The Phoenix Stone

Chapter Four

The crowd followed me as I was carried, tied to a pole, all the way back to Mannix's house. He tore my satchel off my back and placed me on a table inside his workshop to prepare me for the burning. I started to panic when he started rubbing flammable oils on my skin and clothes. He also added some fragrant herbs that were probably to make me smell nice when I got consumed by the fire and some colourful dyes that were supposed to make the fire turn funky colours. It almost felt like he was seasoning me.

Well, I thought dully as I lay there, at least Millee and I will have the same cause of death.

I think part of the reason for the extreme length of time that I spent waiting was because the people who had been tasked with starting the bonfire had taken longer than normal because it had rained the previous day and they'd had trouble starting it. I should've been thankful but I really didn't appreciate that it'd taken such a long time because that meant that I'd had time to contemplate what it was going to feel like to have your own flesh seared from your body.

When the fire was finally ready Mannix carried me back to the courtyard and hoisted me to the top of the pole that was in the middle of the bonfire. The wind was blowing me around like a flag as I dangled about five metres from the ground. The crowd was loving it but let me just tell you this, it was not fun! Imagine hanging above a raging fire on a pole and the wind is battering you around.

"Everyone," Mannix said as he stepped onto a podium next to the fire. "We are gathered here today to celebrate the death of the murderer, Nyx."

For where I was hanging I could barely hear him over the crackle of the fire but when the crowd responded I could tell exactly what they were yelling.

"KILL THE MURDERER!"

Mannix raised his hand high into the sky and was about to shout the order to throw the flammable oil onto the fire when he paused. Dark storm clouds had gathered above us and as he started to say the order the first drops of rain fell.

"Quick!" Mannix yelled, "Throw the oil before the rain extinguishes the fire!"

Two teenage boys slowly lifted the heavy vat of oil and walked closer to the bonfire. They counted down as they swung the bucket. "One...two...three!"

I cannot even describe to you the sound that the fire made when the oil was thrown into it. It was already crackling loudly but the instant the oil hit the flames there was a deafening sound and an explosion of fire everywhere. The fire leapt so high that I'm sure anybody walking through the forest miles away could've seen the pillar of fire that shot into the air.

"Protocenta," I screamed as the fire bore down on me.

At first all I could feel was intense, inescapable, concentrated heat. It was suffocating and I couldn't move. What was probably only a few seconds was stretched out into what felt like days, months, years, eons, forever. When the fire finally died down I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't hear, see, or breath, I was just stuck in my own bubble of time. It took a while but I opened my eyes cautiously and instantly felt a hot wave of pain sweep from my head to my toes.

I had uttered the spell word a moment too late and now my body was covered with minor burns that stung as I moved in the breeze.

The crowd had taken shelter from the drenching downpour and were standing under some tents watching the fire dwindle in a pile of ashes. Mannix was telling some people that we should probably take my body down now so that it wouldn't rot. They obviously thought that I was dead.

Desperately I tried to think of what the spell word that made me turn invisible was but my mind was blank. Invista? No. Invimee? No. Invilnor? Still no. I couldn't remember for the life of me what the word was. I closed my eyes and pleaded to my grandmother to help me. Grandmother, I don't know if you can hear me but I'm begging you, please tell me what the word to make myself invisible is!