Blaze (The High-Born Epic) (12 page)

             
Willie wrinkled his brow, “Well, sometimes women just act funny, son.  They get all emotional and what not.  Come by to see her in a couple of days, she’ll be fine by then.”

             
“Yes, sir, Mr. Willie,” Harold said as he opened the door.  “You have a good day, sir.”

             
“You too, son,” Willie waved.

             
She’s scared of me
.  Harold thought. 
She knew I was coming by, and she’s just pulling her pa’s leg so she doesn’t have to see me
.  Harold looked up at the sky, took a deep breath and shook his head.  As he looked over the circle and loitering townsfolk, his irritation at the situation gave him a surge of energy.  In spite of plowing the field that morning, Harold felt vigorous. 

             
He was a little upset at Sarah. 

             
He couldn’t help what had happened yesterday, and if it hadn’t happened Ollie would’ve been dead and he probably would’ve gotten hurt really bad if not died himself.  Harold thought that she was being loose-headed about it, and unfair to him.  But if she didn’t want to see him, he wasn’t going to bother her.

             
Harold jogged home, and didn’t pay attention to the people looking at him.

             
When he arrived at home, he ran into his room and changed into the overalls he got from Jim.  Then, he took off for the woods before anyone had a chance to talk to him.

             
Harold felt very energetic as he moved across the field and into the forest.  He walked quite a ways into the woods, and found a relatively open spot.  The trees around him were pine and oak and there were even a couple of cedar saplings.  The foliage was thick in all directions and there was even a decent canopy above him to shield him from above as well.   Harold looked around, and listened for a moment.  After a few glances, he decided that he was alone. 

             
“Okay,” Harold said to himself.  “Let’s see what I can do.”

             
He took a quick step and jumped as hard as he could.  He rocketed into the air, much faster and higher than he had expected, and he let out a surprised yelp.  He felt something hit him in the head and he heard a loud crack.  Whatever had hit him knocked him off balance and he lost his sense of direction.  He plummeted back to the ground, landing flat on his back, spewing out air as he hit.  He didn’t know why, but a large, thick pine limb crashed down beside him; the outer branches whipped down onto him and broke all around him.

             
He sat up, pushing and knocking the limb away.  He rubbed his head, and grimaced.  He looked up.  The limb hadn’t hit him.  He had hit it.  Not only had he hit it, but he also had enough momentum to break it too.  The part of the limb that had broken was as big as his arm, and it wasn’t rotten either.

             
“I really come off the ground hard,” Harold said.  “That’s got to be two or three times as high as I stand.”

             
Harold had seen High-Born jump before, and even they would’ve had trouble making that leap.  Harold smiled, he didn’t know what had happened to him, but he liked it.
 

             
This is going to be fun
, Harold thought.

             
He began looking for other branches that were about the same height, but a little larger than the one he had broken.  After several candidates, he found the right one.  It looked strong enough to hold him without snapping.  Harold rubbed his hands together and slightly widened his feet.  He brought his arms back, and leapt for it.  As he was flying toward it, he yelped.  He flew completely over it, and hit the branch above it like a child running into a clothesline.  He began tumbling backwards, and he heard a loud thud and felt a blow on the back of his head and his momentum was suddenly slung forward.  He was completely off balance, falling head first.  It all flashed through his mind so quickly, he was afraid he would break his neck if he hit the ground like he was falling.  He felt extremely hot as he threw his hands in front of his face.

             
He heard thunder, and saw a flash of fire.  Suddenly, he was about twenty or thirty feet above the treetops and falling.  He yelped again, and then he was crashing through tree tops.  Harold hit branch after branch as he tumbled head over heels through the trees.  He had time to notice that he was on fire again as another limb caught his legs and sent him flipping, and then he crashed into the ground.

             
Everything went black.

             
He looked around, and all he could see was darkness.  As he turned, he could see the stars of the night sky around him.  He realized that he was moving very fast, and the stars zoomed by him.  He looked ahead and he could see the moon, and he turned again.  He saw rolling storm clouds full of flickering lightning.  Then, fire was blazing around him.  He could hear a baby crying, and the scenery of the forest sped by him.  He immediately came to a stop, and he could see himself lying on the ground.

             
Harold slowly opened his eyes, and he lay on the ground for a moment.  He expected massive pain.  The fall had knocked the breath out of him, and it did hurt, but no more than if Cooper had accidentally walloped him while sword-fighting with sticks.  Every bone in his body should’ve been broken, but they weren’t.  He quickly jumped to his feet when he noticed that he was on fire.  Blue fire was near the skin and red fire farther away from him.  He started blowing on his hands, trying to put them out. 

             
It didn’t work.

             
He noticed that the leaves at his feet were starting to catch fire, and the tree he had fallen through had several small fires up and down it.  To make things worse, his overalls were also in ashes at his feet.  He didn’t know what to do, and he was afraid that he was going to burn all of Foxx Hole down by accident if he didn’t do something quick. 

             
A sudden calm came over him, and he saw the stars and moon again.  Lightning and fire flashed in his mind, and the image of the burning pytheel forced its way into his thoughts.  He staggered backwards, and shook his head.

             
The fire was acting like I felt
, he thought.

             
He concentrated on the flames in the tree. 

             
For a few seconds, he felt nothing, and then he perceived the fire around him in a way that was unlike anything he’d ever experienced.  It was another sense all together.                The fire was an extension of him.

             
He reached for the fire in the tree, calling it to him.  The individual blazes suddenly leapt from the tree as if they were alive and came to him as a dog answering its master’s call.  The flames coalesced into a small, fiery orb that hovered above his hand.  He looked at it for a moment and could feel something coming out of him that was feeding it.  It was strange, but he simply knew how to shut it off.

             
The small fireball snuffed out of existence.

             
Then he looked around.  The fire that had begun at his feet had spread through the dead leaves rather quickly, and it just a few more moments it would be severe.  It had radiated out from him in a near circle, and he was standing in the center of it.  He concentrated, reaching with his mind, as extended his hand out in front of himself.  The flames behind him circled and spiraled around his body to meet the flames in front of him, both jets of fire converging into one large fireball.  He turned his palm over and regarded the popping fireball…  He held it there for a moment… then he released it.

             
However, he was still burning furiously.  Thankfully, there was only moist dirt directly around him now, so the immediate threat of a forest fire was over.  He searched with this newfound sense until he found the source of the fire.  It was coming from within him, all throughout him, and all around him, all at the same time.  It was a little more difficult to shut these flames down, and he failed on his first attempt.  He was puzzled.                Then it came to him.

             
Harold placed his hands in front of himself and created a space in between them.  Then he focused his thoughts on that spot.  At first, nothing happened.  Then, the fire on his chest leapt toward that point and he pulled on them.  It was as if the flames were a bed sheet draped over him, sliding from both his head and feet toward the center of his body, and then contorting and twisting in on itself until it became a small iridescent, blue flame that he held in the space between his palms. 

             
It was so beautiful that Harold just looked at it.  The blue flames were actually reflecting the surrounding scenery.  It was like a sparkling mirror made of blue flames.  It was almost hypnotic.  He stood there, rolling it around, watching the glimmering blue fire always reach for the sky no matter which direction he turned it.  He stared for about a minute and then remembered that he was naked.

             
Then, he extinguished the luminous blaze.

             
“Well,” he said as he looked down at his unclothed body.  “Wonder how I’m gonna’ explain this.”

Chapter 9

              Harold peeked around the tree.  Only the field separated him from the barn.  He looked across the open area toward Foxx Hole.  Children were playing everywhere, and the surrounding fields were full of plowing farmers.  There was no way he could make it across the field without being seen.  He had managed to find some large ferns that did a decent job of making him modest, but he would have still been embarrassed to be seen in this condition.

             
He thought for a few minutes while watching for anyone coming toward the woodline.  He knew he could run very fast now, and if he waited until the right moment, he might actually make it across the field without anyone seeing him.  It was quite a distance away though.

             
“I wonder if I can disappear and reappear like I did at the river and a little while ago?” he whispered to himself.

             
He thought about the river.  He had moved the distance without even thinking about it.  He had just simply needed to do it.  When he was tumbling through the tree, he had been scared of the ground, and had just wanted to get away from it.  Whatever the disappearing and reappearing was, it had happened almost by instinct.  Harold pondered for a few moments.  There had been a great deal of danger involved in the other two events, but there wasn’t any danger here, just embarrassment.  However, he had learned to consciously control the flames just a moment ago, so he didn’t think there was any reason that he couldn’t learn to control this as well.

             
But first he wanted to practice.  He stood up and walked back into the woods.  Once he had found a good spot, he looked farther down the woods to a point that was fairly open about twenty-five or thirty yards away.  He focused his thoughts on the center of the open area. 

             
Nothing happened.  He spun around, changing his position.  Nothing happened.  He reached out with his hand.  Nothing happened.

             
“Boom!” he said, while flinging open his arms.

             
He didn’t move an inch.  Then, he tried for a few more minutes with no more luck than he had already experienced.

             
“This is going to be tougher than I thought,” he said to himself.

             
He found a tree to sit against, and he sat there until he no longer felt frustrated.  Then, he closed his eyes.  He began taking deep breaths, and soon he felt calm.  He listened to his surroundings.  He could hear the birds chirping… the wind blowing… the leaves rustling… the children of Foxx Hole playing in the distance… he heard a forest critter,
probably a squirrel
, running far to his left. 

             
When he could hear his heart beating, he reached for source of the fire.  It was all around him, and yet it came from within him as well.  He could make himself start flaming now if he wanted, but he didn’t.  It was strange: on some level, he had been aware of this sense his entire life, but had just ignored it.  He was part of something larger.  The air… the earth… it was all the same… he felt that he could move through it without actually walking.