Chapter 15

Stirring in my sleep of a heavyweight on my stomach; squatting, them away, but a giggle comes out. Knowing who it is, I still go, which makes her upset, then she tries to tickle me until she's leaning over me when I attack. Tickling Jess as she squirms out of my grasp; laughing at how she struggles before letting her go. We lay until she has her breathing under control. Once she does, we get up.

"Can we paint the room today?", she asks.

"Yeah, but ask Maya if she could text her brother to see if he could help.", I tell her.

She nods and runs off to find Maya, changing into some old clothes so I wouldn't have to worry about getting paint for them before heading towards Jess's room to do the same. Picking out her oldest and semi-liked outfit, then taking everything that I can take out without needing help, outside the room where it's not in the way. Tj and Zane come in and take out the heavy objects while Brandon tapes off the outlets, baseboards, and anything else; while Maya and Jess set up the paints. Before I could do anything, Zane turned to me and said, "We got this. Why don't you get everything ready for your classes."

"Why can't I help?", I ask.

"Mama, I want my room to be a surprise for you!", Jess yells out happily.

"Okay, but did you eat?", I answer, then ask.

"Yeah! I ate cereal after I asked Maya.", she answers.

Heading to the living room, grabbing the book on Reda Bahar Phoenix to see if I can't find out more about her; if I know a little more about her, then I'll be able to understand the family history better. With that in mind, I keep the book in my hand, before lopping myself on the couch and begin reading about Reda Bahar Phoenix. Reda Bahar is a transgender woman who's also an ice phoenix. Reda loved animals more than she loved people because she knew people caused more harm than good; Reda was born in 1976 on January 25. She wasn't like the rest of her family; she was more. Because she was transgender, her family pretended like she didn't exist; which lead them to take the phoenix gene out of her.

So, my family is fucked up, got it; let's continue reading. They took the phoenix gene when she reached the age of fourteen, but because she was the only ice phoenix, the gene couldn't simply be taken out fully. Extracting, the ice phoenix, left marks on her; the marks only started showing when she became eighteen. They didn't like the fact that she had marks of the phoenix; the marks of the phoenix only came on females.

Makes sense why Tj was asking what was on my face; so what are the marks though? Are there other spots for those marks to appear and where? So many questions, I dive back into the book; There are three key places the marks appear, the face, the hands, and forearm, or the whole body; what they didn't know was that was the marks of an ice phoenix was the full-body, unlike the other phoenixes, where the marks were on the face or the hands and forearms. The marks dot, lines, and designs, but because there are four types of phoenixes, fire, water, ice, and earth. She is the rare type of phoenix; ice fire. Fire phoenixes have the mark on the face and a flower tattoo sleeve, water has a flower tattoo on the collarbone, earth as just has the full-body marks, and the ice as the full-body marks, flower tattoo sleeve and collar bone along with bat-like ears, while the rest have elf-like ears.

Recap, Reda is a transgender woman, an ice and fire phoenix, has marks, and batlike ears. That doesn't explain wings, though. There was to be more. When Reda reached twenty-five, her family finally disowned her, so she used her middle name as her last name. Before I could read anymore, Zane came out.

"How is it going?", I ask.

"It's going well; how about your research?", he answers then asks.

"Decent, I'm hoping to find the wings.", I said.

He walks over and looks at the book before looking up at me. Tilting my head, he answers my unasked question, "There's no more text."

Looking down at the book, I see that there's more text but I say nothing; giving him a shy smile, but he just shrugs his shoulders before heading back inside the room. Once I heard the door shut, I looked at the book; If you are reading this part, you are a part of my old family or you are from my cousin's family; my name is Reda Bahar Phoenix and I'm about to tell you about the curse I put on my family. Only a true phoenix could break the curse no matter how many years go by; here it is, "The one to break the curse was born with no family but yet makes one with little to no help. This person has a pure heart but also has pain. One who will learn more and give back more than receive more, tortured and beaten, mistreated for being nothing more than a half-ling but befriends more creatures than anyone could know. Learn to adapt to those around you; you will know who you are because we are similar then they may think. Fear for loved ones shows three sets of wings that go well with our bat ears. Welcome to the new age!"

Closing the book, I recite the curse, "The one to break the curse was born with no family but yet makes one with little to no help. This person has a pure heart but also has pain. One who will learn more and give back more than receive more, tortured and beaten, mistreated for being nothing more than a half-ling but befriends more creatures than anyone could know. Learn to adapt to those around you; you will know who you are because we are similar then they may think. Fear for loved ones shows three sets of wings that go well with our bat ears. Welcome to the new age."

Going over it once again but stopping after the first line, 'born with no family yet makes one with little to no help. This person has a pure heart but also has the pain.' I was born without a family but made one. But there're others who also have this happen. 'one who will learn more and give back more than receive more, tortured and beaten, mistreated for being nothing more than a half-ling but befriends more creatures than anyone could know.' I'm the only one who's a half-ling.