Curse of the Phoenix Read online

  For the best dad in the world.

  And for those who have lost someone they love.

  Grief may never lessen, but life expands.

  1 ZAC

  SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH THE dragon’s tail.

  Zac Hadley squinted at his drawing, tilting his head and holding it at arm’s length to try to gain some perspective. The unicorns in the valley looked okay, and he was pretty sure he’d nailed the shading in the mountains. But the longer he stared at the dragon that perched on the words THE WILDEWOODS SAGA written in block letters, the more distorted the image seemed, until it didn’t look like a dragon at all, but rather a puffy lizard with a tail that was too big for its body. It wasn’t right. Nothing he drew was right anymore.

  Frustrated, he tossed his graphic novel onto the foot of his bed. A month ago, he would have already been erasing the tail, determined to start over. Maybe he would have shown it to his mother first and asked what she thought. But now…

  His stomach rumbled. Glancing at his watch, he realized with a jolt that it was three o’clock. He’d missed lunch. No—his father hadn’t called him down for lunch in the first place.

  Hungry and confused, Zac plodded across the hardwood floor and into the hallway. Pausing at the top of the stairs, he listened for the clacking of fingers on a keyboard as his father worked from home, the way he had for the past month, but Zac heard nothing. The entire house seemed quiet.

  Too quiet.

  “Dad?” called Zac. His heart began to race as he scrambled down the steps, nearly slipping on the polished wood. “Dad? Where are you?”

  He darted across the living room, narrowly missing a coffee table that was cluttered with pop cans and a greasy pizza box from the night before. The door to his father’s office was closed, and he skidded toward it, stopping half an inch from the knob as his chest began to tighten.

  It wouldn’t happen again. His father was fine. Sleeping, maybe, or wearing headphones and distracted by his work. Everything would be okay.

  “Dad?” His voice shook as he knocked on the door. Not waiting for an answer, he pushed it open, and in that split second, he imagined what he would see on the other side. His dad in his office chair, reading a book. Or leaned back with his mouth open as he snored. Or—

  The image appeared in his mind before he could stop it. He’d been hungry that afternoon, too, and wondering if his mother had finished lunch yet. He hadn’t known then to be afraid of walking into quiet rooms that should have been noisy.

  He’d expected to see her standing at the stove and stirring the contents of a pot, or maybe pulling plates out of the cabinet. Instead she had been lying on the floor, motionless.

  For an instant, that was all Zac could see as he stood in the open doorway of his father’s office. He was cold now, and he could barely draw a breath, but none of that seemed to matter as he relived the worst moment of his life. It had been a month ago now—a month and four days—but Zac still couldn’t make himself walk into the kitchen.

  “Zac?” His father’s voice cut through the fog, and Zac blinked as the present materialized around him again. The curtains in the office were drawn, and his father sat at his desk, a phone held up to his ear. “Is everything all right?”

  “I—” Zac tried to swallow, but his throat was too tight now, and he couldn’t speak. Stars danced in front of him, and he clutched the knob for balance.

  “Merle, I’ll call you back,” said his father urgently into the phone. Dropping it on his desk with a thud, he hurried toward Zac, hovering over him anxiously. “Are you okay? Do you need your inhaler? Where is it?” He looked around, as if expecting to find it on one of the side tables cluttered with old bottles and documents, but of course it wasn’t there.

  Zac shook his head. Now that he could see his father and knew he was all right, the tightness was easing. He wouldn’t be running any races soon—or ever—but it wasn’t a normal asthma attack. This kind had been happening more and more lately, and Zac had a feeling that mentioning it to his father would only result in more trips to the doctor. “I just—didn’t hear you call for lunch,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “Oh,” said his father, and Zac noticed his eyes were swollen and rimmed with red. “Right. Lunch. I thought you had leftovers from last night.”

  “Yeah, but you need to heat them up for me,” he said, sounding pathetic even to himself. His father frowned.

  “You’re twelve years old, Zac,” he said gently. “You can heat up your own food.”

  Zac pressed his lips together. It was pointless to argue—they both knew why he wouldn’t go into the kitchen. But no matter how many times his father urged him, he couldn’t do it. Not yet.

  His father sighed, his shoulders hunched. “I’ll heat them up, but this is the last time, all right? Tomorrow, you make your own—”

  “Help!” An ear-piercing cry echoed from the foyer as the front door slammed open, hitting the wall with a resounding crack. “Dad—help!”

  2 LU

  LU HADLEY BALANCED PRECARIOUSLY ON a low branch as she glared at the ancient tabby cat perched several feet above her. The cat stared back unblinkingly through his single eye, a silent challenge that made Lu long for a time before he had learned to climb a tree.

  “You know you need your medication, Rufus,” she said, gripping the rough bark. “We shouldn’t have to do this every single day.”

  Rufus turned away from her and began to groom himself. With her legs wrapped firmly around the branch, Lu grabbed the scruff of his neck and eased him down, swaddling him in her sweater before he could scratch her. “Got you!”

  “I don’t know why you bother,” said her best friend, Sophia Lopez, from the grass fifteen feet below. She sat at the edge of the woods that bordered their neighborhood, and while she untangled a burr from a long-haired kitten’s coat, the rest of the homeless cat colony gathered around a pile of fresh kibble nearby. “The infection’s probably gone by now, anyway.”

  With Rufus and the sweater tucked under one arm, Lu climbed down and dropped back onto the ground. “Probably isn’t good enough when he only has one eye left.” Pulling a tube of ointment from her pocket, she sat beside Sophia and wrestled Rufus onto his back. With enormous effort, she pinned him down and held his good eye open, and at last she administered the single bead of medication he needed.

  Rufus darted back up the tree the moment she released him, and Lu sprawled out on the sun-soaked grass, letting herself relax for the first time since breakfast. The last day of school was finally over, much to her relief—though not for the usual reasons. Teachers looked at her with pity now instead of silent exasperation. The other kids avoided her, as if she had some kind of plague they could catch if they got too close. Even her track coach had insisted she take the rest of the season off, despite the fact that she was the fastest one on the team. Only Sophia hung out with her anymore, and as much as Lu dreaded spending the summer with no buffer between her and her twin brother, at least no one would ask how she was holding up for a while.

  “I need to go,” said Sophia, after she’d untangled the burr. The kitten leaped out of her lap and joined its littermates nearby. “Mom will kill me if I’m late for ballet practice again.”

  Reluctantly Lu rose too, shaking grass out of her dark, shoulder-length hair. “I can still come over tomorrow night, right?”

  Sophia snorted. “My mom said you could stay the whole summer if you want.”

  “Really?” Lu grabbed her backpack, which still smelled like the cat kibble she’d lugged to school with her. “You wouldn’t get sick of me?”

  “Of course not. You’re my best friend.” Sophia caught her in a tight hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  Lu watched her go
, her heart sinking now that she was on her own. But there was no point in making herself miserable, and so she straightened her shoulders and strode in the opposite direction. Summer wouldn’t be all bad, she thought, especially if she could spend most of it at Sophia’s place. Her dad wouldn’t mind, and her brother probably wouldn’t even notice she was gone, considering he spent all his time in his room now. But even as she tried to convince herself, she knew that no matter how far from her family she was, it wouldn’t change what had happened the month before.

  Lost in her thoughts, Lu almost missed the patch of gray-and-white fur half-hidden in an overgrown thicket. With a gasp, she edged closer. There, obscured by weeds and wildflowers, was a young raccoon with deep scratches in its side.

  She slowly knelt down, not wanting to startle the poor thing. Its chest rose and fell with effort, and though it stared at her with dull eyes, it didn’t move away. Lu bit her lip and looked around. Sophia had disappeared already, and there was no one else on the quiet suburban street. What was she supposed to do?

  There was only one good answer to that question, and with renewed determination, she carefully wrapped the raccoon in her sweater. Unlike Rufus, it was limp and didn’t fight her. Cradling the injured animal, she stood and hurried down the sidewalk, walking as fast as she could without jostling it. But the quicker she moved, the more the raccoon’s eyes closed, and panic squeezed her insides.

  Though her house was only half a block away, it felt like a mile by the time she reached her front door. Throwing it open, she rushed inside, desperately clutching the raccoon to her chest. “Help!” she yelled as loudly as she could. “Dad—help!”

  Footsteps thundered from deep within the house, and as she checked to see how much blood the raccoon had lost, her brother—not her father—burst into the foyer, breathing heavily.

  “What’s going on?” said Zac, his messy dark hair falling into his eyes. But when he spotted the raccoon, he took an unsteady step backward. “Lu, is that…?”

  Every muscle in her body tensed, and she immediately turned away from her brother, trying to shield him from the raccoon. “What are you doing down here?” she said, her panic only growing. “You’re always upstairs.”

  But it was too late. She was covered in cat fur and dander, and no doubt raccoons carried allergens, too. Zac had gotten close—too close—and she could already see him struggling to take a deep breath.

  “What’s going on in here?” said their dad as he came around the corner. He looked like he’d been crying, and for a moment, Lu stared at him, not knowing what to think. She hadn’t seen him cry since the funeral.

  “I—” she began, but Zac was wheezing now, the rasping sound growing louder with each breath. “I found a raccoon—”

  “You brought a raccoon into the house?” Instantly her dad turned toward Zac and gripped his shoulders, as if to steady him. “Zac, are you all right? Look at me, kid.”

  “I’m sorry,” wailed Lu. “It’s dying. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You know exactly what you should’ve done,” snapped her dad, his face turning red. “Zac, kid—Zac, look at me. You’re all right. Where’s your inhaler? Where did you leave it? Is it upstairs?”

  Zac shook his head, unable to speak now. With her heart racing, Lu started toward the kitchen, but her dad threw his arm out to stop her.

  “Don’t you take another step into this house until you’ve put that thing outside,” he said. Lu opened her mouth to protest, but Zac’s entire body was heaving now. Ducking out the door, she set the bundled raccoon gently on the porch and hurried back inside, furious—though whether at herself for not making sure Zac was upstairs, or with her brother for leaving his room for the first time in a month, she couldn’t say.

  Sidestepping around her dad, she darted into the kitchen and flung open a worn cabinet. There, still organized by their mother’s system, was a mountain of medication, all prescribed to Zacharias Hadley. Without bothering to look at the labels, Lu grabbed a yellow inhaler, a package of pills, and an EpiPen before hurrying back into the entrance hall.

  “Here.” She uncapped the inhaler and shoved it into Zac’s clammy hands. He lifted it to his mouth, pressing on the canister and breathing in the medication. Lu watched him with grim determination, and once she was sure he wouldn’t need the EpiPen, she tore open the plastic package and freed a pill.

  “What is that?” said their dad, panic catching in his voice. “What are you giving him?”

  “It’s just a Benadryl,” she muttered, not taking her eyes off her brother. At last he could breathe enough to swallow a dose, and he slumped against the wall, panting but alive. “You need to take him to the emergency room. The doctors and nurses will probably only give him a breathing treatment and steroids or something, but you need to go anyway. Mum always did.”

  Their dad rubbed Zac’s arm, his brow knit with both anger and concern. “I want that vermin as far away from here as possible,” he said sharply to Lu. “And I want every trace of dander gone too. You could have killed him, Lu. You could’ve—”

  His voice caught, and he hastily wiped his eyes, his face red. Lu swallowed hard. “I was just trying to save it,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry isn’t good enough,” said their dad roughly. “Not when it’s your brother’s life on the line.” He shook his head, and for a split second, he looked as broken and lost as Lu felt. “I can’t do this anymore, guys. I don’t know how, not without your mother, and—I can’t.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t do what?” said Lu, almost too afraid to ask.

  Their dad stood frozen for a moment, his hand on Zac’s shoulder. “I’m taking Merle up on her offer,” he said at last, his gaze glued to the floor. “I tried. I’ve been trying. But—I can’t, not like this. Not right now. I’m sorry.”

  “Merle? Who’s Merle?” said Lu, confused. But her father hurried Zac toward the car without an answer, and she watched them go, her stomach a knotted mess.

  What had just happened?

  3 ZAC

  LATER THAT EVENING, WHEN ZAC arrived home from his umpteenth visit to the emergency room, their father sat them down in the living room and finally revealed who Merle was.

  “Your mother’s aunt,” he said gruffly, his hands clasped. “She lives in England.”

  “Oh,” said Zac, glancing at his sister, who hadn’t said a word since they’d returned. “I didn’t know Mum had any family.”

  Lu shook her head. Neither, apparently, had she.

  Their father was silent for a long moment, and the tension in the living room grew to unbearable levels. And while Zac didn’t know exactly what their father was going to say, he could sense that something was about to change. Something huge.

  At last, in a dull, emotionless voice, their father said, “Aunt Merle’s invited you both to stay with her for the summer. And I’ve accepted.”

  Zac stared at him, waiting for the punch line. It had to be a joke, after all—they’d never heard of Aunt Merle before tonight, and Zac’s allergies and asthma were so bad that he couldn’t even go to school with Lu, let alone spend an entire summer in a foreign country.

  But the pained look on their father’s face made it clear it wasn’t a joke, and Zac’s insides grew hollow. “But—but what about my allergies?” he said, his voice breaking. “My doctors are here.”

  “They have doctors and hospitals in England, and your aunt knows about your illnesses,” said their father. “I’m sorry. I am. But—”

  “But you can’t do this anymore,” spat Lu with such venom that even Zac was taken aback. “You can’t take care of your own kids.”

  Their father didn’t answer, and instead he stood without a word and retreated to his office, leaving Zac to bear the brunt of her fury. It wasn’t the first time, and he was too shell-shocked to care.

  “Mum would never abandon us,” said Lu as she paced the length of the living room, kicking a greasy fast-food bag out of her path. “If
she knew what Dad was planning—”

  “It isn’t his fault,” mumbled Zac, feeling like the world had been tilted off its axis. “Mum’s gone.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” she said, her hands balled into fists. “She was my mum too, you know.”

  Zac’s face grew hot. “I’m just saying—you saw him today. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. She’s the one who was home with us all the time.”

  “And he’s the one who chose not to be here,” said Lu. “He could have found a job that kept him in Chicago all week, you know. But he didn’t want to. Because he didn’t want us.”

  Zac’s mouth went dry, and he didn’t have the words to argue with her. He’d long suspected he was the reason their father had spent most of their childhood traveling across the country five days a week, leaving Monday morning and returning home Friday night. His mum had insisted again and again that he wasn’t a burden, and she didn’t mind the hospital stays and the endless doctor appointments and the small pharmacy that took up an entire kitchen cupboard. But now that she was gone, there was no one to shield Zac from the very real truth that he was useless. Worse than useless. He was a headache they had to work around, and nothing more.

  And this proved it.

  * * *

  Their father came home the following morning with new suitcases for both of them. Zac didn’t argue—how could he, when he was the problem in the first place? Lu, however, spent the next two days raging and making all their lives miserable. But no amount of pleading, hunger strikes, or angry sobbing changed their father’s mind, and he was adamant: they would spend the summer in England with a relative they’d never met, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.

  That was why, shortly after midnight Chicago time, Zac was stuck in an airplane between his snoring father and pouting sister, thirty-five thousand feet in the air over the Atlantic Ocean. The cabin lights had been dimmed, and with most of the plane sleeping, it was eerily still.