Page 294 of The Mortal Trials

A bright fork of lightning strikes the beach. “Be right back.”

From the doorway, I watch him fearlessly run into the storm and dash into his oikos. Watch the downpour recede as he hurries back with a lit oil lamp, its fueled flame shielded by his hand. Sheets of pelting droplets chase him up my sandy path. He laughs as it drapes over his back when he enters the room, but the fire still burns when he walks farther in.

I close the door against the weather and pad over to him, leaving a trail of wet footprints to the room’s middle.

The feathers in my hair are sodden. I squeeze the water from one of them. Mamá said to burn hers if I needed her. And this… this is her feather. Maybe she can help. Maybe a god owes her a favor. Something. Anything.

Or if she has any of the tea, we can learn what’s in it that Anansi wants so badly. Could we bribe him with an amount of the ingredient he craves in exchange for Ogun championing August?

Even if there’s nothing she can do or give, I just want to see her. I need to tell her something while I’m still alive. I’m not sure how things will be once I die. Carina came to me the other day through the mirror, but was it difficult for her to accomplish? Did Mamá have to call for her? How often can she do that? Does she have to bleed to reach her?

There are too many questions and too few answers.

“Bring the lamp over here,” I say.

He comes closer as I hold the feather to the flame.

Fire spreads slowly over the vane. The barbs curl, shrivel, and become ash. They crumble and fall away, settling on the floor. My nose scrunches. Burning feathers smell like burning hair.

August and I wait, but no glimmering portal opens. No door appears. My mother doesn’t come like she said she would, and she doesn’t make a way for me to reach her.

Maybe she can’t risk it. Or… Maybe she can’t reach me when I’m on their island?

I don’t want to think she lied to me.

Wind suddenly forces the front door open so fiercely, the wood bangs against the wall. A drenched quetzal bird swoops into the room. A moment later, another flies into the room, a smaller female with muted colors. Then another male with gorgeous streaming feathers.

More birds flap inside, taking cover from the storm, singing and flapping, perching on the two beams that span the ceiling, until the whole top half of the oikos writhes in dull and vibrant green, gray, white, and vivid red.

August stares upward with his mouth agape, marveling at the sight of them all. As they shake off the rain, droplets fall from the ceiling.

As one, they turn their heads to look at the fresco and scream.

They scream for her. And for me.

My mother didn’t come like she promised, but I think she sent these quetzals in her place. I just don’t know why or how they can help.

That night, we leave the doors and windows of my oikos open and walk back to August’s in a downpour that seems to have no end. We change into dry clothes and settle onto the bed together. August Aymes holds me against his side, drawing lazy circles on my bicep.

Pressing my palm to his chest, I feel his heartbeat and ask him about the life he’s lived.

He tells me stories about his parents and his two younger brothers, Aliver and Aster. Aliver wants to be a chef when he grows up and Aster longs to be a painter.

“And your mother obviously loves the letter A,” I tease.

He smiles. “And my mother loves the letter A the way yours loves the letter C.”

When I ask, he describes his home and bedroom. How he started singing and his career spiraled. His success was unexpected, as was the fame that followed, but it changed their lives in unimaginable ways. Most of them good.

“What’s it like? To do what you love?”

“It’s genuine in a way little else is,” he answers honestly.

His parents met in the mountains on a hiking trail. Both were walking up to see one of the summits when they began talking and trekked to the summit sharing stories like he and I are doing now. They descended as friends. All the rest came after.

He brags that Aster loves to read and has a few great friends who live farther down the mountain, while Aliver never stops running and talking until he literally crashes and falls asleep wherever he ends up. He’s such a sound sleeper, he never wakes when he’s carried to bed.

Their family has a dog – a tiny breed with fluffy ears that answers to Dingo and loves to sneak food from your hand if you slip something for him under the table. His mom always tells the family not to feed him scraps, but all of them do it. Even her, when she thinks no one is watching.