Chapter 3

It took another day, and what felt like a million schools later to find the school in the picture. But I found it, the school in the picture is the Wilbur Cross High School in Newhaven Connecticut, we found where Aidan went to school. And this school is huge, there are over 1600 students in this school, where I graduated out of Raineir High School we had 300 in the entire school! This is gonna be one heck of a trip. Lexi is all set to take time off and come with me too, but this is something I really have to do on my own. Plus I really need to find out what I can really do, and I can't do that with her around.

My flight is set to leave in two days, and I have a lot to do before that happens.

"Kenna, are you sure you don't want me to come with you, I can?"

"I know you could Lexi, and I promise if I need you for anything I will call, I just really want to do this on my own. I have a lot of questions, and I am kinda lost right now and need this time to figure a lot of things out. I love you girl, and I will call you and let you know what is going on. I promise."

The girls hugged and Lexi watched as I got on my plane, and I can't help but feel that things are never going to be the same again.

I cannot believe how big the Wilbur Cross High School is, someone could easily get lost in here. It only took me 15 minutes to find the office, and I am pretty proud of myself for that, but I really am not too sure what I am suppose to ask, or if the school would even give me information. Well, I have to try; I didn't come all this way for nothing. Sitting behind the front desk is an elderly, pleasant looking woman so maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

"Hello there, how may I help you miss?"

"Well, um, actually, .." And I just spilled my guts. I left out the elemental part of course, but I told the women everything that had happened, how I had been given a folder of information on my family, that I had four siblings out in the world I never knew about, and the only lead I had was a picture taken in front of this school of one of my brothers.

"Well, that is quite a tale miss, you said your name was Kenna?"

"Yes, sorry to just blurt all that out, I just don't know how to go about doing this."

"Not at all, my name is Mrs. Stevens. Let me see if there is anything we can do to help. You. Understand I can't give you personal information on any of our students, but if you will let me see that picture I might be able to at least give you a name." I gave the picture to Mrs. Stevens and immediately I knew that she recognized the boy in the picture. "Oh yes, I can very well give you a name, besides if you looked you would find it on the wall with his picture just down the hall. That is Aidan Clark, he was a very bright boy, almost like there was this fire in him that no one could put out. Graduated top of his class even. I might be able to make this even easier on you. I am friends with his parents, but I can't give you their information you understand."

"Yes."

"Well, if you would leave me your name and a number I can reach you at, I can see if I can arrange a meeting with his parents. He isn't around here anymore, gone off to school, but maybe they could help you. They are great people."

Is it really going to be this easy? Hopefully his parents will talk to me. Then maybe I can find some answers. "Yes, absolutely, here is my contact info and the hotel I am staying at. Please let me know if you need anything else."

"Well, they are working right now, but I will call them tonight and see if we can't maybe work something out for tomorrow night."

"Oh my gosh, thank you thank you thank you. You don't know how much I appreciate this." I left in great spirits. I just have to wait for Mrs. Stevens to call me. Of course that gives me 24 hours of nothing to do, but I have actually found something out about my brother, and his name is still Aidan. Oh I might actually get to meet one of my brothers soon!! And Mrs. Stevens said he has a fire inside him, I wonder if that is what he has inside him literally?

Mrs. Stevens got back to me just before eight, and it is arranged for me to meet Mr. & Mrs. Clark at a local restaurant with Mrs. Stevens. Oh I really hope it goes well. I am really excited and scared at the same time; anything could happen tomorrow, but hopefully it would all be good.

I got to the restaurant at a quarter to 8. I am so nervous I couldn't even open the car door. This is it, ok Kenna all or nothing, well not all, but most. I see Mrs. Stevens by the door with two people, they have to be Mr. & Mrs. Clark, and they look kinda nervous too. Well here goes nothing.

"Hello, h h how are you? My name is Kenna LaClaire."

"Hello, Ms. LaClaire, we are good, and how are you?" Mrs. Clark spoke in a soft voice; as if she is unsure about this whole thing, of course I am too. But here we are. And they are the best bet I have for finding Aidan.

"I am ok." We stood in silence until Mrs. Stevens suggested we go in and eat. This is turning out to be one of the most awkward moments of my life.

Dinner was slightly less so, but still there was definitely a tension in the air, and no one brought up Aidan, it was as if his name was taboo. But Mrs. Stevens tried to keep conversation going, but small talk wasn't all that easy to keep going.

After dinner Mrs. Stevens excused herself, and the Clark's invited me over to their house, as we haven't even brought up Aidan and it would be better done in a more private place.

Following them to their house I was able to get myself even more nervous than before, but at dinner they really seemed like nice people, they were just scared. So hopefully I was reading them correctly and they really were just scared and everything would be fine.

Please come in and have a seat Kenna, I will get us all something to drink." I watched as Mrs. Clark walked out of the room and Mr. Clark took a seat in a recliner, He seems to be studying me and I don't know if he likes what he is seeing, I can't wait for Mrs. Clark to get back, I feel like I am in the hot seat and don't know what put me there. Mrs. Clark has a way of making people feel comfortable and I could really use that right now.

"Here you are dear, I hope you like ice tea."

"This is fine thank you."

"Ok, we have been skipping over this all evening; let's just get it over with!" Mr. Clark said. And honestly I couldn't agree more.

"Harold, stop that, can't you tell she is as uncomfortable as we are about this whole thing!"

"No, it's ok Mrs. Clark; I agree with him I just don't know where to start. This whole thing is a real shock to me, and I am kinda lost. I didn't even know I had a brother until a few days ago."

After that Mr. Clark just sat and listened to us talk, but he still seems pretty hesitant about the entire thing. "Oh my dear, you didn't know you were adopted?"

"That's just it Mrs. Clark, I wasn't adopted."

The look of shock that passed between the Clark's was priceless. "What do you mean you weren't adopted. Your biological parent's raised you?"

"No, my grandmother raised me."

"Oh, and she didn't keep Aidan too?" You can see the disapproval written all over their faces.

"She wanted to, but the courts wouldn't let her. You see our parents died in a car crash, and well I don't know if you know this but there were five of us."

"Oh, we didn't know that. Honestly we never really looked into where Aidan came from, we just fell in love with him and he was our son from then on."

"I am really glad he found a family that loves him so much, I hope the others got to have that also."

"Kenna, may I call you Kenna?"

"Yes."

"If your grandmother raised you, how come you just found out about Aidan?"

"Granny passed away a few months back, and she never spoke about our family, I think it was just too hard for her. I really just want to know Aidan, not knowing you have a family and then to learn you do, I just want to be a part of a family…" and I continued to tell them my story. When I was done Mrs. Clark was crying and Mr. Clark was actually more pleasant, he seemed to sympathize some with me.

"Oh my gosh dear that is horrible. So she just didn't tell you about your family because she wasn't allowed to contact them? Oh my to lose so much of your family so quickly, your pore grandmother, that had to have been so hard on her."

"Thank you, I know she meant well by not telling me, but it has been hard, I really don't have anyone to help me understand this, and she was the last of my family and now I don't have her, so I really am just kinda well lost, and now I really want to know my family probably because I don't have any now."

"Oh I understand, it just kinda came as a shock when we found out you were here out of the blue."

"I understand and I am so sorry about that, I didn't know anything about you guys. All I had to go on was this picture my Granny left of Aidan, and it just happened to have the school behind it, so a friend of mine helped me track down schools in the area until we found the one that matched Wilbur Cross."

"That's ok dear, you said you had a picture of Aidan, may I see it?"I brought out my folder on Aidan, and just handed it to her.

"This is everything Granny found out about Aidan, not much really, but I put some pictures of our mother and father in there, and the court order that sent all of us to different homes, and a picture of Aidan. He looks just like our father."

"Oh my your right, he is the spitting image of your father, there is no doubt at all that this is Aidan's biological father, and you look so much like your mother, honestly the moment we saw you we knew you were his sister, you do look alike. I know he favors your father and you your mother, but the resemblance is still there. It is just hard because he is our baby."

"I know that, and I don't want to take anything away from you guys I just want to know him. I never got to have a mother or a father, I mean I had Granny and she was amazing and I loved her and now miss her so much, but there was something missing, and I just wish I could have known them."

"Well, Aidan isn't actually around here, he lives in Hawaii, in Hilo actually. He is finishing up his masters to be a Volcanologist at the University of Hawaii. He loves it over there."

"He is studying Volcanoes?"

"Oh yes, he loves it, he can go on and on for hours about them."

Interesting, he loves a fire element. Big guess there as to what he has. "Doesn't that scare you that he works around those things?"

"No, he has a way around them that puts me at ease. Where I get so nervous around them, he seems to be more centered around them. It is where he should be." Mr. Clark seems to be getting more and more uncomfortable the more we talked about Aidan's work. I wonder if they know, and if they do how do I broach that subject or should I even try to talk to them about it?

We spent the next two hours just talking about Aidan and myself, but any time the conversation got around fire Mr. Clark would subtly steer it a different direction. They know, I am sure they know but I don't know how to bring it up. But it is getting pretty late anyway, "I still have so many questions, is there any way I can come by tomorrow?"

"Of course dear, we will be home all day, so whenever you feel like it stop by. I will try and get a hold of Aidan tomorrow also and see where he is at with possibly meeting you, we did call him yesterday when we heard you were here, so he is probably waiting to hear from us."

"Oh that would be great, I hope he wants to meet me. Well I will see you both tomorrow. Thank you so much for everything."

"Your welcome, have a good night."

This morning I thought I would check out the town my brother is from. It also gives the Clark's some space as we were up really late last night and they needed time to discuss everything without me around. They seemed like really nice people and I know they know about Aidan's fire gift, but do I try and talk to them about it, or just wait until I meet Aidan? Man I am still on shaky ground, and if I place one foot wrong it could come crumbling down. And do I really want them to know about me? I mean I just really found out about me, do I need strangers knowing too? Well, they are my brother's parents and they have kept his secret, but I don't know. I mean they don't know me, so why would they keep a secret like that about someone they don't know? I think silence would be the best for now, but maybe someday soon I will actually have someone I can talk to about all this.

It was just before lunch that I made it back to the Clarks, and we had a nice meal together. They had gotten a hold of Aidan and he is open to meeting me, but there is no way he could come back to the main land for a while. But I am welcome to come out to Hawaii. Which of course I will do, good thing my work loves me so much and let me take a three month leave!! The Clark's and I talked more about my child hood and Aidan's and had a great afternoon, but I left the subject of fire alone. I really am not ready to give my secret away and they seemed more than content to hide Aidan's. They did give me Aidan's address in Hawaii as well, so next step is to check flights and see when I could get over there to see my brother!!!!