I remember the first time that I felt the fire, this bright red glowing thing inside me. It burned the roof of my mouth, my eyes, my hands.
I scorched my wristwatch to my arm.
In the quiet aftermath of a meditative cold shower, I peeled the melted watch from my wrist. My wrist was unharmed. I remembered.
The next time was Mr. VanDuke’s history class. Something about burning witches. Darcy Kellerman laughed and said some joke about me being next before screaming, clawing at her own face as her eyes popped like fried eggs. Her entire desk, it seems, had combusted. They say it was a good thing she was wearing natural fibers. They say, it would have been a horror otherwise.
The last time I was mocked in the hall, I felt it rise in me like a light, this time with focus. I contained it. It was a success. They strutted past me, guffawing like lost mules, while I quietly celebrated the victory.
Over the next few months, I became adept at starting fires. Months later, I was able to quench them at will. I learned, of course, to spell my name on things, but used a new name, a name capable of housing this new found fire:
They called it vandalism; at first, anyway. There were cash rewards and suspects aplenty but no one they could lay hands on seemed to have any knowledge of the source.
Yet, I knew, it was only a matter of time before they got to me.
Like always, I played the game, went by their name, went by their rules, went along with their inquisition. I feigned fear, resentment, and, most of all, powerlessness. I gave them “disaffected demoralized queer” and they ate it up lip-smackingly.
The vandalism escalated to more elaborate “terrorist” acts; the grocery story burned completely to the ground in less time than it took the local fire department to respond. There was no direct evidence of the use of accelerant, but, in the aftermath, investigators intimated strongly that the blaze was deliberate; they just could not “reasonably account for the apparently complete and extraordinarily rapid simultaneous incineration of the building and all that was housed therein”.
Prom came and went, and I did neither. I had promised my grandmother that I would graduate, and I intended to do just that, so I had no plans on sulking my way out of graduation. But, it seemed, a new graduation was taking place of its own accord and with my encouragement. I decided to speak with her about it.
“I don’t know anything about any of that you’re talking about. But I DO know that there are gifts; gifts that are given, gifts for which we are responsible for being good stewards, until it is time to return that gift.”
I thanked her, and she hugged me like usual, only I thought her hands felt… warmer than usual.
“You have many gifts,” she said, still holding me in her arms. “Go and be a good steward”.
I had been “churched” so hard as a child, I knew exactly what she meant by “good steward”. And, I had been “churched” hard enough to WANT to BE that good steward.
But I remembered another song. Something about “God don’t need no matches…”
I thought about saying it, about whispering it like a prophecy into her ear, a thing I knew she would feel just as I did. But, in her warmth, I withheld it from her. “She has carried more than her share,” I reasoned.
The last time was after graduation.
We had walked the stage earlier that afternoon, my family smiling, hollering, snapping photos with their phones. That night, I sat alone in my room and thought of what to wear.
In the woods, I could hear them far off, even with the twigs and branches snapping beneath my feet. I walked closer and heard them laughing, the crack of their fire, closer still and I could recognize voices.
I thought of the people connected to those voices, how they had shaped me, how they had “arranged” me, how they had dug into me against my will. I thought of the scars I carried and felt myself grow warmer.
Before any of them could see me, I had taken account of who they all were. It broke my heart that none of them were exempt. None of them (not here, anyway) had ever seen, much less respected people like me.
Tyler Jepsen, hand in my pants, freshman year - “horseplay”
Sendica Ire, “What ARE you?”, freshman year - “misunderstanding”
Tony Mendez, “Let us see ‘it’!”, junior year - “jokes”
Hannah Glass, “Its not fair to us who are just ‘like that’ naturally.”
There were so many others. Too many. Tears stung my eyes and burned away on my face, leaving salt stains and bloodied eyes.
By the time I was in view, my fire was brighter than theirs. I incinerated them all, one by one, savoring their cries for help. I learned after the first one that I had done it far too quickly. I practiced, though. And there were so many to practice on.
Hannah was last, fruitlessly trying to shove a car key into an ignition that I had melted shut. When she saw me, she stopped.
The woods around us burned, hot smoke rose, black and grey plumes, us in a hell of my making.
She got out of the car and faced me. She looked ready.
“I know I don’t deserve your mercy. We put you through hell - there’s no forgiving that. There’s no apology for that. I know. I just wanted y-”
And that’s as far as she got. Sure, there was a scream as she clawed at her mouth, melted shut, her teeth, fused together. I turned her tongue to ash and watched her choke, black tendrils of ash and mucus hanging from her nose like idiot mascara.
Her hair went up instantly - she almost didn’t feel it. And when I took her eyes, I took my time. I wanted the last thing she saw and felt as her cataracts melted into nothing was the force of my fire.
Some of the others had worn their prom dresses as a sort of last chance to get to wear something opulent before being turned out like paupers to the college of their parents' choosing. No doubt, they also relished in the irony of wearing evening wear to the woods for a beer and pot party.
What they did not count on, was Tituba.
Very nearly to her credit, Hannah had worn all natural fibers - while the others smoldered, gurgling pleas for help from half-hardened plastic shells that once were jackets and skirts and showoff wear, Hannah stood alone. Tall. Bright.
