Fireball

"I won't presume to understand what you must feel, but maybe the fire was already alight and your spirit protected you, I'm sure you would have protected them if you could," John tried to comfort.

"Maybe, but that's just guessing," she replied. Beneath her jovial exterior she doesn't think that highly of herself.

"Can you show me?" John said without thinking.

"Didn't you hear anything I just said," she turned furiously.

"We are in an open field, so nothing will catch fire." John said indicating the clearing.

"What if I burn you," she asked.

"The old man wasn't lying, you elementalists really do care for your surroundings." John muttered, "Relax."

John tried to calm her. He explained that magicians had to have alot of faith in themselves and that she should try to borrow a page from their book and have some faith in herself.

"I trust you, someone who can pick up a stranger on the side of the road, treat their wounds, cook for them, prepare baths for them cannot be such a bad person. But most of all trust your spirit. Think about how it must feel to be thought of so poorly by it's partner." John said putting his hands up.

"I..." she couldn't find the words to argue against him.

"I mean from your story the spirit will emerge when you are scared, what will it do when you're scared of it." he continued tilting his head to one side, "you don't have to use it to do anything, you just have to bring it out, phoenixes don't exist where I am from."

"Oh that's what you want, you want to "sight see" my spirit?" she said making air quotes.

"No, but that got you relaxed didn't it?" he replied smugly.

"Aargh, if I knew you were this annoying I would have left you on the side of the road." she said walking towards the middle of the clearing, "just so you know I am not doing this for you."

"Whatever makes you sleep better at night." he said laughing.

"This may take some time since I have never communed with it." she said clasping her hands.

John thought it would take a long time to summon the fire spirit and so did she but as soon as she started chanting sparks, moving in a circle and rapidly increased in size . A giant sphere the size of car. John shouted at her that it was impressive how fast she could summon it. He was standing in front of her.

"I haven.t summoned it yet." she replied without looking behind her. Couldn't feel its heat, he thought as he told her to look behind. The size of it shocked her and she immediately jumped back and unclasped her hands. She felt that for a first summon it was too big and tried to put it away but it remained there. It look like a small sun.

"See, I knew this was gonna happen," she said pointing at it and throwing her hands up. She turned back and pointed at him, "I shouldn't have listened to you."

It just floated there and the grass on the ground was becoming charred but it wasn't on fire.

"How do you summon your other spirits?" John asked, he was maybe in over his head.

"You commune, then you summon them, then you can ask them to do something." putting it simply.

"You didn't finish summoning it, did you? You stopped halfway through when you jumped back scared, try finishing." She almost punched him," you have listened to me this far so just try it. Whats the worst that could happen?"

She clasped her hands once again and begun the summoning chant but nothing happened. She finished and opened her eyes and approached. It started to shrink steadily and then stopped and split apart. Ash poured from the sphere whose color faded the more it emptied and itself turned to ash and fell on the charred grass.

"Whats the worst that could happen?" she said seething, "you are a scourge." she said poking his chest with her fore finger.

"Ow, I'm injured remember and look again." he said pointing to the ash.

A red flame started to burn and grew bigger till it was the size of a soccer ball with a burst it turned into a bird and darted around her. It seemed happy.

"What you summoned was an egg, it must have gone back into its shell after being dormant for so long, I think."

It's eyes were the color glowing metal, the head had a little mo-hawk. The bird had a long tail and was made of bright red flame from its running through the back and to its mo-hawk and wings. The front was made of dull red flames. It was spectacular. John held up his hand and it landed on his arm like in the movies. It had a gentle warmth then looked at John. He indicated that she should up her arm and it landed there. She chuckled and tears started streaming from her eyes and the bird touched its head to her cheek.

"You should give it a name." he said.

"Its a spirit not a pet." she said with her voice all emotional.

"I'll call it Fireball" he said simply ignoring her. "Now, can you heal me?"

"Really? Right now I can't even have this moment. You are selfish and annoying." she said and started to head towards where the basket was. She packed everything neatly and started to head home.

"Oh, come on. I was joking." said a shocked John but she didn't turn around, and continued walking with the bird in tow. "Hey wait, you know I can't run."

The bird was gliding slowly above her head. Its tail was opened and closed as it rose and fell occasionally landing on her shoulder. A strong wind begun to blow and her hat fell over. What a sight, John thought seeing how her hair had turned red like the bird. She picked it up and begun to hum and Fireball flew around the trees and at one point it rose very high and on its way down with the wings closed it looked like a comet. That would have been a better name,John thought. She was clearly happy she even skipped once then stopped and looked back embarrassed.

By the time they got to the house the wind was stronger and clouds hung in the skies. The old man was sitting in his regular chair and was a little surprised to see Fireball. She looked at him smiled then walked into the kitchen.

"She's still not talking to me but she is no longer angry," he said nodding, "can i assume that was your handy work? I told you there had to be purpose to you coming here."

"You should have seen it," John said, " oh and you should talk to her." John was learning down by the fireplace since the fire had yet to be lit. Fireball flew in from the kitchen stopping momentarily in front of the fireplace. It looked at John and then blew a small fireball into on the fire igniting it.

Yep, Fireball was the better name, John thought.

URSULA

While John was lighting fires and naming spirits Ursula had come up with her plan. She even stopped by a bookstore to buy a binder. When she got home that evening she quickly said Hi Carol, grabbed some water from the fridge and made her way to John's room. She was going to categorize everything in John's room in a way that she could understand. This was already half done since the room was very neatly organized. She stood in the middle of the room to decide where she would begin and in what priority she would classify everything. There had to be something in the room that would help her find him. Above the reading table were two shelves which mostly had school books.

There was a book with the words canvas ideas for school written on it. There was nothing spectacular in it despite names of different locations and other incomplete sentences. She marked it as mid level priority. She was planning to look through his canvases to see which of these locations had actually been drawn and visit the ones that hadn't been drawn just in case.

There were many things which she marked low priority such as his toys. Carol had caller her a few times for dinner but she was too absorbed in messing up the room. She wondered if John would have any reaction to her messing up his room. Probably not, he would just arrange it again quietly. The door opened and Carol opened the door.

"Did you find anything?" Carol asked half optimistically. Ursula remained quiet she had found some things but they were not significant enough to rile and get Carols hopes up so she shook her head.

"Well come eat, you can continue after,"

Dinner was nothing special. Malik had offered to cook but Carol had insisted that she was okay to cook.

For a naturally quiet person, Johns absence was glaring, It was like a hole in the wall. The conversations at dinner were mostly small talk. Was this how it was going to be, Ursula thought, resolving even more to find him. From what she had gathered there were signs of foul play and it was summer maybe he just decided to leave the house. This was highly unlikely since all his possessions were in his room and none of his clothes were missing, Carol had confirmed.

She finished her food and made to leave when Carol called her back. "I probably shouldn't say this because I respect John's privacy but when his father left he started keeping a journal, we probably shouldn't." she didn't show it but this had been on her mind.

Ursula nodded. She had her orders, kinda. She searched the room but the diary was no where to be found. She tried to tell herself that she wasn't actively searching for it because that was not ethically right, but she found herself searching for it anyway. Maybe he stopped keeping a journal, the thought had crossed her mind. There were a bunch of concept paintings and she thought that if she could interpret them she could get into his though process.

She was looking at one of them and she felt that it was heavier than the rest and flipped it around and surely enough there it was. She sat on the bed and opened it. It was a simple blue hard cover journal.

If you are reading this that must mean... these were the only words that were on the first page and her heart dropped as she turned the page... that you must be a twisted person. PS mom if its you please don't do it again. So John has a twisted sense of humor, she thought and flipped the pages all the way to the last entry. Going to the gallery today, have a look at those paintings. Will my painting ever be found somewhere strangely preserved a few hundred years from now and inspire a young person like me. Whom am I kidding? In the future, the world probably won't exist. As always my paintings are my journal, I want people to see them, no point in writing anymore. This was how he had closed off every journal entry which was no more than a few lines.

Come on John, that was as ambiguous as anything got, she thought looking at the number of canvases on the floor as well as on top of the cabinet. Where to start. At this point she had already forgotten about her binder, she had found the most important yet pointless clue yet. She looked at her watch and it was past midnight, she had work in the morning and would deal with all that when morning came. Ursula didn't tell Carol that she had found the journal but preferred to talk to her when she had something more solid. She showered and went to sleep but it was more like lying there as her mind kept wandering to the complexity of the situation.