Spinning Fire

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“Hello?” Amanda's cheerful voice came from the phone. She was probably excited about the party. Holly suppressed a fresh wave of guilt; she had to focus on using what little acting skills she had.

“Hello, Amanda?” Holly said huskily, trying to make herself sound hoarse without exaggerating it too much. It wasn't as easy as she'd thought it would be.

“Um, hi Holly,” there was a question in the statement, like she wasn't completely sure that it was her best friend who spoke.

“Listen, I'm really sorry, but I don't know if I can make it to the party,” she coughed feebly. “I don't feel too good. I think I'll have to stay in bed.”

:: I was sure Holly would have liked to stay in bed all day, but we both knew that wasn't going to happen.

Amanda whimpered sympathetically. “You sure you won't feel better by tonight?” she pressed.

“I really doubt it,” Holly answered, holding back an annoyed hiss. Once again, Tameryn just had to put in her two cents. “I don't think I can do anything too... demanding today.”

:: Nothing demanding about turning into an over-sized bird. Just part of the normal routine.

“Oh. Okay then,” her disappointment was obvious. “I guess it can't be helped.”

:: Now that I thought about it, Holly's previous statement about not being able to do anything demanding was true. She couldn't turn into a swan.

“Yeah,” Holly groaned. “Sorry again. You guys have fun.” She was desperate to end the conversation so she could safely scold the voice in her head.

:: I was sure they'd have more fun today than Holly would.

“Sure,” Amanda sounded half-hearted. “I'll talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

With a click, Amanda hung up the phone. Holly followed suit more slowly, her hand trembling with anger.

:: “Come on. Chop, chop! We're going to be late!” I chirped annoyingly.

Holly didn't answer, resentment for the spirit boiling inside her.

:: “Uh, Holly?” I asked, confused. Her anger slowly registered. Wait a minute... was she mad at me? Since when was I to blame for everything that went wrong in her life? Holly was upset because she'd had to lie to Amanda and because she'd made Amanda upset. But how did that relate to me? If anything, she should be upset with Riley.

:: Holly still didn't answer. I had decided to take a break from reading her mind to see how it would go. I was starting to think it was time for my experiment to end.

“Don't even think about it,” Holly growled. If Tameryn read her mind one more time, she was going to murder her.

:: Not reading her thoughts was like trying to ignore someone screaming in your ear. “I can't help it if your thoughts jump out at me,” I snapped.

“Whatever,” Holly snapped back. “I didn't need your comments during that conversation.”

:: “What?” I said blankly. I'd stayed completely silent during her chat with Amanda.

“Don't give me your 'what?'s. You know exactly what I'm talking about!”

:: I thought back. I'd definitely been thinking comments during the phone conversation, but I hadn't told them to Holly. There was no way she could have heard anything from me, unless...

:: But that wasn't possible. There was no way Holly could read my mind. I was supposed to know her private thoughts, not the other way around.

A grin spread across Holly's face. So she could read Tameryn's thoughts. That could certainly come in handy. “So how does it feel? Knowing that I can hear everything you're thinking, and you can't do anything to stop me,” she asked smugly. Finally things were starting to even out.

:: I bristled. She had no right to be in my mind. “You think I can't stop you?” I snarled. I would prove her wrong about a thousand times over.

:: I located the loose wad of silky cloth that served as my only physical form and drew all of my magic into it. I then quickly constructed a series of reckless barriers between myself and Holly. I honestly didn't care if the magical power that radiated from them was burning her; she deserved whatever she got.

Holly felt Tameryn's presence abruptly disappear. It was weird to have something vanish when she had never realized it was there in the first place. She tried to pinpoint exactly what felt different, and realized that there was still a trace of the feeling that had grown familiar to her.

She was still trying to put her finger on what was missing when a sharp burning filled her chest. Holly gasped and doubled over, panicking. She couldn't breathe; it felt like she was on fire. And it was swirling. Swirling fire? She wondered dully. Maybe swirling because she was dizzy and fire because it hurt. She realized that she was standing, and quickly sat down on her bed. Moving made her wince, but once she was sitting she felt slightly better.

:: I sat in my bubble of solitude, more angry at myself than at Holly. I was getting reckless. If Holly mastered reading my mind, she could discover so much. I'd have to spend the rest of my exile with a human who knew all of my secrets. Not to mention that she'd probably hate me; she seemed to have little tolerance for violence.

:: Unsurprisingly, I soon grew bored of doing nothing. I started making my isolating barriers more organized. I pulled my cloth-like self into a tighter lump, then turned my attention to my magic. What was surrounding me could only be described as an irregularly shaped... thing. I wasn't sure what to call it. But I had to admit, it portrayed how it was created quite nicely. It seemed to be a bunch of walls randomly constructed around a point until no holes remained. I pulled out the extra magic, which was jutting out at weird angles, and shaped the walls into a smooth sphere.

The pain lessened somewhat; Holly sighed with relief, then instantly regretted it. She winced as her chest reignited, swirling faster now. In her mind she laughed bitterly. First the voice, then the hallucinated people trying to turn her into a swan. She'd even dreamed up a secret clubhouse for her imaginary friends—or maybe manipulators would be a more accurate word—and was imagining pain for angering the spirit inside of her. Sure signs of insanity. She ought to send herself to an asylum.

:: I watched dully as my magical barrier swirled around itself. I coaxed it into different patterns of whirls: first a flower, then a bird. Looking at it might have been mesmerizing for someone as shallow as Holly, but I soon grew bored again. To my surprise, I found myself longing to explore the dull world called Dirt again.

:: I tried to justify keeping my—rather impressive, I might add—barrier, but I had none. It was sheer recklessness that had caused Holly to read my mind; a spell would be all it would take to block her out.

Holly frowned. If she consciously acknowledged that the pain was only her imagination, it would go away. At least, that was what she was hoping. All in my head, she said to herself, at the same time imagining the fire fading into nothingness.

:: Or maybe it wouldn't even take a spell. Simple separation would be enough. As long as most of me stayed out of Holly's brain, she wouldn't be able to read my thoughts. It was time to return to reality. I reabsorbed the barrier and let my tight bundle loosen, then sent a bit of magic up to Holly's brain; I wasn't about to give up on reading her mind.

The spinning fire dissipated. When Holly sighed for the second time it didn't come back. She smiled triumphantly. Small successes like this would eventually make her normal. She could do it, if she put enough effort into it.

:: “It will take a lot more effort than you're capable of to get rid of me,” I said bluntly, responding to her thoughts as though she had spoken to me directly.

Holly hesitated. “Just my imagination,” she reminded herself. “I guess I can call Amanda back now, since I'm free now.”

:: I glared. “Don't.”

Ah, so the voice didn't want her to become sane. All the more reason to call. She picked up the phone and started dialing her best friend's number.

:: I could see that I would have to take matters into my own hands. It was good that I'd returned to Holly so quickly. It was apparent that she needed me to keep her on the right track. I sent a burst of magic into Holly's arm and forced her to hang up.

Holly was humming cheerfully when her arm jerked the phone away from her ear and slammed it back onto the receiver. “What was that for?” she snarled before she could catch herself. The phone had slipped out of her hand; she just had to dial again.

:: “I thought we were past the denial stage.”

Holly ignored the voice and reached for the phone again.

:: I pulled her arm back roughly. “No,” I ordered, glaring.

Holly sighed out loud. Maybe being crazy was too much to hope for. Her arm couldn't just jerk around on its own. She pulled her necklace out of her shirt and stared at the swan-shaped pendant. It was amazing how much trouble something so small could cause.

“They're probably waiting for me,” she said to herself, feeling resigned. She had never realized how lucky she had been before, back when she was normal. More than anything she wished she could be normal again.

:: "Let's go," I said tersely. Holly was slipping into another one of her "woe-is-me" episodes. "We should have left half an hour ago!"

Holly glanced at the time and yelped. "They're going to be furious," she groaned as she dashed out of her house.

:: "Not like they can really do anything to you," I pointed out. "They weren't even fazed last time you were late." Of course Holly ignored my sensible words. Some things would never change.

"Tut tut. Tardy twice in a row," Valin said, shaking his head slowly as though wondering what the world was coming to.

"You weren't even awake yesterday," Holly snapped, glaring at him. She was in no mood for Valin's nonsense.

:: "How do you expect to make friends if you're always so grouchy?" I asked.

"I have friends."

:: I bit back a snappy reply. I had already traumatized Holly once that day. I noticed that she was breathing more heavily than usual, and guessed that it was because of my careless barrier. Regardless of what I thought of Holly as a person, she was still my host, and it was always best to keep your host in good condition.

:: You might be wondering why, if I was so worried about keeping my hosts healthy, I had a reputation for host-killing. In my personal opinion, there were only two conditions under which a host is useful: alive and healthy or dead. Hosts were disposable; once they stopped working, we replaced them. For that reason, it was better to be dead than injured.

Valin shrugged, apparently deciding it was better not to point out that she was overreacting. "Let's get started then," he said casually. "Gary, Namir and Skah are going to try teaching you today." He smiled grimly when he saw the look on Holly's face. "I know he's annoying, but every tip you can get will help."

:: "Gary the serious and Skah the brat together for a whole day trying to do the impossible. This ought to be fun."

"I really don't think Skah will be able to help me, unless my goal is to go crazy."

Namir sighed. "Trust me, none of us are--is--looking forward to it. Hey, wha' d'ya know, turns out I did learn something in English class."

"Yeah, but who actually talks like that?" Holly wondered.

:: "Apparently he does," I answered dully. Our conversation was utterly uninteresting. "Can we just get on with it?"

"Amazing. Something actually penetrated Namir's pea-sized brain," Skah said as a greeting as he entered.

"Hey, at least I have a brain. And I'm not a runt. That's more than you can say," Namir said in a very matter-of-fact voice.

:: "He has a brain?" I pretended to sound shocked. "That's news."

Holly didn't need to read Tameryn's mind to know that, despite her words, she was on Namir's side. For some reason the spirit just felt the need to insult everyone. She couldn't help but wonder whether all spirits were as irritating as the one that currently inhabited her.

:: "No, not all of us are fortunate enough to be as naturally witty and talented as myself."

Although she still found it irritating that Tameryn constantly read her mind but refused to allow Holly to do the same, she had to admit that it was convenient to have her unasked questions answered.

:: "Why thank you. It's nice to be appre-"

Even if she was arrogant and almost as annoying as Skah.

:: "That was uncalled for!" I said indignantly. "And don't even pretend that I can be compared to that little twit! Oh, and you might want to separate him from Namir."

Returning to reality, Holly realized that Skah and Namir were deep in shallow argument. She faked a loud cough. "Not that this isn't fun, but can we get on with it already? Honestly, you get annoyed with me for being late but then you stand around wasting time. Where's Gary?"

"I'm right here," a voice said from behind her. Holly turned around and saw that Gary was standing next to the main entrance. Somehow she had missed hearing him entering. "And yes, let's go." Without waiting for an answer, he turned and crawled out. Holly followed him, hoping that Skah would get lost on the way there.

:: "No such luck," I informed her. "Skah loves to annoy people; this is a wonderful opportunity for him."

Unfortunately for them all, the spirit was right. The irritating boy babbled the whole way. Gary gave one-word answers whenever Skah tried to lure him into an argument. Holly didn't even bother with that; she just shrugged or grunted. Only Namir took the bait and argued back. It was as though he wasn't physically capable of ignoring a blow to his pride.

"He's like you," she commented near the beginning of their trip.

:: "Ha ha, very funny," I said humorlessly.

Holly flinched and gasped softly. Whatever Tameryn had done to her that morning, it still hurt, and exercising wasn't doing it any good. She gritted her teeth and kept going. Luckily Namir and Skah were too distracted to notice, and Gary was busy ignoring their bickering. At least that time she knew the way, so she didn't have to wonder how much farther it was.

:: I waited for Holly to say something about the pain I had caused her. I was expecting her to snap at me, shouting about how all her problems were my fault and telling me all about how much better her life would be if I weren't in it, but she remained silent. Curious, I inspected her thoughts and was surprised to find that, although she acknowledged that I had done something bad to her, she wasn't angry at me.

:: I didn't understand it. If I were in her shoes, I would be furious. How could she not be mad at me? Maybe she didn't dislike me as much as I thought she did. I probably disliked her more than she didn't like me. And I was the one invading her life. I found myself filled with an unexpected emotion, one that I rarely experienced. Holly's knowledge supplied me with a word for it: guilt. It also supplied me with another word, one which could fix it.

:: "...Sorry," I said softly. I'd had to swallow my pride a couple of times before I was able to make the word come out, but I'd said it and I actually meant it.

At first Holly didn't respond. Had she really heard right? Was Tameryn apologizing? She honestly hadn't thought that she was capable of feeling sorry for anything. Maybe the spirit was more human than she let on.

"It's okay," she answered just as softly as when Tameryn had first spoken. For the first time, Holly felt that she could call her a friend.

Both Holly and Tameryn were quiet for the rest of the trip. Shortly after they arrived, Gary noticed Holly's exhaustion.

"We could have stopped and rested," he said kindly.

"I'm fine," Holly lied, shrugging. Gary gave her a look that made her wonder just how far from "fine" she looked, but he didn't nag her about it. Instead he turned and wearily told Namir and Skah to stop bickering.

"Okay, Tazara," he said after he had successfully quieted the other two. "Shall we begin?"

Holly's only answer was to take off her jacket. Maybe it would work that time. The three older members--at least, they had been members longer; she was pretty sure Skah was younger than her--tried to describe the transformation process as best they could. Even Skah briefly gave up being annoying and tried to give her some useful advice. She tried everything they suggested, but none of it worked. Every now and then Gary would give her a questioning look. Holly knew what he was trying to say but ignored him. She would only get colder if she stopped to rest.

It was Namir who paused their training session. "This isn't working."

:: "Thank you, captain obvious," I said with an eye roll.

"We can't just give up," Gary said with a frown.

"Of course not," Namir agreed. Holly took the opportunity to put her jacket back on. It didn't do a whole lot. "But maybe we can try again some other day," he glanced at Holly. "She won't be able to do it when she's so exhausted anyways. What we're doing right now is useless."

:: "Finally, someone with common sense!"

"We'll be much more productive after a day of rest." Namir gave Gary a look that was inscrutable to Holly.

:: "They're obviously keeping something from us," I said. "Beyond that, I have no clue."

"Great," Holly said tiredly. "What use are you if you can't tell me anything?"

:: "Who's the human here? You should be explaining them to me, not the other way around."

"But you're the magical one."

:: I paused for half a second, weighing my options. The only evidence Holly had that I was magical was the barrier I had used. I snorted and said, "Yeah, you just keep thinking that. You're the one with the freaky rock, not me."

"You are me."

:: "I think that's taking it a step too far..." I didn't want to be Holly. I wanted to be me.

Gary was nodding slowly. "Yes, I suppose delaying wouldn't hurt too much." He turned to Holly. "Do you know the way back to your house from here?"

"Yeah," she said after a quick glance around. "I even know a shortcut."

"Okay. Day after tomorrow, the usual time. Oh, wait, that's Christmas, isn't it? Then the day after that."

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A/N: It's been awhile, hasn't it? Hopefully no one was holding their breath waiting for this chapter, because you'd probably be dead by now if you were. I would say we're in the home stretch here, but we... aren't. Anyway, feel more than free to leave a review.