. The Forestfolk were too polite to ever say anything directly to me, but really, they didn’t need to. I may have imagined it, but they seemed to hold their collective breath as I passed, as if bracing for some kind of impact. I continued jogging, trying to shrug it off. They just didn’t know me, I reminded myself. My fiery gift could be intimidating. The days had been growing shorter and cooler, and the brisk air felt good in my lungs. Siena taught me that my pent-up energy sometimes made me irritable, and if I didn’t master my emotions, my gift—my curse, really—could very well cause another explosion. Yes, another one. Everyone learned to sidestep me the day after the explosion. The one I caused when I was six and wanted to go diving with Dilla in the lake. She was the Gifted who could breathe underwater and sometimes brought back treasures like colorful gems and monstrous clams. I wanted to find my own treasures, and had a tantrum when my parents said no. It wasn’t just the no. It was, “No, you’re too little. No, you can’t breathe underwater. No, you won’t get far.” They were telling me I wasn’t good enough when I knew, deep in my six-year-old heart, that I was. And so my blood boiled, my hands clenched, and fury bubbled up from my very core. BOOM! The impact knocked out my parents, sent Goben flying out the door, and lit the entire cabin on fire. I remember thinking I was all alone, my parents were dying, and it was all my fault. I remember stumbling out of the burning cabin, crying, wondering where my fearlessness had gone. If it weren’t for Goben and Siena, my parents would be dead. Goben and Siena, who were still children themselves, had braved the inferno and pulled my parents out. I, on the other hand, had been a blubbering i***t. Proof that I couldn’t be trusted. That was ten years ago. I’ve had other explosions since then, but none of them are etched so deeply into my psyche as that fateful day. Sometimes, on really bad days, I still feel like a blubbering i***t. But those days are farther apart now, thanks to Siena’s patient, guiding hand. When I reached the lake, I picked up speed. People didn’t appreciate me crashing into them on the forest trails, but the clearing around the lake was usually safe. I leapt over fallen branches and dodged mudholes as I ran. Sometimes during my runs, I’d see Siena lying out in the grass with her eyes closed or staring up at the sky. She had this serene stillness about her that I could never grasp. I was too full of frenetic energy. Running put me in the zone. Siena taught me that too. Sometimes I wondered if she realized how big an impact she’s had on my life. Goben was always there for me, sure, but he never knew the right thing to say to me. He was actually kind of terrible around girls in general. I pounded a full circle around the lake, and stopped to catch my breath. Then I started to practice. Creating roaring flames willy-nilly was easy. It was the controlled, even burns that were hard. I brought one hand to a warm glow again, and upped the heat in my other hand until a flame engulfed it. Then, in a gradual shift of energy, I’d make the glowing hand flame and the flaming hand glow. Back and forth. It was an exercise in control that took me a lot longer to master than one would expect. Slow breathing was the trick. Siena’s suggestion, of course. I exhaled forcefully and dropped my hands. People thought I was obsessed with Siena. Sure, I used to follow her everywhere when I was little. I even wanted to be her. But it didn’t take me long to figure out that, no matter what I did or how hard I tried, I could never even be like her. She was a kind, talented healer who took me under her wing. Me? I was the dangerous, directionless child whose only claim to fame was nearly killing her parents and burning Foresthome with them. Even after ten years, people tended to remember stuff like that. Heat welled up inside me. I took a quick look around for bystanders, then gave in to it. I let my head drop back and turned my closed eyes to the sky. My hands formed fists and the energy swelled within like the inflating vocal sac of a bullfrog. Then, when it became almost unbearable, my hands flew open and a concussive blast emanated from me in all directions with a thundering boom. Behind me, something crashed with a grunt. I whirled around to find a boy my age sprawled in the dirt, fishing pole still in one hand and a bucket upturned next to him. My heart sank. I rushed to his side and knelt by him. “I’m so sorry. I thought no one was around! Are you hurt?” Please, please don’t be hurt. Siena’s not here to fix my mess! He groaned and sat up, fixing his brown eyes on me. “What was that?” “Oh, um . . . ” Only new visitors had no idea who I was. “I was . . . practicing.” He raised his eyebrows at me, then understanding dawned on him. “Ohh, you’re one of those Gifted people, right?” I flinched a little. “Yes, one of those people.” He shook his head, and his curly brown hair shimmered in the sun. “That was pretty powerful. And hot.” I looked at him curiously. “Hot?” “Yeah, I thought I was going to be burned alive. Do I still have eyebrows?” He touched them with his fingers and blew out a breath of relief. Right. Of course. That kind of hot. I berated myself for hoping he might have meant sexy-hot. I sighed. “Don’t worry about it. It was just a quick flash of heat. Not enough to burn anything.” “So . . . you make explosions?” he asked, scooting back a little. “Not usually,” I said, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “It’s more about fire.” “Oh, I see,” he said in a tone that indicated he actually didn’t. His eyes strayed to my hair, which was probably frizzing out of control. “Here, let me help you up.” I stood before he could make any inane comments about my red hair. I yanked him with more force than I intended, probably out of irritation. “You’re strong,” he said as he steadied himself. I shrugged, mentally adding a point to my growing pile of Things That Don’t Attract Boys. “You’re tall too.” I was maybe a hand-width taller than him. I was taller than most of the Forestfolk, a fact I was painfully aware of anytime I spoke to them. Another point added to the pile. “I’m Dozan,” he said as he rested the butt of the fishing pole on the ground. “Sember.” “Oh, you’re Sember! I should have guessed.” Great, so he had heard of me. If someone had already told him about me, how could he not have gathered I was that girl? Was he slow? I gave him a wan smile. “Yup, that would be me. I’ll let you get back to your fishing.” “Nah, all the fish have probably been scared away.” I added another point to the pile. “Sorry about that.” I cast my eyes down to my shoes. “So . . . where do the girls hang out around here?” My head popped up to shoot him an incredulous glare. “The girls?” “Yeah. At the tribe compound I came from, most of the girls would gather at a river to wash laundry, fetch water, wash themselves . . . ” His eyes gleamed at that last part. “I was hoping to find something like that here.” A wave of disgust blew away any interest I might have had for this Dozan creep. “There’s nothing like that here. We don’t sit around and gossip like a flock of chittering sparrows. But hey, it’s a big lake. Maybe you can find some other unsuspecting damsel and sneak up on her.” “I wasn’t sneaking—” “Just go!” I snarled, my fists glowing orange. Not needing any further prompting, he scooped up his bucket and hurried back into the forest. A loud growl escaped my throat, and I spun around to stalk along the shore. I snatched a large piece of driftwood out of the water and gripped it with both hands. Its dripping surface was cool against my palms, but not for long. Steam began to hiss and rise from it as my anger seethed into it. That dress-chasing bastard. More hissing and steaming. Pretending to be a nice fisherman when he was just hoping to get lucky. Steam turned into smoke. Hoping to find other girls because obviously I didn’t count. The driftwood burst into flames so violently that I felt the blast against my face. Within seconds, it was ash in my hands. I stared down at it, trying to ignore the hollow ache that once again gnawed at me. Ashes. My destiny was in ashes.