Phoenix (6 page)

‘Do you have time to drive out to Turkey Shoot with me?’

‘I have an hour.’ Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a single red rose wrapped in cellophane, resting on the back seat. Turkey Shoot Ridge was where Jonas crashed his Harley – a trip back there would be a pilgrimage for Zoey.

She nodded. ‘Good. We can talk while we drive.’

Talking meant Zoey taking care of me, checking that I was doing OK as Phoenix’s anniversary drew near. ‘You look wrecked,’ she began as we drove out through Centennial. ‘I guess you’re not sleeping.’

‘Not a whole lot.’

‘Twelve months is coming up. Look at it one way, it
feels like a lifetime. Look again, and it just happened yesterday.’

‘It hurts the same, if that’s what you mean.’

‘I know. I still walk into school and expect to see Jonas sitting with Lucas and Christian. I swear he’s there. Then I blink and he’s gone.’

‘I see Phoenix,’ I murmured.
Really, I do!

‘But somehow it’s not hurting me any more,’ Zoey explained, taking a turn down a quiet residential road. ‘I can drive this street where Jonas picked me up that day and now I’m not in pain. Rather, I remember how sunny it was, how great he looked, how he smiled at me in that special way when he pulled up at the kerb.’

I told her I was glad to hear it. ‘Getting through the anniversary, watching the procession out of town to Turkey Shoot – was that tough for you?’

She thought a while. ‘I was really not expecting to get through it like I did. But you recall what happened just before – when I was out in the stable yard that time with Merlin and Pepper, and I felt Jonas came to see me to tell me he was OK, that he loved me and I should live my life knowing that? It sounds weird now, doesn’t it?’

‘I remember,’ I murmured. ‘And no, it doesn’t sound weird.’ If I’d done one wholly selfless thing this past year, it had been to argue with Hunter to let Beautiful
Dead Jonas visit Zoey one last time.

‘You have to know the same thing – that Phoenix totally loved you,’ Zoey confided.

He did, right from the start – I’m certain of that.

In the beginning.

‘You dropped this.’ Phoenix Rohr picks up my silver bracelet
and hands it to me. His fingertips touch my palm.

It’s Hannah’s sixteenth birthday party, at her big house next
to the bank in the centre of town. I’ve been hanging out with
Logan, acting as if I don’t need or like anyone in the whole
universe. We’re talking fifteen, sixteen months ago, when I was
hyper-uncomfortable in my own skin, hiding behind the biggest
new thing in fashion, hair, cosmetics.

‘Thanks,’ I mumble, bending my head, struggling to re
fasten the bracelet.

‘Let me,’ Phoenix offers.

I hold out my arm, watch his fingers deal with the delicate
clasp. Honestly, it feels like an electric shock as he touches my
wrist. He feels it too, clips the tiny hook through the loop then
quickly drops his hands to his sides, looking down and away.

‘Thanks,’ I say again. I twist my wrist and shake the bracelet
to check it’s secure.

‘Cool party,’ he says.

‘Yeah.’

‘Looks like everyone made it.’

‘Except Christian. He’s out at Foxton with his dad.’

It feels like the lame conversation is about to die from
lack of air. Inside I’m kicking myself for being so dumb. I
mean, I’ve had Phoenix Rohr on my radar ever since he
arrived at Ellerton High, he’s so totally beautiful. Every day
my eye secretly seeks him out at the end of corridors, across
classrooms, at the mall, the movies, at coffee bars. Along with
a hundred other girls.

‘Phoenix – ask Darina to dance, why don’t you!’ Hannah
yells across the room, above the music, loud enough for
everyone to hear.

I see fear freeze his features and I almost die. ‘Ignore her!’

I mutter.

‘I don’t dance,’ he mumbles.

‘Me neither.’

‘You want to get out of here?’

Surprise question – delayed response. Eventually I nod
and follow him out of the bright, noisy house onto the dark,
silent street.

‘Walk?’ he asks.

So that’s what we do, Phoenix and I, on that first night – we
walk the streets of Ellerton.

At first we don’t say a lot, but Phoenix takes my hand,
glances at me, grins, walks on. My heart thumps in my chest,
I can’t believe what’s happening. And it’s weird; I remember so
well the physical sensations – the first shock of his fingertips
brushing my wrist, the surge of adrenalin when he held my
hand, the coolness of the night air against my hot skin – without
recalling exactly what we said. I remember shop windows,
brightly lit, dark avenues of trees, pools of lamplight. And the
loveliness of Phoenix close up.

‘I waited a long time to do this,’ he tells me at last, leaning
in, tilting his head to one side, kissing me.

That first kiss, that soft, warm touch.
Warm
.
Alive.

Zoey and I were clear of the city streets, driving the interstate up into the mountains. ‘Come back to me, Darina,’ she urged. ‘Honestly, you’re strong. You can get through this.’

I leaned my head back against the head rest, watched the wiper blade swish to and fro. ‘I’ll tell you one thing that really is weird, and that’s the way our friendship has switched around. It used to be me comforting you.’

Zoey smiled as she pulled up at the roadside shrine to Jonas – a small pile of faded roses and lilies. She turned and reached back to pick up her crimson rose, stepped out of the car and placed Jonas’s flower beside the others. ‘That’s what friends do,’ she replied. Soft rain fell on the
rose. ‘You took care of me. Now I take care of you – simple.’

Half an hour later I pulled up outside Kim’s office, guarding myself against the old temptation to sit in the oatmeal-coloured chair and confess everything.
I’m over that
, I thought.
The Beautiful Dead are real. I want to spend every
last moment I can with Phoenix
.

AM SEEING KIM
, I texted Laura then turned off my phone.

I walked up the path lined with low, clipped hedges, through the glass doors into Kim’s primrose-yellow room.

I never met any professional as good at her job as Kim Reiss – not teachers, doctors,
anyone
. She sits in one chair, me opposite, with a low coffee table in between. Today there’s a glass bowl filled with small rocks and pebbles on the table, obviously there for a reason.
Don’t get me playing
silly games
, I think sullenly.

Kim only smiles at me and I’m clay in her hands. She can wipe away my suspicion and mould me any way she wants. ‘I want you to choose some stones,’ she explains. ‘Find one that fits your mood right now.’

I’m feeling calm so I choose a smooth, cream pebble. I weigh it in my palm.

‘Now choose ones that fit other aspects of the way you feel. Tell me what they represent.’

For a second I’m backing off again, telling myself no, I’m not playing. Then I glance up at her. She has clear grey eyes, a long face with a mysterious scar on her cheek, a mouth where a gentle smile hovers. I cave in.
OK. This tiny
white stone is me when I’m scared, this sharp black lava stone
is for when I’m angry and blaming myself, this crystal quartz
with the light reflecting from it reminds me of Phoenix
… I set them in a row on the low table.

‘Pick up the small white one,’ Kim tells me. ‘Describe it to me.’

‘It’s me when I’m scared. You wouldn’t notice that it has a hole right through the middle.’

She looks at me, waits for more.

‘I put it back in the bowl and it easily gets lost.’

‘You think people don’t see that you’re frightened?’

I blink and look out of the window. ‘I don’t let them.’

‘They see anyway,’ Kim says gently. Then she moves on to my big black guilt-and-anger stone.

All of which leaves me feeling like I matter until I walk out to the car park and bump into Jim talking to Henry Jardine.

Jim’s job is to sell and fix computers. He’d been working
in an attorney’s office next door to Kim. I just have to glimpse my stepdad for the big old black stone to come hurtling out.

‘Are you checking up on me?’ I muttered. ‘I already texted Laura to say I kept the appointment.’

‘How did it go?’

I shrugged then switched on the smile for the deputy sheriff. ‘Hey, how are you doing?’

‘I’m good, thanks. I was telling Jim here about a fly-fishing contest in June. It so happens I’m carrying a spare entry form in my car.’

While Jardine went off to fetch the form, I insisted on letting Jim know that my session with Kim was a success. ‘We played with pebbles.’

‘Pebbles?’

‘Yeah, and rocks.’ Let him think that Laura paid good money for pre-school activities. The deputy sheriff was soon heading back with a sheet of paper and I was already out of there.

‘Darina, before you go, I want to give you and your dad the latest news on Foxton,’ Jardine said, real casual.

Ignoring the factual error over the relationship between me and Jim, I hit the mental brakes and slammed into reverse on my decision to leave. ‘What do you mean? What happened?’

‘Hey, nothing exactly happened – not yet. But I’m letting people know that I drove out there with Sheriff Kors.’

I tried hard to keep my voice steady. ‘You did?’

‘You know how it is – they say a new broom sweeps clean, don’t they? Danny is picking over recent big events in town, studying the deaths of the kids from Ellerton High. He’s been listening to rumours about Foxton Ridge.’

‘Same old, same old,’ I muttered. I was expecting Beautiful Dead wings in the air above my head any time now – Hunter’s way of warning me to take extreme care. ‘I guess you and Sheriff Kors came back empty-handed.’

Jardine studied me closely. ‘Kind of. For some reason we both felt a little shook up afterwards. It sure is pretty up there though.’

‘I like the place,’ I admitted. Jardine already knew I spent time on the ridge, so I wasn’t giving anything away. So far, no wings – I must be doing OK.

‘Laura and I wish Darina didn’t visit,’ Jim butted in. ‘It’s too far out of town. And they say it’s haunted.’

‘They? Who’s they?’ I laughed.

‘We didn’t see any ghosts.’ Jardine seemed to agree with me, thank God. ‘It’s kind of windy up there – you get
weird weather. And those stories mess with your head if you let them.’

‘Not with mine,’ I insisted.

‘Well, it’s not just the rumours,’ Jim went on like a dog at a bone. ‘We worry there might be squatters – undesirables, low-lifes.’

I glared at him.
Drop the topic!

‘No ghosts and no squatters either,’ Jardine reported. ‘We found campers down at the Government Bridge campground and a couple of hikers up by Angel Rock.’

‘Happy now?’ I asked Jim.

‘But I agree with your dad – it’s not a place I’d be comfortable for any kid of mine to visit,’ the deputy sheriff added.

Thanks, Henry!

‘It’s too far off the beaten track, like you say, Jim. And, ghosts or no ghosts, it is kind of spooky. We didn’t see any sign of civilization out there, but we thought we heard a door bang in the wind, maybe heard voices …’

‘What did I tell you?’ Jim crowed.

‘We could’ve sworm we heard them,’ Jardine said, all the time keeping his eyes fixed on me. ‘I’m thinking maybe Danny will want to take another drive out there before too long.’

I swallowed hard, said nothing.
Hunter, are you
listening to this?

‘What do you reckon, Darina? Should the sheriff pay a second visit?’

‘I really couldn’t say.’

‘You never came across the voices, a door banging – nothing like that?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No campers, no hunters holed up in an old shack hidden in the valley?’

‘No.’

Jardine nodded briefly then turned to Jim. ‘You want my advice? I’d say keep Darina away from the place – leastways until Danny checks it out with the National Forest people.’

‘I hear you,’ Jim said.

Now I was out of there fast, heading for my car. These guys thought they had the right to restrict my movements. How old did they think I was, for Christ’s sake!

One bad thing can lead to a good. I would never have headed for the mall if I hadn’t have wanted to avoid the conversation at home with Laura and Jim, which would go like this:

Jim: Darina, take Henry Jardine’s advice – stay away
from Foxton!

Laura: You hear, Darina?

Jim: Answer your mom when she asks you a question.

Laura: Stay away from Foxton, please!

Jim: Else we’ll take away your car keys; we’ll ground you!

Not so much a conversation, more a set of orders shrieked into my ear.

So I cruised the parking lot at the mall to give them time to wind down after Jim’s talk with Jardine. And that’s when I got lucky and ran into Jacob Miller a second time.

I saw him from a distance, climbing into the back seat of an old black Chevy. He didn’t notice me and the Chevy driver didn’t give me more than a couple of seconds to identify the passenger sitting next to him in the front – a younger kid with light-brown hair. I only caught the profile, but it was definitely enough to recognize Zak Rohr.

Of course I tailed them.

It’s not easy to stay incognito in a car as bright red and shiny as mine. I had to hang back and hope the Chevy driver didn’t check his overhead mirror too many times as he left the parking lot and headed out of town towards Forest Lake. Luckily it was rush hour and there was plenty of traffic.

We drove for ten minutes, stopping at lights, cruising past the KFCs, Cracker Barrels and Dunkin’ Donuts lining the route. Then the Chevy turned off to the right into a district where old trailer homes were scattered amongst the pine trees and where broken trucks without wheels stood on piles of bricks and skinny dogs barked in dirt yards.