By Frederick Charles Melancon
No one chooses the magic they’re born with. I sure didn’t. It’s just there, all alive with burning ambitions and hopes that shimmer under the skin. For a magic user, it’s almost impossible to live up to such expectations.
It doesn’t help having a father who believes in me, his only son. No, that’s wrong. It’s not just a belief, more like the faith the old fire mages inspired when they ruled from this village. Dad knows his child will one day protect everyone from the men that pillage during the dry season. He boasts that I’ll bring prosperity to our home and get the same respect as those long-gone mages.
“Their power had no end,” my father says.
But it hasn’t happened yet. The flame inside was supposed to bend around what I wanted, but I’ve got a hot take. Fire burns, and it doesn’t care what anyone wants.
So, when the fire finally comes out of my pinky finger, it doesn’t change based on what my father thinks is right.
“Put that finger down. If all the signs are correct, you can make fire from anywhere.” He spends hours with me out in the rain trying to get the flame to leap from any other part of my body.
“One mage spoke fire from his mouth. Who wants to fight a man that breathes fire?”
There’s an answer to that question, but it’ll only lead to more fighting between us.
And I do try to listen to his words. The neighbors from the hills have a son. He constantly pushes his sister to the ground because he thinks she’ll get too close to the fire. When he does it the last time, I push him back. Standing over her, I lift my arm. The goal isn’t even to be like the fire mages of old. The flame just needs to burst from the middle of my palm. Even city mages can do that, and for a moment, I can feel the heat from the fire. But, when the sister looks at me freshly planted on the ground next to her, she says, “Could you not? It’s embarrassing for everyone.”
When Dad asks about the bruise on my face, I tell him I fell by the river.
One season changes to the next without judgment. It does what it wants. When wet, it’s wet, and when dry, it burns.
Nothing changes for me. I’ll never look an enemy in the eye and say, “My power has no end.”
Those words are for my father’s stories. They aren’t me.
When I’m alone, I practice how I want. The hours disappear when I pretend to shoot people with my magic. Imaginary fire laces out from my pinky, and I make fizzle sounds. As the rain stops and leaves only traces of clouds in the darkening sky, I pretend the scarlet there is my work, my power.
Every year, the fire priests from the city finish their pilgrimage with a stop in our distant village. Their presence marks the beginning of the dry season.
The priests burn a little grass to show what might happen if we aren’t careful. The flames spring right from dark smudges in the middle of their palms, showoffs.
My father pushes me to the back of the crowd.
“It’s okay. You won’t be one of them this time. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Those men and women don’t stay long in our little town. The priests take the few of us with real talent, the ones that might set off a fire, and then they go. It’s okay that I’m not one of the ones to go learn with them. Some hope burns hotter than fire if it takes hold.
Of course, the priest’s warning isn’t wrong. A fire from anywhere still burns, so after the dry season takes hold, we don’t even want the priests around. The grass around the village begs for a spark to cause trouble, and the hills blaze each year without any help. It’s why all the village houses perch over the river. Better to deal with some floodwaters than what happens in the hills.
That’s where the men come from when the priests are gone. They come out from the hills all burned from the fire up there. They don’t have a drop of magic inside of them, but they know how to burn a house. For our promised safety, they take what they need, whether we want to give it or not.
This year, more men come than the town has food, and they go from house to house breaking and taking what they want.
Dad’s not about to give them a grain. But there are three of them. He refuses to even look at me whenever they threaten or push him, and I wonder if he shouldn’t just give in. Then, they attack him as one.
There’s a stool my father uses to sit on while he fishes. I stand on it, and it wobbles.
“My power has no end.”
I almost fall off the stool at that point, and they laugh and are about to strike him again. Then, I lift my pinky finger, and I know I’m not supposed to make the sound with my mouth, but I do anyway.
The table catches on fire first, and the fire men turn towards me. One has his mouth slightly open. I have to really focus, grip the firing hand hard, and after another fizzling sound, one of the men flies back blanketed in flame.
The other two run, and my third fizzle hits the door frame. Dad yells to cut it out before stumbling over to beat the burning door with a cloth that once covered the table.
Word spreads like hill fire, and the rest of the fire men leave. My father never talks about what happened with anyone, but he shows me how to build a table to replace the one I burned. And he walks me out to the hills so that I can practice setting whatever I can on fire with my pinky. When he thinks I can’t see him, he pretends. He raises one of his fingers in the air and makes a sound. It doesn’t sound like a fizzle, but there’s hope he’ll get to the right noise one day.
Frederick Charles Melancon lives in Mississippi with his wife and daughter. He writes both speculative and literary fiction and poetry. More of his works can be found in The Haiku Shack Magazine, Short Beasts, Eye to the Telescope, AntipodeanSF, and 365tomorrows.