The warmth from the
flames licked her fingers and she shivered in pleasure. She
threw the match away in one fluid motion and stepped back. Looking down at the
pile of clothes on the dry leaves that are slowly turning to ash, her eyes lit
up and she reached out as if to touch the small dancing ribbons of heat. But
she frowned and dropped her hands when a gust of wind blew a cloud of dust on
the fire and the flames flickered weakly. She sighed and walked towards the
forest.
The moon cut a harsh
glare of light in the forest ahead of her and the blueish white light made
striking silhouettes and shadows of the trees in the thicket. Each breath a
white puff of condensation released some warmth and she longed for the dying
blaze she left behind. She felt a small thrill of joy when she found a grove of
Birch with their boughs strewn across the ground from the wind a few nights
ago. Oak and Birch burned the longest. She slowly bent and picked out small branches
with diameters no thicker than her thumb. She gathered them in her arms and trudged
back to her small fire. She deposited them in a pile and sat down on the cold
hard ground and began to feed her fire. When the fire grew to a commendable
size, she stopped. Now, each branch was deliberately chosen and delicately
placed. She did this every time she started a fire. One branch for every fire
she’s started.
She remembered the
first time she saw a flame. She was 4 years old, at her grandfather’s house. There
had been a power outage and she remembered watching her grandfather reach into
the highest cupboard and pull out long yellow candles and with the swift flick
of a match, colours had appeared and oh how they danced. She had opened her
eyes wide in fascination and the next day, climbed onto the counter while her
grandfather was napping and took 2 of the candles, now shortened, and hid them
in her room. She never found where the matches were hidden but a few weeks
later at her best friend’s birthday party, she had stolen a few of them from a
box that was used to light the birthday candles and stowed them away with her
candles.
She chose a long,
supple branch and fed it to the fire. Her first time lighting a match was when
she was in the second grade. Coming home one day to an empty house, she saw
that an open window has allowed the wind to blow a family picture from the
mantel place. She knelt to pick it up and saw that it was a school photo. She
wasn’t in the photo. She was sick that day but the teacher was nice enough to
send her a copy. She was about to place it back onto the mantel place when she
suddenly changed her mind. Flying up the stairs to her room, she dug out the
hidden matches and stared at them for a long time. Then she picked one out and
held her breath while she rubbed the tip against the striking strip. Almost instantly
a flame was born. Mesmerized by the dancing ghost of a fire, she held it
against her picture and ever so slowly, started to burn the picture. It wasn’t
as if she held something against the picture but it was just…so fun to burn.
And so pretty too. The match licked the crisp edges of the thick photo paper
and blackened it, leaving behind the faint smell of smoke and remnants of ash.
She wanted to light another match, but could find nothing to burn without her
mother coming back and finding her missing possessions suspicious. So she had
tucked the box back in the corner of her room and went downstairs to fix
herself a snack.
A few more branches
were swallowed by the fire and then she found a bough lavished with needles,
ample and rich in colour. One by one, she picked off the needles and remembered.
After the incident with the photo, she started keeping the box of matches in
the deep pockets of her coat and brought it with her everywhere. After school,
she would sit on the swings when all the other children had gone home and
strike them, watching the obedient flame flicker in the breeze, blackening the
wood and transforming into charcoal in her hands. She didn’t have many things
to burn and so she took to stealing trinkets of others and feeding them to her
flames. It was an obsession, unexplainable and addicting. It was her secret and
a well-kept one too. Until Alex came.
Her room is the first
one at the top of the stairs in the house and the door was usually closed. Her
sister’s however was always wide open and especially so since her boyfriend
started to frequent the house. She never liked Alex; she found him handsome but
saw no depth in his black eyes to which his smiles never reached. He had found
her in the corner of her room one day after school about to light a match and
something had gleamed in his eyes. He sat down beside her and took the match
and lit it. Small flames danced in his eyes as he stared at it and she found it
unsettling. Wordlessly, he blew out the flame and flicked the charred wood
towards her. She didn’t flinch, only stared hard at him. The ghost of a smile touched
his face and it frightened her and so when he reached out to tug one of her
curls, she did flinch. He cocked his head before pocketing the box of matches
and said to her “Little girls shouldn’t be playing with fire.” He patted her
lightly on the head and left.
It was another 2 weeks
before she got herself another box of matches. She took pains to avoid him and
great care to hide the ashes and broken matches. Alex never came into her room
again, and soon after was arrested for arson damaging school property. She
smiled when she heard that, earning a slap from her tear-stained sister and a
cold glance from her mother.
The wind abruptly
changed direction and the temperature plunged with the fire blowing away from
her. She stretched like a cat and stood up. The fire was exhausted and the
kindling was almost gone. Bored, she walked towards a darker grove of pines and
breathed in its sharp smell of intense resin. They burned fast. She tore off
heaps of branches and hauled them into piles forming a circle with a diameter
of roughly 10 yards. She left a small gap between two of the piles. She then
reached deep into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out her box of
matches. The matches rustled against each other and echoed hollowly. There were
only 3 left. In a familiar motion, she lit one and threw it into the nearest
pile. Flames shot up almost instantly. Grinning wickedly, she lit the remaining
piles and watched the fire greedily eat up the softwood. The flames reached up
like hands towards the ghost of the moon and the twirling embers cracked and
spitted. Bigger and bigger they grew and the stronger they became, snarling at
each other as if they’ve life of their own.
In the distance, voices
sounded. Yelling and dogs barking. They will be here soon.
She dropped the branches
and stared for a long time into the dark until the barking of the dogs came
closer and she turned and walked out of her ring of fire towards the edge of
the forest, the rage of the inferno that she left behind lighting up the way.
