Sunshine
Istare with wide, disbelieving eyes at the small being that is very clearly not a child.
“I’ve been stuck in here for weeks,” he groans, gesturing around the crematorium.
Weeks?
I moved in two weeks ago.
That math is not mathing right.
“You’re a child?” I ask carefully? “Or not a child, just child-looking?”
“I’m not a kid. I’m between incarnations right now,” he says, squinting at me skeptically. His accent is impossible toplace, and his diction is immaculate. His patience, however, appears to be nonexistent.
Something finally clicks, and I realize what I’m looking at. Small being, covered in ash, but still fully grown in mind.
“You’re a phoenix,” I murmur slowly.
“Ding ding ding. We have a winner.” He gives me a flat look as he pushes himself to his feet without the slightest wobble. He brushes dust off the oversized t-shirt with dramatic annoyance and walks past me like this is his house, and I’m the weird one for being creeped out about a child being in the crematorium.
“I combusted,” he says casually. “Reformed. Woke up. Couldn’t reach the handle.” He glares accusingly at the door. “I’ve been stuck in here for a little over two weeks.”
“Why didn’t you yell for help?” I ask.
“I did for the first few days,” he grunts. “What a useless task that ended up being.”
Okay. I can handle this. He’s a phoenix who has been reborn. On my property. For some fucking reason. He’s small and adorable and apparently very old.
“You’re supposed to be… what? Two?”
“I amtemporarilytwo or three,” he snaps. “It’s a growth phase. I’ll be fully mature in a few more weeks.”
His ire would be intimidating if he weren’t two feet tall and looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid.
“So, you’ve just been sitting in here all alone?” I ask.
At my incredulous look, he shrugs casually. “Yes.”
“And you chose this building because…?”
“I have an arrangement,” he makes a dismissive noise and heads to the stairs.
“With who?” I ask, stumbling behind him.
“Jay,” he replies in a tone that implies I’m being deliberately dense.
“Jeremiah? My uncle?”
“Apparently,” he says, crawling up the stairs on all fours at an alarming speed. I follow behind him, watching the barefoot toddler climb my staircase like a feral raccoon. “You’re uncle, and I had a verbal contact,” he continues. “It allowed me to use the crematorium to contain my rebirth spark.”
“I swear to the gods my life gets more ridiculous by the hour.”
“It was mutually beneficial, I assure you,” he says, panting as he reaches the final steps. “I required a controlled combustion site…” he reaches the top of the stairs and dusts his hands off. “…and he wanted my ashes for the garden. It was a win-win.”
“Ashes for the garden?” At his dumbfounded look, I throw my hands up in surrender. “I’m trying to understand what in Hades is going on. Please.”
He sighs heavily. “Phoenix rebirth produces a large amount of ash,” he says, sounding exhausted. “The ash has properties that plants find favorable. Particularly flowers.” He gestures to the building below us. “Beautiful flowers are somewhat important in the funeral industry in case you were wondering.”
