Enflame (Insight #6)(27)

I wasn’t thrilled to follow her out there, not if Saige was around.

The backyard was a lavish garden of every kind of herb, flower, and plant you could imagine. Saige was nowhere in clear sight, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t lurking somewhere out here. I felt her placid emotion close by. Nana pulled out the patio chair for me sit in, then pulled up one in front of it.

“Now,” she said, her emotion piquing with hope as she sat down, “we are going to go back to the aura lesson you learned.”

“Crash course was what that was. I don’t even notice them anymore.”

“You feel it, though. You move your energy like a weapon.”

“I need to work on that, too.” My tone was laced with embarrassment. My temper, not my mind, moved my energy.

She leaned forward as if to make her words even more private. “Yesterday, you had the power to stop both of those boys, but, as you put it, you leaked it out everywhere, your reserves were dry.”

I wasn’t very fond of being powerless around Phoenix, and the idea that I could stop him the next time he tried to pin me somewhere was more than appealing.

“Let’s find the leak in this sinking ship, then.”

“Agreed. Now do what you do when you see auras.”

I leaned back in my seat. Her request wasn’t hard. It was just a shift with my eyes.

When I brought the image of auras to my line of vision, I was surprised to see everything around me was crimson. I felt like I could taste that shade. It was a musty iron flavor that settled around my gums, one that more than likely had been there all the while, but I’d failed to notice until this point.

I thought that color meant anger or passion, but I was sure there was more to it. In a way, it did look like I was bleeding into the air, and the lingering taste in my mouth confirmed that.

The sun dimmed instantly with my grief.

“You see it?” Nana questioned.

“Unfortunately.”

Ignoring me, she pressed on. “Pull it to you.”

“It’s me. How can I pull it?”

“I have no idea. That is what you were told the first time around. Pull it to you, ask it to dwell in your soul with you.”

I sucked in a deep breath. My half-hearted thoughts asked the energy to come to me, then I saw a wave move across the sea of red, hope spread through me causing the sun to brighten. With a wide stare, I asked again, this time with more effort. The red grew denser, maybe smaller. I knew I could see Nana more clearly through it now. I sat up straighter and humbly pleaded for the energy to rest in my soul. In that instant, the red shrunk, then fell into my skin.

I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth. Inside, I felt a warm, burning sensation welling in my soul. It was so powerful that my head spun, causing me to lean forward.

“Hold it,” Nana demanded, standing and letting her hand rest on my back. “It’s yours. Hold it in.”

With my squinted eyes closed, I saw a million storms; the rush of the wind, the blinding strikes of lightning, the rumbling of the thunder. It felt like my soul was on a roller coaster. I was sick and dizzy all at once.

“Hold it in. If you lose your lunch, I’ll make you eat again,” Nana taunted.

I began to tremble, falling deep inside myself. I wanted stillness. My thoughts begged the wind to stop, the thunder to quiet itself, but it refused. It was as if begging was making it worse. Its laughter at my weakness resulted in a fiercer storm within me.

“It’s a part of you, Willow. Find peace with it,” Nana’s voice echoed around me.

I gritted my teeth, hating this. I thought my body was going to rip in two. Begging didn’t work, I doubted anger would fare better, and loving it was a joke. Humility, that was my only hope. A humble respect.

I let that emotion settle in my soul. The winds began to grow weak, and the sun found its way through the now quiet clouds.

In my mind, images flashed and I heard Landen’s voice whispering to me. “Humble, hold that. If you humbly respect Mother Nature, she will return the favor...hold this...breathe.” His voice was demanding, yet caressing. I wanted to hold that image of him, to see if it was one of the images of him that I saw merge into his soul last night. That thought was in vain, though. The humble feeling had caused me to relax every part of my soul. I could hear every movement in the garden. It was a gentle symphony. Behind my closed eyes, I could see the color of gold. Thinking that my peace had brightened the sun, I opened my eyes and leaned back. Nothing seemed odd about the fall afternoon.

Nana grinned down at me. “They say that is the right color.”

“Who says?”

“Let’s not worry about that.”

“The dead are laughing at me, aren’t they?”

“No. I sent the class clowns away,” she said with a wink.

My shocked expression made her laugh as she took her seat in front of me. “Oh my,” she said to herself. “You see the gold color?”

I glanced at my aura and saw it mingling with a deep shade of black. I nodded to confirm, tasting something sweet and pure as I swallowed. Taste was one sense I’d never really focused on. I was starting to think that might be my tell, that if this sweet taste faded and bitterness returned, that meant that I was losing control. I didn’t want to go through that mental war I’d just faced again. My body felt like it had just overcome the flu or something just as wicked.