Phoenix (3 page)

His dad nodded as if this was enough and he couldn’t bear any more. He murmured thank you, slid the picture back into his pocket then turned away.

‘Thank
you
,’ I told him. I watched him open the door to his SUV. ‘Would you like me to talk to Brandon for you?’ I asked suddenly.

Michael shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t change his opinion of me, I can tell you that for sure.’

‘So will you stick around for Zak?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ He was getting in the car, starting up the engine.

‘Zak’s in trouble with the school.’

This was news to Michael. He turned down the corners of his mouth, narrowed his eyes. He glanced quickly at me then started to reverse out along the ridge. ‘I’ll check that out. Thanks for talking to me.’

‘No problem.’ A heavy, sad feeling came over me as I watched him leave. Add one more name to the list of people wounded by Phoenix’s passing. Someone like me, who didn’t know how to move on.

I had to be sure Michael Rohr was gone before I walked down into the valley, so I waited until the SUV had disappeared amongst the aspens and the sound of its engine had died.

Then I waited some more.

Doubts crept back into my mind, like wind rustling the aspen leaves, disturbing my purpose. Why did it have to be like this, I wondered. Why couldn’t I run down the hill straight into Phoenix’s arms, plain and simple?

Because this is the end game,
Arizona’s dry, dead voice inside my head reminded me. I looked up, expecting to see her face among the bright, fluttering leaves.
You
do this for Phoenix, you solve his mystery and you never see
him again.

Her voice became a sigh, it turned into a rustle of wind, a sound of wings beating, building, sweeping along the
ridge and swooping down the hillside.

Yes, this time I knew – the Beautiful Dead were back.

I walked – I didn’t run. My legs felt wooden, my feet heavy as lead. Down in the valley the green grass rippled.

It was weird how dead spirits brought new life to this silent, deserted place. The wings beat and raised a wind strong enough to rattle the panes in the ranch house windows, to rock the truck on its rusting axle and blow wide open the old barn door.

I ignored the house and headed straight towards the barn, my feet still dragging, my heart thumping. I stood in the wide entrance, one trembling hand resting against the door frame, waiting for my eyes to grow used to the gloom.

They were there, in their circle, turned in towards the centre the way they’d been when I first saw them. But this time there were only four Beautiful Dead – Hunter, Iceman, Dean and my wonderful Phoenix, emerging from the shadows as my eyes adjusted. They were all stripped to the waist, their skin pale and smooth, each bearing their death-mark tattoo.

‘Arizona! Summer!’ I murmured. I longed to have them back, to see the soft faces of girls among the strong Beautiful Dead guys.

‘We have come back from beyond the grave,’ they murmured in chorus as the beating wings stormed across the yard and seemed to drive me further into the dark space of the barn.

The ritual was the way I remembered it – solemn and simple, recognizing their reason for being here.

‘We are here to seek justice. It was a painful journey,’ Iceman said. ‘Hunter brought us back.’

The overlord gazed at each in turn – first Iceman, then Dean and finally my Phoenix, whose back was turned.

‘He brought us here,’ Dean echoed.

‘For one last time,’ Phoenix said. And now each of them reached out his right hand to meet the others in the centre of the circle – four strong, curled fists touching lightly, four spirits returned from limbo.

I was under their spell, watching with held breath, standing under a wind storm of beating wings.

‘Phoenix, your time has come,’ Hunter murmured. ‘Darina is here.’

I’m in his arms and it’s real. His flesh is pale and cold against
me – his cheeks, his lips. I feel his breath.

‘God!’ he murmurs, sinking his head against my shoulder.

A tidal wave of relief hits me and I drown. I close my eyes,
stop breathing, hold on tight.

‘I was scared we’d never do this ever again,’ Phoenix
tells me, the words tumbling out. He’s kissing me and talking,
kissing me again.

I’m hanging on to him, dizzy and swaying. I can’t talk. I
can’t believe it’s happening at last. I look into his eyes.

We sat together on the bank of the creek, Phoenix and me. The others left us alone, giving us the precious gift of time. I held his hand and felt his cold fingers wrap around mine as we watched the clear current swirl around granite boulders that sparkled in the sun.

I gazed at the water.
If I look at your face,
you’ll disappear
.

‘I won’t,’ he whispered. ‘Darina, look at me.’

I turned my head. His fingers were still intertwined with mine, his eyes searching my face.

If I say anything, you’ll vanish.

‘I won’t,’ he promised. ‘Darina, this is our time.’

My fingers held on even tighter than before. ‘Stay with me.’

‘I’m here. This is the way it’s meant to be.’ His voice was the same slow drawl, his eyes somewhere between grey and blue, the lashes long and curved, straight brows above.

‘I waited for ever. I came here so many times.’ My voice
was quivery and small, my grasp full of fear.

‘It’s the way it’s meant to be,’ he said again. ‘Believe me.’

And then we were walking hand in hand away from the deserted house and barn, out through the meadow under a vast blue sky.

The crushing pressure around my heart was easing, I was loosening my grasp.

Phoenix smiled at me. ‘You came back.’

‘
You
came back!’

‘I’m always here. I’m with you wherever you go.’

I felt the sun warm my face, knew that his would always be cold as death. ‘I do see you here on the far side,’ I told him. ‘Maybe only for a moment, but I know you’re here.’

Phoenix, my beautiful Phoenix, nodded. And oh my heart was racing, but not with terror. I smiled back.

‘That’s what I love – the way your eyes soften and melt.’ He put his arms around me, lifted me clear of the rippling grass and I felt the world tilt as I locked my arms around his neck and he laid me on the ground among the bright poppies, his body next to me, his lips on mine.

‘There’s a thousand things I want to say and not enough time.’ We sat in the ranch house, face to face across the
kitchen table. ‘When I’m home, I rehearse it all. I plan to tell you the things I remember best, how it felt the first time you talked to me, my fluttery heart, my head not believing what was happening.’

Phoenix nodded. ‘All I could think was “Dude, don’t say anything stupid. Don’t fall over or walk into the door.”’

‘I was so scary?’

‘It took me half a year to find the courage.’

I closed my eyes and laughed. ‘Idiot.’ You can load any word you like with affection and it comes out ‘I love you’.

‘You were so cool, Darina. You could look at a guy and destroy him – zap, he’d be gone.’

‘Not really.’

‘Yeah, you could. Girls like you don’t know their power.’

‘Girls like me?’

‘Beautiful and hostile – a killer combination.’

‘Listen.’ I reached for his hands. ‘That wasn’t hostility – that was pure fear. Other girls – Jordan, Hannah – they’re born with the confidence gene. They’re out there saying “Look at me!” knowing that the whole world adores them. Not me. There’s not a grain of that anywhere in my entire body – I step out of my door each day armed and ready for attack.’

‘How did that happen?’ Phoenix wondered, sitting in a shaft of sunlight that fell through the open door.

‘It’s not hard to work out. When my dad was around, he expected a lot. Always be good, be smart. And I tried real hard. Sometimes it worked – one time, when I was eight years old I won a prize for making a speech in front of the whole school. Me! I was so chewed up with nerves I didn’t eat for a week. Then there were times I tried to please him and it didn’t work. That’s when Dad did a great job of ignoring me and making me feel like I didn’t exist.’

‘Yeah, we have to please Daddy.’ Phoenix knew the score.

‘That’s the thing about fathers – you work and work at it then they leave home anyway.’ This was part of the bond between Phoenix and me, I realized. We were both abandoned kids. ‘I just talked with yours,’ I told him hesitantly.

‘I know. Hunter was there.’

Of course!
‘Michael needs closure,’ I told Phoenix. ‘He wanted to know about us, to understand. And he showed me a picture.’ Describing the photo of Brandon and Phoenix, I waited for his reaction.

Phoenix was silent, lost in his memories.

‘What are you thinking?’ I asked.

He glanced up at me then smiled sadly. There was a
lifetime of regret rolled up in that smile. ‘I’m thinking it was a long time ago.’

I already mentioned being unhappy with the fact that Hunter had returned with such a small group of Beautiful Dead.

‘Where are the others? Where are Donna and Eve?’ I asked Iceman, after Dean had come into the kitchen to fetch Phoenix, and I’d found myself wandering aimlessly across the yard into the barn, where I found Iceman chopping logs.

‘They didn’t come back.’

‘I see that, but why? Where are they?’

Iceman let the heavy axe head swing to the ground, rested on the shaft and shook his head. ‘Donna’s twelve months were up.’

Listening to Iceman’s short answers, I struggled to picture Donna – always there but in the background. It was her bright-red hair that you noticed and that was all. I felt bad about not being more curious when I had the chance.

‘Did Eve run out of time too?’

‘No. She found her answer.’

Eve with her baby, Kori, whose golden hair shone like a halo.

Iceman read my mind. ‘Actually, Eve was here for Kori. She needed to learn why her baby died. It turns out the hospital missed a diagnosis. Meningitis.’

‘And Eve?’ I didn’t want to hear that she’d lost her baby and died soon after of a broken heart.

‘In childbirth,’ Iceman explained. ‘She stepped over six months before Kori. They’re together now.’

I let out a sigh then stood quietly while Iceman took up the axe again. I saw the shiny blade fall, heard the thud and crack as it split the log.

‘It feels different without them, I know.’ Iceman paused again and spoke what I was thinking. ‘And without Jonas, Arizona and Summer.’

‘They’re all leaving and not coming back.’ The barn was gloomy and cold, sad memories floated in the dust.

‘And soon Phoenix,’ Iceman said, going back to his task.

‘Iceman, I want you to stay here with Darina.’ Hunter strode into the barn while Dean and Phoenix waited in the yard. ‘Keep her hidden. If intruders come too close, you know what to do.’

Intruders! I flipped into panic mode. ‘What happened? Did Michael Rohr follow me down here?’

Hunter had already turned away but he paused to glance at me. ‘Not this time, Darina. No – Dean just
spotted cops heading along the dirt road. It’s Jardine and the new sheriff, coming to check the place out.’

Knowing this was nothing to do with me, I relaxed. Well, not relaxed exactly. Let’s just say Hunter wouldn’t be able to blame me for the new county sheriff driving out to Foxton. It was part of his job to check out the squatter rumours, simple as that. And Hunter’s job was to protect the Beautiful Dead from intruders.

So I stayed in the barn with Iceman while the overlord took Dean and Phoenix up to the ridge.

‘What will Hunter do?’ I asked, climbing the crumbling wooden steps into the loft and finding a lookout spot between two warped planks. From there I could spy on the action up amongst the aspens.

‘You mean, which of his superpowers will he bring into play?’ Following me up the steps, Iceman leaned back against the rough wall, arms folded, not bothering to keep watch with me. ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ he advised. ‘I reckon Hunter will stand back and let the two visitors satisfy themselves that there’s no cause for concern out here.’

This seemed to be what was happening as I peered through my chink. I saw the three Beautiful Dead gather quietly in the shadow of the water tower. Hunter spoke a few words then surrounded them in a soft, shimmering
light. I blinked and they were gone. Superpower number one – the ability to dematerialize at will. But as far as I could tell from this distance, there was no calling up of the barrier of wings to stop the two cops in their tracks.

I waited a while, long enough to take in the trees lining the ridge – their slender, silvery trunks and bright canopy of leaves – and to think how peaceful and perfect this place was. Then two uniformed figures appeared.

They were two guys doing a job, probably enjoying the scenery like I was, with no clue what they might be walking into. One – the shorter, stockier one – I recognized as my buddy, Deputy Sheriff Henry Jardine, expert fly-fisher and all-round good guy, the one who decided not to arrest Zak Rohr on a charge of arson. He was with his new boss, Danny Kors, and they were chatting as they strolled through the aspens, stopping after a while to direct their attention down into the valley.

‘They’ve spotted the house!’ I whispered to Iceman. ‘They’re heading this way!’

Not strolling now, but picking up their pace, they kept their gaze fixed on the abandoned house and the heap of rusting parts that had once been a truck parked next to it, thinking maybe that the rumour was right – there were squatters here who needed to be checked
out. Soon they drew near enough for me to pick out their high-alert expressions.

Right away I decided they fitted the good-cop/bad-cop formula; slightly overweight, kind uncle Jardine versus lean Mr Mean, Kors.

The sheriff made a beeline for the old house while Henry hung back to take note of a recent repair to the razor-wire fence in an otherwise neglected yard.

Inside the loft, I switched positions for a better view of Kors, who was stepping up onto the porch, testing the door into the kitchen then raising the sole of his boot to lash out and kick in the old lock. There was the sound of splintering wood then the door swung open.