The Perennial Flames

Later that day, after a nap during which I had no dreams of that other place, I decided that I could no longer put off another trip to see Kaz.

Don’t get me wrong, I was longing to see him… I was just afraid of what he would say. I looked at the clock. Even if my mother did manage to get off of work early, she wouldn’t be home for another hour. That had to be my time limit. If she caught me asleep, there would be trouble.

I shut my eyes and concentrated on Kaz. I didn’t know how this intentional traveling worked, just that if I wanted badly enough for it to happen, it seemed to work.

“Violet!”

I opened my eyes and saw Kaz looking at me like I was water and he was stranded in a desert. There was a feverish glow to his cheeks that worried me. “Hi, Kaz,” I said softly. “Sorry about earlier. When I panic, I disappear, I think.”

He frowned. “I was worried,” he confessed.

Silence fell and we studied each other. He was wearing his hair in a way which I was pretty sure was new, and it looked good. Kaz had a captivating dark look about him. He had eyes of the darkest brown I had ever seen and hair to match. His skin had an undertone of copper, though it looked more sallow than I was used to. It didn’t look like he had been taking very good care of himself.

Kaz kept silent as I carefully examined every part of him: the wings of his eyebrows, the freckle that accented the corner of his right eye, and the slightly crooked line of his nose. Then lower: the long, tight-muscled arms, the graceful line of his hips, and the clavicle that stood out in sharp relief, hinting at tension.

He looked just as I remembered.

He looked wonderful.

Those dark, deep eyes were boring into me. “Where did you go?” Kaz asked.

“I went back home.” His gaze was warming me slowly from the inside out. There was the strange, prickling sensation of goose bumps rising on my arms, though I didn’t even have solid form here. I shivered.

“The house in Lindwin?” Kaz cocked his head, but his eyes remained latched onto mine.

“No. I haven’t heard of that place before.” I remembered what Baxter had said, about being from a different planet and a different realm entirely. “I was on Earth,” I said, hoping that I didn’t sound ridiculous.

“Earth!” Kaz exclaimed. “What do you mean, you were on Earth? How is that possible? Is that where you’ve been for all of this time?” A look of dawning comprehension appeared on his face, followed quickly by horror. “Violet! Have you been stuck on Earth for all of these years? And how are you so young? What happened? How did you get there, and how are you stuck?” The horror deepened at the same time that his questions dried up. It looked like he had figured something out.

If only I could be in on the secret.

“Too much! That’s way too much,” I complained. “Kaz, I don’t know what you’re talking about and… well, it’s scaring me.”

Kaz winced and finally he looked down. His hand hovered near mine in the air, as close as he could bring it without passing through me. A sorrow gathered in his features, and I felt my heart breaking along with his. But Kaz’s sorrow wasn’t his primary emotion; no, it seemed like excitement had temporarily drowned that out.

“I’m so sorry, Violet. You don’t remember much right now, do you? There’s no memory serum on Earth. Oh, this makes so much sense! You died, didn’t you? You died, and now you can’t remember yourself or your realm or… or me! And now it’s coming back to you, yes? Little pieces at a time? Gosh, it’s been centuries since I went through this process the long way. It’s awful, isn’t it? Oh, Violet. And you didn’t even have any of our kind with you to remind you of yourself and your heritage.” More horror appeared on Kaz’s face, and this time it didn’t fade. He gaped at me, and I could feel empathy rolling off of him in waves.

“Could you go slower, please?” I hadn’t absorbed much from Kaz’s little rant, except that whatever it was that he was so concerned about, it fit in nicely with the very little I knew about what was happening to me.

Kaz looked abashed. “Yes, of course, my Violet. You can’t remember anything very clearly, yes? You have some memories that you can’t seem to fit into your current life. You’ve started ghosting – traveling- here, because you feel pulled into this world, this place. To me. But you don’t know why. Am I right?”

I nodded mutely. “Keep going.”

“It’s because you’re trapped. You don’t belong on Earth. You are from here, this place where we are right now. You and I, we’ve both died many, many times. Every time, we come back just the same, instantly. We’re phoenixes-”

“What, like the bird?”

Kaz laughed, a quick burst. “No, not quite. The humans, I don’t know how they learned of us at all, but they’ve got it wrong. Birds! Ridiculous. Do I look like a bird to you?”

“Of course not. Go on.” I tried not to feel irritated. How dare he laugh at me? But getting angry at him would only delay my answer-getting.

And my time was limited. How much had passed already? Too much. I would have to leave all too soon. “Please, can you be fast and thorough? I can’t stay here long.”

Kaz nodded. “Sure. This planet, it’s called Phoenix. It exists in a separate world, a separate realm from Earth. Everyone on this planet is just like you and me. When we die, we go out in a flash of fire and are born anew from ashes. With me so far?”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure how much I believed him, but what he was saying didn’t contradict anything that Baxter had told me, and that made me brave enough to listen. Besides, deep down I couldn’t help but listen to anything and everything Kaz had to say. Either I wasn’t crazy, or I was even crazier than I had ever dared to believe.

Either way, maybe this wasn’t so bad.

Kaz took a deep breath. “I don’t know the best way to tell you this. I’ve never had to before. Forgive me if I’m not approaching this the right way. Because our kind doesn’t die, this world is filling up quickly. People limit their procreation, but even if you only have one child every few centuries, in a society where the population can only increase, it is overwhelming. We made rules about that. People have to have a license to be allowed to have a child. Still the world is almost full. You see how tiny this house is? This is the size of every house on the planet, and there are people living in their own spaces above and below us right now. It’s worked so far, but we can only keep building up for so long.”

I grimaced. “That’s not good.”

Kaz chuckled. “Indeed not. We have been looking for new planets to take. We can’t reach any habitable ones, not right now, but we’re learning. As phoenixes, we can see into other realms, but no matter how much we try, we can’t quite break into them. Or, I thought we couldn’t. But then you disappeared, and now here you are, ghosting in our own world and telling me that you’re on Earth, of all places.” He shook his head in wonder at the thought. “I think you left because of the overpopulation issue. It’s been a pet project of yours for the past few lifetimes.”

I frowned. “Ghosting? Why do you keep using that word? I thought you just said that we couldn’t die?”

Kaz grinned and I almost sighed. It felt like I had been longing to see that smile. “The term is kind of a joke. We can visit other realms, see, but when we do we are incorporeal. We can’t touch anything and we can’t be seen except by other phoenixes. Every once in a while, you’ll find someone who can sense your presence. Earth had ghost stories, yes? We are where they come from. We are the souls of people who have died- yet we continue to live and we can haunt them on the humans’ own plane.”

“That’s a little bit crazy.” My head was spinning. Even though I never felt any physical discomfort when I was here- ghosting, as it happened- I sat down on the floor. The act made me feel more centered, more grounded. More sane.

Kaz sat down next to me, wrapping his arms around his knees and hugging them to his chest. “Are you okay, Violet? I’m sorry, I know that this must be a lot. Don’t worry, you should come into your full memories soon. Once you have, this will all make so much more sense.”

“I’m okay,” I said. “I think I have to be.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Do you want more right now, or do you need time to process?”

“Tell me more. But be quick. I have to go really shortly.” I groped in my pocket for my phone out of habit. Of course it wasn’t there. I was never able to take anything but my clothes to this place, this Phoenix.

“Alright. What next? How about we talk about your last death. Do you know what happened?”

“What?”

“Sorry. I guess that probably sounds alarming. Let me explain. When you went missing, you were twenty-one. Now you’re younger and you can’t remember what happened. You died, Violet. You died and you were renewed. When we die, usually we are injected with memory serum, something that immediately lets us remember ourselves and all of our previous lives. You didn’t get that, so you have to remember the natural way. It takes until adulthood, usually eighteen or nineteen years, and then you’ll have all of your memories.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“Yes, because it’s right. And I was wondering whether you remember how you died.”

“I was found as a baby in a car wreck. The car had caught fire and everyone was shocked that I had survived,” I said. And then things started clicking into place. The fire, it must have been from my regeneration. And of course I hadn’t burned up, if that’s what had brought me back. And I had never had parents on Earth, since I wasn’t even an Earthling, myself.

And then I felt a pang of loneliness.

“Baxter was telling the truth,” I whispered. “He must have been. Unless I’m hallucinating right now, and believe me, I haven’t totally ruled out that possibility.”

“You know Baxter? Is he on Earth with you?”

I nodded. “Yeah. And get this: he’s been posing as my psychiatrist for years.”

Kaz’s brilliant, beautiful smile showed up again, and I felt a pang. “That’s fantastic.”

I nodded. “Yeah. He actually tried to explain all of this to me yesterday, but it’s easier to hear outside of Earth, I think. Or maybe it’s just easier to hear this coming from you. I don’t remember you, Kaz. Not at all. But I know that I’ve missed you terribly and I feel like I should apologize for the long separation.”

Kaz looked wistful. “Wait to apologize until you know why you should. It’s been hard. I thought that you were gone, Violet. I don’t know if you can imagine it right now, but we live in a world where no one is ever truly gone unless they choose not to regenerate. I never expected to be without you and I’ve spent the past nineteen years thinking that you were never coming back.”

I reached out and put my hand on top of his. I was incorporeal, so I knew he couldn’t feel me, and I couldn’t feel him. Still, the gesture made me feel better. “I wish I could remember more,” I sighed.

“You will, Vi. I promise you that.”

I shot up to my feet. “I’ve been here way too long. My mother is probably worried about me.” Then I burst out laughing. “They all think that I have narcolepsy. When I’m here, I look like I’m asleep. Crap. I’m going to have to go to so many more doctor’s appointments if she catches me like this.”

Kaz laughed. “Hurry back, then. But return to me soon.”

“Yes. I will. Of course I will. When’s good for you? And does time pass here in the same way as on Earth?”

Kaz shook his head. “Don’t worry about timing. Just think of me and you’ll find me. I swear to you, Violet, you’ll never be unwelcome.”

I nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll see you soon. Tomorrow? I would tonight, but I really need to find Baxter. Oh, and Athena!”

Kaz beamed. “Athena, too? She’s on Earth, and she’s safe? We all gave up on seeing any of you so long ago.”

“Athena’s fine. And Baxter mentioned two other people whom I haven’t met yet. Sorry, I don’t remember their names, but there are two other phoenixes on Earth.”

“Tavish?” Kaz asked hopefully. “Please tell me one of them is Tavish. He’s my brother, Violet, and my parents have been ill with worry ever since he went missing.”

“Yes! Tavish was almost certainly one of them. And another… I think she was a woman. Eira?”

Kaz sighed. “I have a lot of people to visit tonight. You’re going to turn the whole of Phoenix upside down again, you clever girl. Now, off with you. I wouldn’t want you getting in trouble on Earth.”

I gave Kaz a parting grin and thought of my home on Earth. When I got there, I ran to the window and checked for my mother’s car. It wasn’t there.

As bad as I felt about canceling on our hang out tonight, I needed to find Baxter and Athena immediately. If they could corroborate what Kaz had just told me, I would believe it… and my whole world would change.