The Fire Artist by Daisy Whitney Page A

and Care. It was like a stately southern plantation, but now its big wide steps are cracked and crumbling. The once-white home has turned gray and dirty, like an unwashed back windshield begging
wash me
in fingerprint. The grounds are overgrown with grass, unkempt and wild. The massive front doors have fallen off their hinges, and they hang open, lifeless. A Florida sugar maple tree’s untrimmed branches poke into a broken window on the second floor, as if the tree had been grabbing blindly for what lay beyond.
    Xavier and I walk through the broken-down doors. Inside, the mansion is dead silent and still as glass.
    I wrap a hand around Xavier’s arm, and he ushers me upthe stairs, the walls lined with old portraits hanging limply at sad angles. I peek into one of the patient rooms on the second floor. A basin has fallen on its side, with brittle bits of porcelain trailing from its bowl. Another room contains medical equipment, an old gurney, withered over the years, and a series of bizarre contraptions with straps and buckles that must have been for restraint.
    “That’s where they housed the especially crazy ones,” Xavier says as if he can hear my thoughts.
    Xavier leads me into a larger room that must have once been the baths. We’re surrounded by the shells of old tubs and the carcasses of showers and sinks, with dust and dirt under our feet. I cough. He lets go of me and turns in a full circle, his arms spread out. “This is where I will make fire again.”
    I half want to smack him. “You’re crazy. And you’re a jerk for taking me here for that reason.”
    “I’m serious, Ar. There’s a bunch of us who are forbidden from making elemental arts, but we’re going to do it here. I visited this place after work the other night and it’s perfect. Off the grid, you know. No one ever comes here, but we’ll have our own shows here. A new kind of show.”
    “Like a rave? Some underground theater spectacle?”
    He nods enthusiastically and his eyes have the glint of an inventor.
    “Why would anyone come here though? Why would they see a show here when there are shows in less creepy places?”
    “Because we don’t make the same magic anymore.”
    “What do you make?” I ask with a sick curiosity. Maybe hehas a trick to teach me that will get me out of town. Anticipation balloons in my lungs.
    “Watch,” he says, and takes a few steps back.
    He holds out his hands, the gorgeous way he used to when he stood in the same park where I’ll perform for the scout. He spreads them like a magician. As if they’re steely knives, he slashes his arms through the air, releasing plumes of fire. I watch, mesmerized, as the flames race to the ceiling high above us, then he calls them back down before they burn a thing. But on their descent, I notice something amiss about his flames. They’re taking shape, they’re curving and curling, and when he relights them, they are more defined.
    They are forming his mirror image.
    He made a fire twin.
    He made the legendary trick that hasn’t been seen in years. One that’s whispered of, talked about in hushed tones. One that’s supposedly incredibly hard to execute.
    I am frozen. Speechless. I point at him, barely able to comprehend what he’s made.
    A flaming, shadowy replica of himself. Tall and sinewy like Xavier. Shimmering next to him. Mirroring him. Arms moving as Xavier’s arms move. Lips curving into a grin as Xavi’s do. A burning carbon copy of my brother the arsonist.
    “You. You’re making …” But that’s all I can say.
    “Cool, huh?”
    His face is lit up like a child’s. So is his twin’s. It’s creepy but completely mesmerizing. He steps toward me. His duplicate steps too. I back away, but I can’t look elsewhere. I can’t stopstaring, not as he raises a hand and beckons me closer to him. As they both do. I shake my head, but then I’m following his twin’s lead. Inching nearer.
    His twin’s fire is quiet. There’s no crackling or hissing from