The forest was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.

Correction: for once it wasn’t my fault. Since I was a kid, I’ve had a strange affiliation with starting fires, be it inadvertent or on purpose. The nursery I slept in caught fire twice in the time I spent there. Once, I tried lighting a candle at a birthday party when I was six and the entire cake went up in flames, before smoldering down into a pile of burnt confectionary mistakes and children’s tears. I was never invited to that kid’s birthday parties again.

Since then, my reputation of accidental arson got more ludicrous. On the way home from school, I took refuge from a thunderstorm under a large tree. Lightning struck it; no more tree. Once I passed by three punks holding cigarettes and lighters, who called out some gross stuff at me. Next thing I know, all three of them had their artificially dyed hair in flames, and pretty soon they were all bald with first degree burns.

So I didn’t mind the uncanny trait of having the mysterious hot stuff show up near me at random intervals, but I didn’t mind it too bad. I only cared when it involved my endangerment, and considering the average danger of fire, I’d say that that meant I minded it a lot, but what can you do you know. You get the curse/talent of random fire through unexplainable paranormal events and you learn to deal with it. And to always tie your hair back at any given moment.

I can’t explain why fire would follow me like a moth to a flame (heh) but it does. By the end of ninth grade, I got the nickname “Sodium” and “Salt” for my tendency to mess up while lighting Bunsen burners, with explosive results. Last summer I was “Flare” or “Moltres” (this was during the height of Pokemon Go). Now, I’m just Sparkey to some people and Zippo to others. Unfortunately, I’ve never managed to gain the moniker of “Hot Stuff,” but people who haven’t known me long enough to know my combustive tendencies call me by my real name, Aubrey.

Back on topic: I found the explanation in the summer of eleventh grade. Done with SATs, exams, and what would be considered the most hellish year of my school career, I was ready to spend summer unwinding at my gran’s farm in anticipation for senior year.

My gran is considered the crazy-but-wise old lady of the small town near her place. Despite the fact that her farm is tiny compared to her neighbor’s, she commands respect from everyone, showing that size isn’t everything. She’s been around since the town was erected, more or less, and knows everything about the town from who the first mayor had an affair with to if that Taco Bell being built down the street was ever gonna get finished. She also tries to convince the chinese food restaurants in a ten mile radius to use the fortunes she sends them in their cookies, despite multiple attempts to tell her that they are neither in charge of what goes into fortune cookies, nor can they do anything about it.

Near the border of the farm is a small crop of woods, at the center of which is an outcropping of rock the size of a small house. It’s been nicknamed “Big Man’s Thumb” by the local kids, and it’s where they go to play as children and have picnics as teens, among other things. Several generations’ worth of old, forgotten graffiti is buried under the moss.

Well, this summer I walked along the packed-dirt trail in direction of Big Man’s Thumb, the foot-tall grass itching my ankles. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the leaves, dappling the forest floor. In my hands I fidgeted with a small rock I picked up some ages earlier, by now worn smooth by constant use. Big Man’s Thumb hadn’t changed since last summer, and despite gaining at least an inch in height since then, it still towered a good few feet above my head, offering several yards of welcomed shade in front of it.

I sat down, leaning against the rough stone. Despite being in the height of summer, a week of rain had lead to all the surrounding vegetation being lush and green. My hands dropped the stone and took a blade of grass instead, tearing it up absentmindedly before moving on to the next victim. Meanwhile, I closed my eyes and did nothing but listen- to the leaves, the chattering of small animals, and so on. Familiar, peaceful. A bird singing somewhere nearby.

Then I heard something not so peaceful but still familiar. The fwoosh of a flame from somewhere above me, and the singing of the little birdie was cut off with a squawk. The stone against me, once cool, warmed significantly. The solid black shadows were disturbed by bright orange light rippling across it, and I felt a wave of heat brush against my scalp. I yelped and scuttled away, far enough to be out of range of the rock’s shadow. I turned just in time to catch the shadow of a bird with a long neck, stretched out towards the sky, recede back to its body and out of sight. As it did, the last few licks of fire disappeared as well.

“Okay, now this is just ridiculous,” I said aloud, after a slew of swears following the shock. Here, in my grandma’s good rural Christian town, I was still being followed by fire and flames and it quite frankly, sucked. And there was absolutely no reason for it to be there--there were still puddles from the earlier downpours, and the patch of earth I had been sitting on was damp, as was the moss on the stone. So, there was absolutely no possible thing that could cause fire.

Unless--unless the thing starting the thing wasn’t inanimate. My own two eyes had just witnessed a big bird neck on top of the Big Thumb, and judging by how far the shadows had been disturbed by the outburst, there was nothing that could produce flame that long besides a flamethrower, and I think I would have noticed if someone nearby was carrying one of those things. Elon Musk or no, a flamethrower isn’t something you can just hide and whip out when needed, and why would anyone in a country Catholic town in the middle of Nowhere, PA own a flamethrower?

If there was anything I learned from school about the scientific method: if you don’t know why something does something, you figure it out. So I climbed the Thumb as quietly as I could.

Near the top, it happened again. Ten feet of flickering ruby tongues shot out, missing my head by about a foot, most definitely singeing it and causing me to (I will not lie here) start panicking and yelling things along the lines of...well, let’s just say that every God-fearing nun in hearing radius would have imploded. Fear shot through me, and set my legs a-trembling, and I fell.

That was a bust. A major L. But as the scientific method says: If it doesn’t work the first time and also hasn’t killed you, try again until it works. Or something.

Round two didn’t end much differently, except this time I was a little more prepared, and managed to cling to the rock surface as I felt the heat sear the air above me. I still ended falling off, but with significantly less cursing and with less suddenness. An improvement.

Third try, and I succeeded. As soon as the flames dissipated, I dared to peek over the edge to at whatever was trying so hard to light me up.

I was expecting a dragon. I was only mildly disappointed when I found an ugly bird instead.

I was a lot less disappointed when I noticed the bright red feathers, lined with gold and orange, and the plumage that rivaled a sunset. It was a phoenix.

Granted, it was one ugly phoenix (though to be fair, I hadn’t seen a lot of phoenixes to judge). It must have been molting, as I noted the small feathers scattered around its nest, a lot of them blackened with ash. There were large patches of baldness, where mottled pink skin could be seen, and I noted how thin and frail it looked beneath the brilliant reds and yellows. A second look granted how off colored it looked near the head, the bright candy hues fading into a muddy maroon near its eyes and beak. Eyes, once blue and vibrant, were old and fading, like worn denim. Skin sagged around its beak and around its neck, and it struggled to lift its head to meet me.

One could almost feel sorry for it until it tried to burn me into a crisp, again.

“Hey! Hey, hey hey.” I tried talking to it the way I talked to my gran’s one stubborn gelding, or any skittish or ornery animal I’d ever encountered. Rubbing my hip where I had fallen sideways to avoid the attack, I reached out in a universal “I come in peace” gesture. “Hey. Hey. Heyyy. Hey.”

“Skr-kr-kr-kRAAA” It coughed back at me; actually coughed back, succeeding in sounding like a broken lawn mower. Or a trap song.

“Okay. Hey. Hey. No troubles. Look--” Both hands up, I surrender. “I’m not gonna hurt you. You’re really sick, you look like you’re dying--”

“SKRRREEEEAaaAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

“Yeah, you and me both, buddy.”

It stopped snapping and screaming long enough for me to reach out, gently touching a single finger to its beak. Immediately, it calmed down, breathing slowing, eyes closing. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then it burst into flames, and I screamed.

Fire, an actual column of flames towering two stories high, shot upwards, engulfing it, searing away the leaves above as well as the lichen around it. I fell backwards of the rock for a third time, getting the wind knocked out of me. Staring up at the canopy of leaves, as a circle of them was burned away by the beacon of phoenix flame, directly above the Thumb.

Somewhere, I dimly thought: Am I high? How did I even get high in the first place? Being high sucks. Smokey the Bear is gonna kill me.

Stay in school kids. But whatever the reason, now I was lying on the forest floor, white ash falling like confetti around me. God bless the rain and hydrated plants, because while there was a perfect circle burned in the leaf layer, the fire had not spread past that. There was a lot of smoke though, and I had a feeling that some locals would start panicking if they saw that. I should probably get going.

But first, I had to get an answer. I’d gotten so far, I may as well go all the way, and see what was up with this pyromaniac of a bird I had seen. Big Man’s Thumb was still sizzling and steaming, so it took me a few minutes to navigate a safe way up.

Sitting there, among piles of soft black ash and blackened, crumbling remains, was an egg. The size of a chicken’s egg, and the exact same shade as a cranberry. Thin lines of gold spiderwebbed across it, and it felt warm to the touch as I pocketed it just before my gran came rushing in on her horse, screaming “thank god”s and “you’re grounded forever”s and “are you alright”s. More townspeople joined shortly, mostly to question me as to what happened. I told them I don’t know, because it was either that or say: “I have the egg of a mystic hot bird in my pocket and it’s basically the reason why there’s a big hole up there”. I had a feeling that a lot of them didn’t quite believe me, but what were they going to do? Accuse me of torching trees in my free time and somehow launching a column of flame two stories high? In the rush of frantic questions and worrying, I found myself hustled home on the back of Gran’s horse, coddled half to death and with the egg still pulsing with warmth inside my shorts.

In the safety of my room, I took it out and examined it again. It was still warm, and I could almost imagine that I could feel a tiny heart beating from inside it.

It’s been a few years since then. The egg has followed me through the end of high school, through college, and probably always will until I go or it hatches. The heartbeat never stops, and the egg itself never goes cold. But I’ve noticed, at times when I’m standing near a lit cigarette or a working lighter, the heat from the egg will flare, and the flames wink out as if something had stolen it.

I don’t have to worry about fire following me anymore.

Jesse Zhao is currently a sophomore, who enjoys horror movies and cartoons, and hopes one day to be able to create a story that everyone might be able to enjoy.