Ember’s Rising

It was a two-hour drive to the campsite, but it didn’t seem to take that long. We were singing and laughing at jokes. I told every single knock-knock joke I knew. When we arrived at the campground, it was already dusk. Sara and I quickly set up the tents as Dad started the fire. We watched the smoke rise into the sky as the sun set. I asked Sara if she had ever played Smoke Spotter. She looked at me blankly and said she had never heard of it. I explained how you play. “You look in the smoke for shapes that look like something or somebody and point it out to everyone. You have to be quick though, because the smoke moves really fast.” “I’ll start,” Dad said. “I see a bird there with its wings open.” Sara could not see it. I did and tried to help her to see it, but it was gone too fast. “It’s okay Sara, it takes time, but you will get it,” I said, smiling up at her. Next it was my turn. “I see a dragon. There is his head on the right, his wings are there, and his tail wraps around the fire. See?” As I described the dragon and pointed to all the parts, the smoke seemed to stop moving and stayed in place, like a sculpture. The head became so defined you could see the eyes, and the wings seemed to move, as if it were flying. The final touch was that when a burst of flame came out of its mouth. Dad was shocked. He didn’t know what to say. Though we had played this game many times, he had never seen me do that before. If Sara was surprised, she didn’t let on. She just hugged me and said, “I see it now. It is a very beautiful dragon, Ashley.” After a couple s’mores and a lot of marshmallows, Sara put me to bed in the tent. Dad poured wine for him and Sara, and then they sat on a log beside each other. The fire was a lot smaller now, but still giving off light. I could not hear them, but I watched their silhouettes as I fell asleep. They told me years later what they talked about that night. That is, Dad told Sara what happened the night of the fire. He described in detail the hotel fire, how he saw the woman standing untouched in the flames and how my cries called out to him, leading him up to the room on the fourth floor. He shared how he saw the body burning in the fiery vortex, turning to dust before his eyes. And he told her about the crib and the protective force field that kept me safe from the raging fire. When he picked me up, the force field extended to him as well, even protecting him from a falling beam. Then it was Sara’s turn. She told Dad what she had learned from the test results after the fire. My lungs had been untouched by smoke, and that was not right. She knew there was something special about me, but she also knew that reporting it would make me a lab experiment. Sara covered up the test results with a lot of paperwork, keeping the secret all those years. She said she could never live with herself if I got hurt because of her. After that night Dad and Sara were inseparable; I like to think that it was their love for me and the bond of my secret that brought them closer as each day passed.