"RAIN OF FIRE" by Sarah Ryniker

STORY LAST UPDATED ON 21/04/2002

Rain of Fire Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Epilogue

CHAPTER FIVE

Summer went by so quickly my head spun. Before I knew what was happening, it was winter, nearly Christmas, and I had been in school for nearly four months. Jenny and her friends had a tendency to ignore me now, not bothering to even start rumours. I really had no friends. Not that it mattered. I couldn't wait until Christmas break when I'd get to be home again for two weeks.
    All of my teachers were good to me. They were never rude or anything, even though I didn't get the best of grades. I tried, and in English and history I did get A's. But in maths and science I did horribly. I was almost failing in both classes. I needed tutoring badly in both classes.
    I wanted help. But I didn't want to seem stupid. The last day before Christmas break, I went up to both my maths and science teacher after their classes ended and told them I didn't want to look like a fool, and go get tutoring. Both smiled and said they'd discuss my problems over break and see what happened after we came back. They didn't want me to mess up. This was my senior year!
    I was so glad when the school day ended. It wasn't that I didn't love to learn. No. That wasn't the case. I loved to learn. I just hated feeling as if the millions of other teenagers around were suffocating me. I had always felt uncomfortable around other teenagers. They all seemed so stupid and immature to me. They made their own drama to make their uninteresting lives exciting. Most of the time they just winded up in trouble. And if they needed to, they'd get someone else in trouble to cover themselves and watch the other person suffer. It was ridiculous. Something I didn't want to have anything to do with.
    When I got home I rushed to my room and turned on my stereo. As always, a way to relieve my stress was to sing. And sing I did. I loved to do it, just never in front of anyone. I didn't want to feel as if I was showing off or want anyone to think I was horrible at it. So I sang to myself, never to anyone. I felt more comfortable that way. I didn't even take choir anymore because I feared people thinking me stupid sounding.
    But today wasn't going to be stress-free. I heard the pounding on my bedroom door from my bathroom. I rushed out and into the bedroom to open the door. Grandfather Gerald stood there, glaring at me as if I was some lower form of specimen. It didn't matter. I looked at him the same way. "They want to release Ella from the hospital," he announced.
    The fight left me and I become curious and confused. "Why do they want to do that?" I couldn't understand. Sure, she wasn't getting any better, but wasn't that place supposed to make her comfortable? His answer was about to make me very angry.
    "They keep wanting money to keep her there. I stopped paying. I'm not going to pay for an act Ella is putting on." I looked at him completely stunned. An act? She had attacked and tried to kill his granddaughter and it had been an act? I certainly didn't agree with that.
    "It's not an act, you imbecile! She's sick. She can't grasp reality anymore! And part of it is your fault! The least you could do is pay for her comfort in a place that will help keep her alive!" I knew I was screaming. I couldn't stop myself, though. Ella needed special help. We couldn't bring her home yet, if ever!
    His eyes held an angry fire as they stared at me. I expected him to hit me. I had become used to him raising his hand to me any time I spoke back with any sort of attitude. But instead he simply said in a low, dangerous voice, "She is coming home and that's it." Then he left my bedroom doorway.
    I was shaking with nervousness as Grandfather Gerald got into the limousine to pick up his wife. Ella needed tranquillisers to be calm, and even with them she had a tendency to attack me. It was frightening to have somebody like that in your house, whether you knew and loved them or not. I was afraid of somebody I once trusted. I hated that thought. But I was. Who would stop her if she tried to kill me again?
    Mitch tried desperately to calm my nerves. As we sat in the library and he tried his best to calm me, I couldn't help but laugh. I was suddenly reminded of the time I had broken Celeste's arm, and my cousin Josh had been trying to calm me much the same way, because I was scared of my father. At the time it hadn't been funny, but looking back on it now it was. That's when I realised whom Mitch reminded me of. He was so much like Josh at times. It made me stop laughing and just smile.
    Mitch raised his eyebrows at my sudden switch of moods. I just shook my head at his questioning glance and leaned over to pat his hand. "Thanks for being a good friend, Mitch. I haven't had one for a few years."
    "Oh, I see. Only a few years? So I'm not your first good, true friend?" he teased.
    I laughed. "Nope! My… well, the person I thought to be now that I think about my true identity, cousin Josh, was a good friend of mine. He always calmed my nerves down when they were a bit frazzled. That's all," I explained. I didn't know why I felt the need to explain. Or the reason I had to emphasise that all that was between us was strictly friendship. Of course, at the time I had thought he was my cousin. But still, sometimes there is something beneath the friendship façade when your heart knows that you're not truly related to someone.
    It was there with Mitch, I realised with a start. I had always had feelings for Mitch. He was somebody that was gentle but honest towards me. I wasn't always in the right and he showed me that.
    I knew the smile must have faded from my face while I stared at Mitch. My mood turned serious. "Honestly, I've never had a friend like you before, Mitch. Nobody ever cared about me the way you do," I said in just above a whisper. I leaned a little closer towards him, resting my elbows on my knees. How could this be happening? He was my friend! My mind was screaming at me, telling me that this was wrong. But it wasn't. It didn't feel wrong.
    "The way I care about you?" he was teasing, yet with only a slight smile that made my heart race in a way that I had never felt before. "And how do I care about you?"
    I swallowed a little bit and turned my face away. He quickly brought his hand to my cheek and gently turned my head back around so my eyes met his blue ones. "How do I care about you, Phoenix?" he asked again, far more seriously. It was as if he was hoping I knew how he felt. Perhaps I did. But I needed to know for sure.
    "Maybe you should tell me that, Mitch. How do you feel about me?" I said, changing the word care to feel.
    "I'm not sure exactly what I feel. All I know is that, I've been wanting to do this since I first saw you." And before I could ask what, he kissed me. His lips were pressed so gently against mine, urging mine to move. It was by far different than the kiss I had experienced with Damian. It was gentler, and less urgent. I felt as if I was floating.
    When he pulled away from me, it was only slightly. We were still just inches away from one another. "Don't hate me for that, Phoenix, if you don't feel the same way." He seemed worried that I would hate him for kissing me.
    I smiled. "I do feel the same way. And I could never be angry or hate you because you kissed me. I wanted you to, anyway." It was a realisation that hit me as the words left my lips. I had wanted him to kiss me.
    Suddenly he laughed. "Now what do we do? It seems so strange, awkward."
    I let out a sigh. "I know. If I had an answer about what we do, I'd tell you. But I guess we just stay the way we were with one another before this kiss. I mean not completely, because I do want…" I blushed. I wanted a relationship with him, but I was embarrassed. I had never been in a relationship. Not one like this, especially.
    He nodded. It ended the topic and there was a silent agreement between us. We had agreed with that simple kiss that we were much more than friends. What we were to each other, I didn't know. I didn't need to put a word to it, however. I was just content to be happy with the one person that made me extremely happy.
    When Grandfather Gerald brought Ella into the house, Jenny, Mitch and I watched from the upstairs hallway, where we could look down and see the entryway. Ella looked scared and unsure about what was going on. She stared around the grand foyer as if it were the first time she had ever seen it. It shocked me to see her so, empty and confused. She truly was lost.
    What shocked me ten folds, however, was the gentle way my grandfather handled her. He had his arm around her waist and with his other he held her hand, helping her walk through the house. He was also acting as if he was giving her a tour of her "new" home. I had never seen the man seem so caring and nice. It was a sweet scene, but a confusing one. How could this man who could be so cruel at times, be so gentle and wonderful to his mentally sick wife? What made him change towards her? Or had he changed at all? Maybe he was always this way with her when he thought no one else was around. For the first time I was happy to have him as my grandfather. Maybe he wasn't such a monster after all.
    After Ella was settled back into her room, with anything dangerous far out of her reach, Mitch went in to see her. When he came back out to where I stood with Jenny, waiting in the hallway, he shook his head sadly. "She'll never be the same again. She didn't know who I was. She thought I was just some servant boy coming to aid her and unpack her things from her long journey." He frowned at the thought. Mitch wasn't spoiled, but he certainly couldn't live outside of the rich world.
    Jenny scoffed. "Who cares anymore? She's crazy. I certainly won't be bringing any of my friends over any longer. I don't want them to know that my mother is a psycho."
    "Jenny!" I cried. "She isn't psycho. This is just her way of dealing with things that have happened to her that were traumatising. She kept things bottled up for so long they've driven her into her own world. That's all."
    Both Jenny and Mitch looked at me with disbelief as I spouted these words out. Both looked sceptical about my believing such a thing. I let out a sigh of frustration. "It's true!" I insisted. "She's been through some traumatising experiences and they've led her to be a sort of vegetable. At least, that's how the doctor explained it to me."
    Jenny gave a fake yawn. "I honestly don't care," she said, turning and walking towards her bedroom. "I'm still not bringing my friends around my traumatised mother," she called back and then disappeared around the corner.
    I cried out in frustration between clenched teeth. "God! I can't stand your sister! She's so uncaring and snobby!" I didn't give him a chance to answer. I stomped down the stairs and into the garden. I sat down on a bench. I was so angry that Jenny couldn't care less about what was wrong with her own mother. If I had children like that, God help me, I was going to just commit suicide!
    Mitch wheeled himself over to me about ten minutes later. It took him longer to get down the stairs, but I knew he'd follow me. He always did when I got into these moods. "Why do you let her get to you like that?" he asked. It wasn't accusingly or annoyed, it was just a simple question. One that I couldn't answer. I couldn't explain why she got to me so much. I tried anyway.
    "She's just so aggravating, Mitch! She doesn't care and it bothers me that a child can be so cruel on matters concerning her own mother. Ella isn't crazy, she's sick." I wanted to believe that Ella was just sick; she would get better. But we both knew that she had gone insane.
    He took my hand in his and squeezed it. "It's how she was raised, Phoenix. You can't change her." He pulled himself out of his chair to sit on the bench beside me. "Besides, if she is that careless it is not just your grandfather's fault. It's my mother's, too."
    My head lowered to my chest. I knew he was right. But it hurt to see somebody not care about their own family. I had always been so family-oriented, even if my family was chaotic. Family had still been very important to me. Without your family, you were truly nothing. I couldn't imagine being a real hermit. I wouldn't want to be an outcast to the entire world.
    "It's not your problem to worry about, Phoenix. Forget about it," he insisted. "It's cold out here. I don't want you to get sick. Come on, let's go back inside." He tugged on my hand as he pulled his chair closer to the bench.
    I shook my head and looked at him. "I'll be fine. I don't really feel like going back in there right now." I didn't understand why I was suddenly so depressed. Yet it was there, nagging me, stroking my heart with its ice-cold fingers.
    "What's wrong, Phoenix? What's been bothering you?" His eyes held concern as he gently raised his hand and began to stroke my hair.
    I shrugged. "I guess it's this whole thing with Ella. It bothers me so much. I hate that she really has gone crazy and that Jenny is right. She is psycho." It all just came pouring out of me. "I hate the fact that just when I think I am getting closer to finding out the truth about my mother, Ella begins to babble and do things that say that everything I've been told about her disappearance is a lie." I sighed. "It just scares me!" I cried.
    He nodded. "I understand. I'm confused about Rachael's disappearance now. I just don't understand. There really is so much more to the past than either of us thought. I guess we'll never truly know. To really know what happened back then, you have to know the thoughts and feelings of certain people."
    "I need to know the thoughts and feelings of your mother. She had something to do with her disappearance and maybe even death. I don't know what. But, Mitch, your mother isn't the innocent bystander as she claims." I knew in my heart that if my mother was dead, Ella had been a big part of her death. She had attacked me on too many occasions for that not to be true. The question was why would she want to harm someone that was supposed to have been her best friend?
    He shook his head. "It's all too confusing right now for me to make assumptions." Which I knew was a lie. There were many reasons to make assumptions. But for Mitch to be able to fathom his mother a killer was difficult. He couldn't do it.
    I didn't go near Ella's room. I wouldn't do it. I feared what she would do if she spotted me. I didn't want her to go into one of her tantrums. They frightened me, and usually they ended up with her trying to attack me, thinking I was my mother. Yet I was still curious. I wanted to know why she wanted to attack my mother. Yet there was only one person in the house that could really tell me what her problem was. And going to my grandfather was something that was very hard for me to do.
    I approached him very carefully in the dining room that night. Mitch wasn't feeling well and was eating his dinner in his bedroom, and Jenny was at a friend's house, so it was the perfect time for me to ask. At first we ate in silence. Then I sat there for a few minutes, contemplating how to ask my questions. Finally, I looked up, only to see him staring at me. It was the first time I ever caught him looking at me lovingly and it gave me the confidence I needed, even if the look was only there for a split second.
    "Why does Ella keep attacking me, thinking I'm my mother? Why would she attack my mother?" I asked, still cautiously.
    To my surprise, he didn't get angry and go into a fit of anger at my questions. He simply sighed and began to answer. "Ella always had a problem with Rachael. When they first met, Ella went to her mother, my fiancée at the time, and told her that she didn't like Rachael. She thought someone as beautiful as your mother, ten times more beautiful than her, was too snobby and pretty to be a younger sister to her." He shook his head.
    "When Ella's mother, Kylie, told me that, I couldn't believe it. I insisted that the girls spend more time together, get to know each other more. Rachael was far from snobby, and she certainly didn't think she was very beautiful. She had thought much the same thing of Ella. It was the reason for Rachael's attitude towards her at first.
    "They started to get to know each other and they seemed to be becoming friends. I didn't know. I wasn't close with Rachael, so I never really knew what was going on in her life. We fought more than anything. She was too much like her mother in that aspect."
    He paused for a minute and sat thinking. I knew that he was losing himself in the past, remembering what had happened, and what could have been.
    I wanted to urge him to continue, but I didn't. I was afraid that he would start snapping at me. We fought so often. But I didn't have to urge him, he continued on his own.
    "You're a lot like Rachael and your grandmother. Everyone says it's the Parish temper that Rachael had, that you have, but no. Parishes don't use their wit to argue with somebody. If they get into an argument it almost always ends up in fists.
    "Anyway, one night when I sat lounging in front of the fireplace in the front parlour, Rachael came to me. I had been married to Kylie for four years and I was rather moody because she had given me another daughter. We had a three-year-old that I just didn't want. I didn't really believe she was even mine, anyway. Rachael was seventeen years old by this time. I thought everything between her and Ella was fine, but evidently they weren't.
    " 'Dad,' she began. She seemed afraid to tell me what she had to. 'Ella has been doing crazy things to me. Sometimes she'll be my best friend and then other times she looks absolutely crazy and begins complimenting me while she strokes my hair. Which is fine, she says she loves my hair. But she starts pulling on it and then she'll bite me and all kinds of stuff like that.' I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I simply told her to stop making up lies and get back to bed. I did, however, talk to Kylie about it.
    "Kylie admitted that she had once had to put Ella into a mental institution due to jealousy. Ella had nearly killed some girl at school that she was terribly jealous of. She was put onto some heavy medications for it."
    He sighed and shook his head. "I just pretended not to care when Rachael kept coming to me for help. I liked to shove my head in the sand and pretend everything was fine. Rachael knew how to take care of herself. It was something that her mother had taught her from seemingly birth. Rachael never depended on anyone.
    "Ella had got married and wasn't too much of a worry. Except that the man she married was lower than scum and they were living in this house. They had Mitch, but just as I had suspected, Roger Branch didn't live up to expectations. Sure, the kid was good looking, Mitch looks just like him, but he took off with some woman, leaving Ella behind. Ella went into an emotional breakdown, and started doing more mean things to Rachael."
    "So?" I said, after he had finished. "You think maybe Ella had something to do with my mother's disappearance?"
    He nodded. "I know she did. She hated the thought of having a stepdaughter merely three years younger than her and by far more beautiful, and not to mention single. Rachael would have everything that Ella couldn't, which bothered her more."
    He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I only married Ella because Kylie was scared for her. Kylie always took a lot of precautions with her daughter, so when she became sick and knew she was dying, she begged me to marry Ella and give her and Mitch a good home life. So I forced Ella into marrying me. I don't think she even knows why."
    When I left the dining room that night, I left with far more knowledge than I had ever got. I knew more about the family, things that had never been told to me. Of course, the reasoning for that was because these were things Ella wasn't going to tell me. I just had one question plaguing me. It kept me up for the rest of the night trying to figure it out. Why would Ella pretend to love and adore my mother so much if she truly hated her?

Rain of Fire Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Epilogue

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