Jesse wakes up with a smell of smoke that irritates his nose.
That itself isn't new - sometimes fireplaces puff out smoke that lingers in the air and makes rooms smelly for a while. But it feels awfully strong now.
Blinking, he groggily stares at the foreign ceiling above him. They are lodging in a small guest house that belongs to a middle-aged innkeeper in a village into which his parents are planning to move their family. Wonder what time it is? Mustn't be that late, since his mother and father haven’t come to sleep next to him and his sister yet. Little Tomoka, their parents’ evening star, is fast asleep next to Jesse. Jesse turns to his side and hugs the toddler. If only the smoky smell would dissipate, and he could sleep again.
He isn’t sure how long it’s been the next time he opens his eyes, but it’s the smoke that alerts him again. This time it hangs heavily in the air and makes him cough with it. Startled, Jesse sits up to look around in the dark. To his horror, the room is suddenly lit up when white flames erupt through the top corner of the opposite paper wall and spread swiftly to the whole wall. Within mere seconds the room turns into a flaming sea of fire.
Tomoka screams with surprise and fear when Jesse grabs her up from her bed, wildly looking for someplace safe. His eyes land on the cupboard where he saw the futons being kept during the daytime. He drags Tomoka along to the cupboard, pushes the girl in, crawls in after her, and pulls the sliding door shut, hoping for the door to block some of the smoke while he thinks. Then he pulls Tomoka back into his lap, holding her close. Where are mother and father? Didn’t they come to sleep at all?
Tomoka squirms in his arms, scared in the dark, and Jesse tightens his hold on her. Angry for being manhandled so, she tries to fight him off, but Jesse can’t let her go. She kicks and screams and coughs, and Jesse squeezes his arms around her, hands tightly around her wrists. The crackling of the fire is audible everywhere around them now, and a loud crack and thump of wood falling in the room outside makes Jesse gasp aloud as well.
“Dad!” he screams, hugging Tomoka closer to his chest even though her wails hurt his ears. “Dad, help! Mum!”
Nobody is answering them, and the sudden fear of nearing death crashes upon him. His mother and father can’t hear them. Maybe they are gone already?
It also occurs to him that hiding into the closet might have been a very, very stupid thing to do. They’re not being protected by the closet. They’re trapped in.
They need to get out. They need to get out now.
Jesse pushes the cupboard door open. Tomoka cries even louder, and a sob escapes from his own mouth, too. The fire is surrounding them everywhere but behind, where the cupboard is against another wall. He wildly scans the room until he notices branches of a tree flickering through the sea of flames, the leaves scorched black by the heat. The sliding paper doors of the house have burned completely through over there. It might be a way out, if only they could make it.
A small ember falls on Tomoka’s clothes and the fire catches on the fabric. She screams in terror and pain, and without thinking Jesse grabs her back into his arms. He pats Tomoka’s clothes hard with his palms, stupidly hoping to diminish the fire like that. He doesn't even feel the hotness of the flames, too busy with worry. The flames go down. He doesn't dare look how bad the burns are.
Part of the roof comes in and they both scream aloud. Jesse tries to cover Tomoka’s head with his hands.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he yells, but Tomoka is crying and coughing so much, his words don’t reach her at all.
The mere thought of running into the fire is unfathomable, but he must do it. Tomoka’s coughs are getting weaker. She’s so small, the smoke must be much worse for her. Jesse stands up and strains to lift Tomoka up so he can carry her.
He closes his eyes, preparing himself for the pain, and storms across the room, through the fire.
The edge of the veranda is closer than he thought, and he stumbles, falling and rolling on the ground, knees and palms smarting from hitting the hard sand. He squints through watery eyes, trying to find Tomoka. The girl lies near him face down, and Jesse sobs again as he tries to crawl to her. He must know if she’s all right.
“The children are here!” someone yells. A grown-up. Jesse lets his hands fall to the ground and his eyes flutter shut again.
* * *
When he wakes up the next time, his father is there with him, along with one of the two old men from the shrine they visited the day before. He blinks several times, trying to remember where he is. It's still dark and he's lying in a bed.
A flickering light from a hand-carried candle lights up his father's worried, soot-stained, face. It looks like he’s been in a burning house as well.
"Tomoka!" Jesse gasps and springs up, turning his head in attempt to find her.
"Your sister is being treated in the next room," the long-bearded priest says, laying a heavy palm on Jesse's shoulder, like he's trying to keep him sitting. "She is alive and she'll likely survive. How are you feeling?"
Jesse frowns, trying to make sense of his own condition.
"My hands hurt," he says slowly, showing his scraped palms. "And my knees. I hit them on the ground when we fell."
The men exchange a silent look.
"Your clothes got charred," the priest says and lifts Jesse's blanket so he can see what he talks about. His clothes are indeed black and half-scorched, but his legs look alright except for the dirt and the smarting of his grazed knees. "But you did not. In fact, we didn't find a single burn on your body."
"But-" Jesse stammers. He held Tomoka while her clothes were in fire. How can he not be burned?
"Jesse, I am going to ask you to do something that will sound and feel strange," the priest says, staring into Jesse's eyes like he really wants him to listen. Then, he tells Jesse's father to lay the candle to the floor by Jesse's side.
"I'd like you to hold your hand above the flame, like this." He hovers his palm above the candle, high enough that it can't possibly burn him. Jesse hesitates, but follows the example. The warmth of the flame feels soothing against his skin despite everything that just happened.
"Now lower your hand until you can't stand the heat anymore. You can pull your hand away immediately when you feel the burn."
Jesse's father makes a sound like he wants to object, but the priest raises a palm at him like he's telling him to wait. Jesse slowly moves his hand down, closer and closer to the flame. The heat intensifies, but it doesn't feel bad at all. In fact, he likes it. He wiggles his fingers, and the tiny movement of the air makes the flame flicker playfully. It's fascinating, and Jesse gets a curious urge to poke at the flame, to see if he can push it around.
He cannot catch the flame. It merely flicks past his fingers like smoke would. He tries to pinch the flame between his fingertips, but it spreads around them, refusing to be distinguished.
Surprised, he looks up at his father. His eyes are wide with disbelief. The priest smiles at Jesse.
"Have you ever heard of Spirit Guardians?"
Jesse shakes his head, but at the same time, his father nods.
"I have. But those are just children's tales," he says, though he doesn't sound as sure as his words.
The priest smiles. "They are not just tales. But we like to have people thinking so. It makes things much easier." He raises an amused brow. "You may take your hand off the candle now, Jesse."
Jesse glances down. He already forgot he was holding on the flame, and reluctantly pulls his fingers away.
"What do you know about spirits, son?"
He knows there are friendly spirits and unfriendly spirits. Regardless of their alignment, some spirits are indifferent to humans, while others are drawn to them. Nobody can see spirits, but sometimes one can see things that spirits have caused to happen, like earthquakes or bad dreams or good crops.
The priest nods. "Very good. Did you know some people can control spirits so that they sometimes do what they ask?"
"No," Jesse says, but he has a weird feeling. Like he knows or guesses what the priest is about to say.
"I think," the priest says, eyes fixed on Jesse. "I think that you have the ability to control fire spirits."
"But I couldn't!" Jesse exclaims. "Everything was on fire and it got on Tomoka’s clothes and I didn't know what to do-" his voice cracks and he falls silent, not wanting to burst into tears in front of people. His father, who just stayed silent and still until now, suddenly grabs him into a tight hug. Jesse buries his face against his father’s clothes. They smell like smoke. Wet tears escape from his tightly closed eyes, running down his cheeks and absorbing into the fabric.
The men let him cry until his sobs quiet down. Then, father gently wipes Jesse's cheeks dry with his sleeve.
"You'll need to practice a lot before you can truly make fire spirits do what you ask," the priest says gently. "But you have the gift. You will learn. I understand you were preparing to move to the Midorigawa village?"
"Yes, we were staying in the inn while searching for a place for a home," Jesse's father answers.
The priest nods. "I'm glad tp hear you're staying. And I am sure you will find helping hands in the village while you build your house." He looks at Jesse again. "It would benefit you to move to live in the shrine, son. Not quite yet, but at some point. For now, I only ask that you keep your newly found talent a secret from people who are not members of your immediate family. Do you think you could do that?"
Jesse isn't sure why the priest is asking him this, and he doesn't like the idea of living apart from his family at all, but he nods anyway. There is a certain weight in the priest's voice that makes him feel his words are somehow extremely important.