Secrets in Phoenix Read online

  Phoenix Holt

  Copyright © Gabriella Lepore 2014

  The right of Gabriella Lepore to be identified as the author of

  this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

  reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system,

  in any form or by any means, without permission in writing

  from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form

  of binding or cover other than that in which it is published

  and without a similar condition being imposed on the

  subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Phoenix Holt

  Gabriella Lepore

  For aunties everywhere—the unsung heroes!

  And I’m not just saying that because I’m one!

  ~ Helen, Maureen, Heather, and Elsie ~

  Thank you for being aunties.

  Chapter One

  Pandora’s Box

  I was the first to notice the fortune teller. Actually, she’d walked past us a few times, trolling the train for a place to sit. Somehow I had a feeling that she would eventually settle upon our cabin.

  And I was right.

  The cabin door rattled open and the woman poked her head in.

  “May I sit here?” she asked in a thick Russian accent.

  I glanced at the long empty seat opposite me. I was fairly sure that Sam and Todd wouldn’t be too keen on our new companion, but seeing as though they were both snoring quietly in their top-bunk rollout beds, I considered their opinions to be void.

  What’s the harm? I thought to myself.

  “Yes,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  The woman’s gold bangles clanged together as she made herself comfortable on the bench opposite me, below where Todd slumbered undisturbed. She placed her crochet bag at her side and folded her hands on the pull-out table that separated us. Shrouded behind a red silk headdress, two ice-blue eyes peered out at me.

  I gave her a weak ‘hello’ smile, then quickly looked away again.

  Should I speak to her? I wondered. I didn’t want to.

  “Your eyes,” she said to me, in a husky voice. “They’re the colour of old brass.”

  I blushed. “Oh. Right. Okay.” What else was there to say? A stranger in silk robes was comparing my eyes to a rusty old trombone. Only on the train, eh?

  “What are you?” she asked, picking me apart with her prying gaze.

  Huh?

  “Um… I’m a girl,” I replied.

  Her thin lips crooked upwards into a smile. “I see that. But, what are you?”

  Okay, second try: “I’m fifteen,” I told her. “My name is Sophie Ballester.” I hoped that would suffice. I was beginning to regret that detrimental ‘hello’ smile.

  “Ah…” she mulled it over. “You’re a Ballester. I am familiar with the name.” She scrutinised me for a moment. “You have the face of a Ballester. I can see it now.”

  I smiled to myself. The woman was clearly nuts.

  “Yes,” she carried on, mostly to herself. “The brown hair… the yellow eyes…”

  I combed my fingers through my hair, self-consciously.

  “You’re heading to Phoenix Holt?” she pressed.

  “Um, yes.” I nodded. Okay, I could admit that was a little spooky. How could she have known that? Phoenix Holt wasn’t exactly a hot-spot destination. It was just hills and woodland, or so I’d been told. Though perhaps she knew the Ballester name from around those parts. After all, my grandfather’s family had grown up in Phoenix Holt. And his sister—my great aunt—still lived there. My stomach knotted at the realisation that I too would be living there.

  I gazed out the window. It was dark beyond the pane, and the shadows that whizzed by outside were eclipsed by my own reflection staring back at me. Duplicated in the small window, I looked hollow and drawn. My hair was a mess of curls, and the poor cabin lighting enhanced the sunken shadows beneath my eyes—my ‘brass eyes,’ as my new acquaintance had oh-so-charmingly pointed out.

  I looked away from myself. It only reminded me that I hadn’t seen a mirror for a few days, which in turn reminded me of why that was the case. The truth was, mirrors hadn’t exactly been top priority lately.

  I couldn’t give a figure on how long ‘lately’ had been. It had all happened in such a blur that time felt obsolete. One day everything was normal. I lived in the same house where I’d always lived, in Port Dalton, with my grandfather, Wilber, and my brothers, Sam and Todd. My routine was fixed: I woke up, I went to school, I came home, I went to bed. And I liked that. It may have sounded boring to some people, but it was my life and I liked it.

  Then one morning, everything changed. I woke up, sure, that stayed the same. Only, on this particular morning, Wilber didn’t wake up. And that was that. He was gone.

  I grieved for a long time, not even considering that, on top of everything else, I’d have to grieve for my home, also. Perhaps it was naïve of me, but for a while, I truly believed we’d stay in that house. Sam had vowed, there and then, that he would take care of us and keep our little family together. Good old Sam. I had no doubt that he would have stepped up to the plate, but at seventeen years old, social services denied him outright. The problem was, we were orphans who had no known relatives and very few family friends—none of who wanted to take in a fifteen-year-old girl and twin seventeen-year-old boys. So, just as we were beginning to resign ourselves to the devastating idea of being separated, we got the call.

  Great Aunt Ness.

  Ness was Wilber’s sister. His only living relative. The three of us had never met her, mostly because Wilber had never spoken of her, and he’d moved out of Phoenix Holt long before any of us were born. Needless to say, I was surprised to hear her offer. It was Sam who took the call, and he told us that she sounded nice. Although I couldn’t help but wonder: if she was so nice, then why did my grandfather erase her from his life as though she didn’t exist? He wasn’t the sort of person to hold a grudge, or act unreasonably, so what could have possibly happened to have caused such a rift between them?

  I had horrible visions of a dragon lady trapping us like Cinderellas in the nowhere-land of Phoenix Holt.

  “You are very troubled,” the sultry voice of the fortune teller broke through my reverie.

  I summoned a polite smile.

  She extended her hand to me. Her bracelets jangled together in a tuneful sort of way.

  Was I meant to take her hand? I didn’t. Instead, I went for the stay still and maybe I’ll disappear tactic.

  “Give,” she instructed, extending her fingers towards me.

  So much for disappearing. Reluctantly, I placed my hand on the pull-out table. The cold surface sent a shiver over my bones.

  With a delicate touch, the fortune teller lifted my hand and examined my palm. “There are…” she paused, then started again. “There are many paths for a Ballester to choose from. Many doors to be opened. It is on its way to you. The world is waiting for you to arrive.”

  Well, Phoenix Holt is waiting for me to arrive, I corrected silently.

  “The cards,” she said abruptly, her accent almost impossible to decipher when she spoke with such excitement. “Where are my cards…” She dropped my hand onto the table and began rummaging through her crochet bag.

  “Cards?” I enquired meekly.

  “Ah!” she exclaimed, producing a small, hand-carved oak box from her seemingly bottomless bag. She set the box down on the table and flipped the
lid open. Wrapped in purple silk was an oblong deck of cards, the top card’s surface illustrated by a snake’s eye.

  I withdrew at the sight.

  The fortune teller tossed the silk aside and began shuffling the cards.

  I stared down at the now-empty box on the table. It juddered slightly with the uneven movement of the train.

  “Three cards,” she told me, casting her gaze upon me with unnerving intensity.

  “Three cards?” I repeated.

  “Past, present, and future.”

  “I don’t know about this. I’m not sure I—”

  My protests were cut short by her thrusting the deck into my hands. “Shuffle,” she ordered.

  I obliged. The smooth cards were dog-eared and bent from a lifetime of use. I let the silken deck slip in and out of my fingers as I shuffled.

  “How long do I have to do this for?” I asked.

  “You’ll know.”

  “Oh.” I paused. “So… does now seem like a good time to stop?”

  “Does it?” she shot back.

  “Um… does it?”

  “Does it?” she returned.

  “I think… yes?” I ventured.

  “When you are ready,” she gestured to the table, “lay down three cards.”

  I wouldn’t exactly say that I was ready, but I set out three cards face down on the table-top.

  The fortune teller tapped the first card before turning it over. When I caught sight of the illustration, my heart skipped a beat. It was a black tombstone with a flock of ravens hovering above it.

  “Death,” she said.

  I gulped. Just the card everyone was dying to see. No pun intended.

  She noticed my stricken expression and carried on. “Death is symbolic of change. There has been great change in your life. Yes?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed.

  “Of course there has been. The truth never lies.” She began muttering to herself in an unfamiliar language. “Now for your present…” She flipped the centre card.

  The image was more bearable this time: a woman with flowing blonde hair, releasing a goldfinch into the sky.

  “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “Destiny,” she told me. “Your destiny shall be fulfilled. But not only yours—the destiny of the bird also. Your actions will free another.”

  I frowned. “So, I have to set a bird free?”

  “No, no, no.” She wagged her finger at me. “The bird is symbolic.” She moved on swiftly, turning over the final card. “Future.”

  This card was my favourite, though perhaps the strangest of all. The image showed a man drinking from a silver chalice. Behind him stood a beautiful angel, lit by a shaft of bright light.

  “Sacrifice,” the fortune teller said. “In the end, you will sacrifice yourself to save the one you love.”

  I stiffened. “Sacrifice myself?” I echoed.

  “Yes.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes,” she said sharply.

  I wrinkled my nose. “I’d rather not.”

  “No. You must sacrifice,” she reproached me. “Sacrifice is good.”

  The volume of her brisk rebuke evidently woke my sleeping brothers. Or one of them, at least.

  “What the…?” Sam garbled with a groggy slur. “Who are you?” he demanded. The bunk above me creaked as he rolled over, hanging over the edge to glare at the intruder.

  “My name is Pandora,” the fortune teller said evenly.

  I craned my neck to look up at Sam. His face was contorted in reaction to the sudden influx of artificial light. A few strands of copper-brown hair fell tousled above his eyes—his brass-coloured eyes. I watched as he lowered his gaze to the oak box on the table.

  “What’s in the box, Pandora?” he asked.

  “The truth,” she replied.

  He snorted.

  “Maybe you are curious as to what the future holds for you?” she cajoled.

  Sam laughed loudly, waking up Todd in the bunk opposite. “Nah,” he said. “You can keep all that witchy, mumbo-jumbo junk. I think I’ll take my chances with the future.”

  Todd peered over the edge of his bunk, then rolled back without a word. I hadn’t expected Todd to comment. Despite his identical appearance to Sam, Todd wasn’t quite as outspoken as his counterpart—or as forthright, for that matter. Todd tended to take a back seat, whereas Sam chose to drive.

  “As you wish,” said Pandora.

  While Sam fidgeted restlessly in his bunk, I couldn’t help but think about the cards. I thought of the eternal riddle that was the future, and wondered if the future would perhaps turn out to be something that I’d live to regret.

  #

  The Phoenix Holt train station was just as desolate and forsaken as I’d imagined it to be. There was nothing: no coffee shop, no kiosk, no people. Just one lone platform, sheltered by a worn tin roof and a few weathered trees.

  Sam dumped his rucksack on the ground. “This sucks,” he groused. “There’s not even a road.”

  I leaned against a tall, black lamppost, gazing out at the interlacing train tracks. It was daylight now, though only just. We’d travelled through the night and I was tired. Tired and therefore rapidly losing the morsel of gusto that’d kept me going up until then.

  Todd placed his duffel bag on the pavement. “Maybe there’s a bus station,” he said quietly.

  Sam rolled his eyes. “What, is the bus going to come ploughing down the footpath?” he scoffed. “Don’t be dumb, Todd. There’s no road.”

  “Then we’ll walk,” I suggested. “Ness gave you directions, didn’t she?” I looked at Sam, vaguely recalling him jotting down notes with the house phone propped to his ear.

  Sam mumbled something, then dug through his jeans pockets. He pulled out a small scrap of notebook paper, unfolded it, and plonked himself onto Todd’s rucksack to flatten out the creases.

  “Sam,” Todd bemoaned. “Don’t sit on my bag!” He shoved Sam’s shoulder with both hands.

  “Shh,” Sam brushed him off. “I’m trying to concentrate.” He stared intently at the notebook paper.

  I peered over his shoulder. There was a series of words scribbled chaotically across the page. Somewhat hesitantly, I took a shot at reading Sam’s handwriting. “Head down from the tom stallion—”

  “Train station,” he corrected me brusquely.

  “Oh, sorry. Head down from the train station towards the lowland. Follow the pole—”

  “Path,” Sam snapped. “Follow the path.”

  I went on, “Follow the path through the woods until we reach the college.”

  “Not college,” Sam huffed in irritation. “Cottage. Cott-age.”

  “Sorry, the cottage.”

  Sam crumpled the paper into a ball and stuffed it back into his pocket. “We need to head into the woods.”

  Todd hovered around the lamppost, his eyes fixed on his bag as it bowed and malformed beneath Sam’s weight.

  I looked back and forth between them. It was uncanny seeing them together. They were identical down to the very last detail. Everything from the matching strands of reddish-brown hair that swept across their brows, to the straight noses, to the mouths that twitched up at the corner when they smiled. Yes, they were mirror images. But even so, I still struggled to understand why people had such trouble distinguishing between them. I could admit, their features were identical, but their mannerisms were poles apart. Sam was reckless, like a whirlwind of words and movement. Todd, on the other hand, was timid and cautious. My grandfather used to call Sam a loose cannon, and he’d once let slip that he thought Sam was the most difficult of all three of us. I don’t think Sam liked that. And honestly, I think it made him worse.

  “I’ve got fragile things in that bag,” Todd moaned. “You’re going to break them.”

  Sam let out a strangled groan. “Give it a rest, Todd. I’m sitting on your bag. Get over it.”

  “My telescope’s in there,” Todd carped on. “If it’s da
maged, you’re buying me a new one.”

  Sam laughed blithely. “Yeah, right!” He bounced up and down on the bag for good measure.

  Todd cringed. “Wait ’til I tell Wilber about—” His words stopped mid-flow. Of course, we wouldn’t be telling Wilber about anything anymore.

  That silenced us all.

  Sam stood up sharply. “Fine. Just take your stupid bag,” he said. He slung his own rucksack over his shoulder and set off into the thick of trees.

  Todd rescued his rucksack and clutched it to his chest protectively as he marched after Sam.

  I lingered behind, trailing them like a ghost, lost in my own thoughts.

  We walked on like that for almost an hour. We stuck to formation as we moved downhill through the woodland, following what we hoped was the path. Actually, as far as paths go, this one was rather ambiguous. It wasn’t so much of a path as a faint hint of trampled-down undergrowth, weaving through the sycamores as it crept down the slope.

  I slid out of my jacket and tied it around my waist. It was a mild day for September—not hot, but not cold either. The leaves on the trees were bronzed with the first traces of autumn, and some lay scattered over the ground like crisp red moats circling the broad tree trunks.

  A light breeze wound through my hair and brushed against my bare arms. That same breeze lifted a leaf from the ground and sent it tumbling along the path until it was swept beneath Sam’s feet.

  Sam glanced down, and then kicked the leaf aside. When he looked up again, his focus travelled away from the path.

  “Hey,” he said, signalling for us to stop, “look at that.”

  Todd and I followed his gaze. One of the trees had been stripped of its branches and bark, and carved into the shape of a bird. The detail of its long tail feathers was so precise that for a split second I thought it was real. And even after my double take, something about the bird’s hollow eyes seemed vividly alive, staring me down with watchful intrigue.

  “There’s the phoenix of the holt,” Sam remarked. He shifted the position of his rucksack before continuing along the path.