Ella

I hate birthdays.

Birthdays taste of burnt toast and sour milk and smell of parched grass and frozen steel. Especially here in Cambria City, a place cold and ironbound, with shadows so thick the sun runs and hides for weeks at a time. I yearn for the soft embrace of the sea, the sweet jasmine whisper of salt air.

Funny, because I've never been to the ocean.

Today I'm eighteen. Officially an adult. So I decide to celebrate my birthday my way. I ditched my morning classes at the high school, showed up for my advanced composition and photo-collage class early at Cambria College, and now, instead of heading home like I'm supposed to after my studio time, I'm relaxing at the bottom of a swimming pool in the college's natatorium. As usual, I'm alone; this narrow lap pool is too small for any classes or swim team practices, and it's in one of the back rooms of the nat, hardly ever remembered.

Every year on this November day, my gram Helen, who raised me, laughs and sings and dances — usually she's a hermit, so I know the effort costs her dearly. That's exactly why I make sure to thank her, as much as I'd prefer to ignore the date circled on the calendar. I can't let her down. Because behind her façade of giddiness, she weeps silent tears.

So many tears you could salt an ocean with them. Every single time Gram Helen wishes me a happy birthday, it's with the shadow of death clinging to her.

It's a story never told, not from start to end, but so many bits and pieces have been filled in by so many voices. Helen's voice and Uncle Joe's and even Darrin's. Never mine, though.

I can't remember anything from back then. A blessing, Helen says, they all say. A few years ago, I mustered the courage to check out the newspaper article about the fire, but I didn't make it past the picture below the screaming headline, f lames reaching out to me from my laptop, heat singeing my face before I even reached the reporter's words. It left me sick for a day after, my imagination conjuring horror and pain, worse than if I'd been there in person.

So lucky I wasn't there, everyone tells me. So lucky I was only three, too young to remember. So lucky my parents decided to leave me with Helen so they could take their first vacation in years. So lucky to have been hundreds of miles from that small cottage on a remote beach ... lucky to have been nowhere near the blaze that killed them.

Which is why I'm here now. Hiding from Helen's false smiles.

I hover a few inches above the pool's floor. Swishing my fingers above my face, I use the crystalline water and softly shimmering light to paint images invisible to anyone except me. A mom and dad cradling a baby, love shining gold all around them. A little girl, dancing and running and jumping into their arms for hugs, and her parents are so happy, so proud of her. They join hands, the girl swinging from their arms, knowing, certain, trusting that they will never, ever let her fall.

The perfect family. Smoke and f lames fill my vision, vanquishing the sheltering calm of the water, engulfing my imaginary family. They vanish, ripples of a dream that never lived to see the light of day.

I throw my body to one side but the f lames reach out for me, greedy, grabbing. Fire stole my parents and now it's come for me. I huddle, my legs scraping the rough surface of the bottom of the pool. Black tendrils of smoke bind me, choking my breath. They lead back to a fiery figure standing high above me at the far side of the pool, the nightmare demon who terrorizes my dreams. When I was little, I used to have this nightmare almost every night. But now, the memories only haunt me on this day — my birthday.

The day the fire took my parents.

I struggle to re-create my peaceful happy birthday wish. But the spell of the water is broken and my lungs burn with need. I exhale, push off the bottom, and rise to steal a breath, the air slapping at my face. I inhale, then immediately return below the surface, using only my flutter kick to propel me faster than most people can swim using both arms and legs.

I reach the far end of the pool and come up, ready to f lip into my next lap, but as I break the water my motion stutters and I fall back, flailing my arms. For a moment, all I can see is fire and smoke. My chest tightens and I can't breathe past my panic.

Then I blink and there's a guy standing above me — a real one, not my nightmare fire-demon.

He's fully clothed, a messenger bag across his chest, watching me with eyes magnified by horn-rimmed glasses, eyes so green they mirror the water surrounding me.

"Nora Cleary, right?" he asks.

I splash in confusion, getting the tops of his shoes wet, yet he doesn't retreat. Nora? No one calls me that, not since I was a child — he must have the wrong girl. Unless ... maybe something's happened to Gram Helen. Why else would a stranger be searching me out? "Is something wrong? Who are you?"

I squint at him, the water's ref lection dancing over his clean-cut features. He can't be the police or campus security — he's only a year or two older than me, dark-skinned with hair as black as mine, dressed like a student in jeans and a Carhartt jacket.

"I'm Alec Ravenell. There's a project I'm working on. Could we go someplace? Talk? I could really use your help." His words are soft, lilting, carried by an accent hailing from someplace else, far from ironbound central Pennsylvania. Virginia or the Carolinas?

The bitter taste of fear slowly ebbs, replaced by curiosity as I realize it's not solely his accent that sets him apart from other guys. Usually by now, I'd be seeing colors and scenes conjured by whoever I was talking to — I wouldn't have to guess where his accent is from, I'd see it in his words. But the air around Alec remains calm. No shimmers of color, no images ghosting over reality.

I blink. Look again. Nothing. That has never, ever happened before. Not with anyone. "My help?"

"Yes. Unless ... Is this a bad time?"

"N-no," I stammer, still staring past him, waiting for the empty air to come to life and show me what he's really talking about.

I'm not used to taking anyone's words at face value — I've never needed to. Like most everyone on my mom's side of the family, I have synesthesia. It means my senses get tangled up, confusing what I hear with how my brain translates another person's words, all combining to form auras of brilliant colors and pictures in my mind. Images so vivid, I've spent my whole life coloring, drawing, painting, trying to reproduce them.

But not with Alec. No sparks of color, no ghostly images to reveal the truth behind his words. Suddenly, I feel as if I've become half-blind, tone deaf, and lost the use of three of my four limbs. I struggle to remember what he even asked me only a few seconds ago. Words without any colors to ground them slip by so fast; mere sounds, virtually without meaning.

Following my gaze, he turns to glance over his shoulder. There's nothing there except stacks of unused race blocks and lane floats. Then he looks back at me, curiosity lighting his eyes. Bewildered and uncertain, I duck below the surface and swim to the ladder. When I climb out, he's there to hand me my towel.

"Thanks."

"I've never seen anyone swim like that. You should try out for the team."

As I towel my hair — water slipping from the dark strands to create a puddle at my feet until I straitjacket...