“Can you show me how to hold my breath?” I offer, refocusing on my swimming lessons and the Gauntlet. “Do I just go down? I don’t think I’ll have a fast stroke, even with practice. But maybe if I can outlast others, that would help.”
Broderick grunts, releasing his hold on me to aggressively rub his hands over his face, and I get the sense I said something wrong.
“Are you okay?” I venture carefully.
Broderick drops his hands and gives me a strained smile. “Good. Yes. I’m good.” He clears his throat and takes a step back in the pool. “You want to learn to hold your breath underwater. Go down underwater. Last underwater.”
“You’re saying underwater a lot.”
Broderick nods. “I did. Let’s focus on that.”
For the next half hour, the professor affects an instructional air, showing me the basic way to hold my breath—by pinching my nose—but then also more helpful methods, like blowing a stream of bubbles. I only snort water twice, which I count as asuccess. Broderick also demonstrates some basic strokes, which he looks powerful and graceful doing. Meanwhile, I flop through them like a half-dead fish.
By the end of our lesson, I’m exhausted, my airway is raw from partially inhaled saltwater, and overall, I’m exuberant.
I kind of know how to swim!
As I wrap myself in a large towel, I gaze out the windows at the sprawling lake. The stretch of water glimmers in the evening light, and I find the gentle waves enticing.
“Do you think I’m ready to swim off the dock?” I ask, eager to try my skills in a wilder setting.
Broderick rubs his own towel over his head, leaving his red tresses in a charming disarray.
“You were treading water at the end there, so, yeah, I think we can step it up.”
His confidence in my ability warms my blood in a delicious way. Broderick was supportive and careful with me all through the lesson, but I never felt coddled or stifled.
Never felt like he was trying to hold me back.
Memories of a time when that was my life threaten to rise. I almost push them away—like I’ve been doing for the past six months—but then I decide that I don’t want to hide them. I want to expel them from me like venom from a snake bite.
“My father was a human,” I blurt.
Broderick pauses in the act of toweling off his torso, his emerald eyes finding mine. In his open gaze, I see the willingness to listen.
So, I keep going. “He knew what I was. Knew what my mother was. Apparently, he called her an angel.” I shake my head with a frown. “That seems so impossible to me. That he would have said something like that. Because he hated whatIwas.”
Broderick straightens and steps closer. But I’m too busy seeping the poison of my past to hug him.
“My mother passed away when I was six. She was giving birth to my brother. Something went wrong, and neither of them made it. My father said if being a mythic was good, then she would have lived.”
There was no logic to the hatred that grew in him, and I just wanted my mother back.
“My aunt visited when I was younger. I remember that. But she didn’t come back after my mom passed. Maybe because losing her sister was so sad. Or …” I swallow and tug on my damp hair. “Or maybe my father didn’tlether see me again. All I know is, he demanded I hide that part of myself. Suppress it. And he mostly kept me away from people.”
So much loneliness. I used to wander around the acres of land we lived on and pretend the forest animals were my friends.
“I was homeschooled, and I couldn’t leave our property, except to go to church.” Those Sunday mornings where I felt the preacher’s judging eyes on me. Apparently, my father had told him I had a demon in me. Gone was his talk of angels.
“And there were times I couldn’t contain the fire. Trying to stifle it only made things worse. At night, I would sneak off and change in the woods. Just for a short time. I never flew anywhere.” Even standing in a clearing, allowing my other half to breathe, was euphoric.
“But I was a grown woman, and my father’s tight reins had been chafing for years. So, I told him I was leaving.” Even though I had no idea how to exist anywhere other than our homestead and had no money of my own. All I knew was that staying there felt like dying. “He refused. Swore that he would stop me. And my temperexplodedout of me. That heat …” I stare down at my fingers, flexing them, feeling the phantom of flaming feathers. Finally allowing my firebird side out in front of him was gloriousat the start. But when I realized the damage I’d done, I was terrified. “If we’d been arguing inside, I might’ve burned our house down.”
As it was, I melted his old truck until it was a puddle in the gravel driveway.
I thought maybe my father was right about me having a demon in me. His words were starting to blot out the firebird fairy tales my mother and aunt had told me.
“Soon after, he brought a man to our house. The stranger was kind, and I wasexcitedto meet someone new. To talk to someone who wasn’t my father.” How naive I was, thinking my life was at its lowest point. “He said he could help me get rid of the fire.” At this, a sob sneaks out of my throat. Shame overwhelms me at the memory. “Ibeggedhim to. Because I thought if I wasn’t a firebird, then I could finally live in the world.”
