TSWNN - Chapter 1 - Angry Serenity

Phoenix stared at the wall in silence while the village elder rattled on and on about how ‘being angry was no reason to burn down someone’s barn, and she would be punished severely for the wicked deed’, and so on and so forth, et cetera, et cetera.

She stood up and leaned up against the wall, her fiery amber eyes flashing anger, frustration, and the slightest bit of odd enjoyment. She liked watching angry people, but the enjoyment that had been so strong a few days ago was fading fast. This was the third straight day of scolding, no sleep, and no food. She was stuck in the ‘detainment room’, attached to the back of the common house. The village’s three guards stood outside, preventing her escape. Not that she would, but she did have a family to provide for, her being the oldest and both her parents being dead. Becky, her fifteen-year-old little sister, was just getting old enough to take care of Seth, their seven-year-old little brother, but she would not be able to work at a very good paying job, because she had a limp. She wasn’t strong enough to take Phoenix’s job at the mill if something happened.

Everyone was scared of Phoenix because of her elemental power, but they had learned to cope with it, taking great enjoyment in blaming every one of the village’s many fires on her. Only one of them had actually been her fault. That had been when she was five, and she had lost control of her fire while she was in her family’s small garden. The fire had been no bigger than a small bonfire, but everyone had run for the stream just outside the village. Phoenix’s parents put the fire out and everything went back to normal, but the whole village had avoided Phoenix after that. They considered her a freak, and a threat to their lives. Which she was. A threat to their lives, that is. She wasn’t a freak.

There was a committee dedicated to getting her family kicked out of the village, made up of more than half of the village’s 72 residents. They started most of the fires, keeping them controlled, and leaving no evidence to convict themselves, in an attempt to get rid of Phoenix and her small family. She had always gotten out of it, but her confidence was starting to fade, as was her stubbornness. She wasn’t sure if her siblings were being taken care of or not, but she wanted to find out.

“Excuse me, Elder? I have three statements that are true, and one very important question,” she said. The Elder stopped talking and stared hard at her.

“Well, go ahead.”

“One: I didn’t start that fire. Two: You know it. And three: You are on the committee to get me thrown out, so I'm sure you are doing as much as you can to get my family kicked out of Hetta. And most likely, its just because you want the credit of doing a 'good' deed for the village!"

The elder continued to stare at her with a displeased expression on his round face.

"And what's the question?" he asked.

"What did you do with my family?”

Phoenix sat down on the hard bed, looking up at her captor, waiting for an answer.

The elder stared at her for a few moments longer before he answered. He said, “I have three statements, and one answer to give you. You did start that fire, I don’t really care whether you actually did or not, and yes, I am on the committee. Also, I don’t care about you or your family squabbles.”

Phoenix stood up.

“Family squabbles? Family squabbles? REALLY? I don’t have any family squabbles, and at this rate, I may not even have any family left!” She whispered, just loud enough for him to hear. Her voice was full of disgust. The elder tried to roll his eyes inconspicuously, but he failed epically. Phoenix saw it, and she rolled her eyes in return. A small flame started up in her hand. She stared at it, unmoving, and the elder scurried out of the room as fast as his short legs would take him.