Aimee Bender - The Girl in the Flammable Skirt

They put the fire girl in jail. She’s a danger, everyone said, she burns things, she burns people. She likes it. This was true: at the jail she grabbed the forearm of the guard with her fire fist and left a smoking tarantula handprint; he had to go to the hospital and be soothed by the ice girl.

The whole town buzzed about the fire girl all week. They said: She’s crazy! Or: She’s primitive! I lay in my bed at night, and thought of her concentrating and leaning in to Roy. I thought of her shuddering out to the trees like a drum.

I went to the burn ward and found the ice girl. If anyone, I thought, she might have some answers.

She was holding her hand above a sick man in a bed with red sores all over his body, and her ice was dripping into his mouth and he looked thrilled.

I want you to come to the jail, I said, and give her a little relief.

The ice girl looked over at me. Who are you? she asked.

I was annoyed. I’m in your science class, I said, Lisa.

She gave a nod. Oh right, she said. You sit in the middle.

I looked at the man in the hospital bed, the bliss on his face, the gloom on hers.

This can’t be too fun for you, I said.

She didn’t answer. Come to the jail, I said, please, she’s so unhappy, maybe you can help.

The ice girl checked the watch on her flesh hand. The man beneath her made something close to a purring sound. If you come back in an hour, she said at last, I’ll go for a little bit.

Thank you, I said, this is another good deed.

She raised her slim eyebrows. I have enough good deeds, she said. It’s just that I’ve never seen the jail.

I returned in exactly an hour, and we went over together.

The guard at the jail beamed at the ice girl. My wife had cancer, he said, and you fixed her up just fine. The ice girl smiled. Her smile was small. I asked where the fire girl was and the guard pointed. Careful, he said, she’s nutso. He coughed and crossed his legs. We turned to his point, and I led the way down.

The fire girl was at the back of her cell, burning up the fluffy inside of the mattress. She recognized me right away.

Hi, Lisa, she said, how’s it going?

Fine, I said. We’re on frogs now in science.

She nodded. The ice girl stood back, looking around at the thick stone walls and the low ceiling. The room was dank and smelled moldy.

Look who I brought, I said. Maybe she can help you.

The fire girl looked up. Hey, she said. They exchanged a nod. It was all so formal. I was annoyed. It seems to me that in a jail, you don’t need to be that formal, you can let some things loose.

So, wanting to be useful, I went right over to the ice girl and pulled her hand out of her pocket, against her half-protests. I held it forward, and stuck it through the bars of the cell. It was surprisingly heavy which filled me with new sympathy. It felt like a big cold rock.

Here, I said, shaking it a little, go to it.

The fire girl grasped the ice girl’s hand. I think we weren’t sure it would work, if the magic had worn off in junior high, but it hadn’t; as soon as they touched, the ice melted away and the fire burned out and they were just two girls holding hands through the bars of a jail. I had a hard time recognizing them this way. I looked at their faces and they looked different. It was like seeing a movie star nude, no makeup, eyes small and blinking.

The fire girl started to shiver and she closed her eyes. She held on hard.

It’s so much quieter like this, she murmured.

The other girl winced. Not for me, she said. Her face was beginning to flush a little.

The fire girl opened her eyes. No, she said, nodding, of course. It would be different for you.

I clasped my own hands together. I felt tepid. I felt out of my league.

I don’t suppose I can hold your hand all day, the fire girl said in a low voice.

The ice girl shook her head. I have to be at the hospital, she said, I need my hand. She seemed uncomfortable. Her face was getting redder. She held on a second longer. I need my hand, she said. She let go.

The fire girl hung her head. Her hand blazed up in a second, twirling into turrets. I pictured her at the mountains again — that ribbon of pleasure, tasting Roy with her fingertips.

Ice whirled back around the other girl’s hand. She stepped back, and the color emptied out of her face.

It’s awful, the fire girl said, shaking her wrist, sending sparks flying, starting to pace her cell. I want to burn everything. I want to burn everything . She gripped the iron frame of the cot until it glowed red under her palm. Do you understand? she said, it’s all I think about.

We could cut it off, said the ice girl then.

We both stared at her.

Are you kidding? I said, you can’t cut off the fire hand, it’s a beautiful thing, it’s a wonderful thing—

But the fire girl had released the bed and was up against the bars. Do you think it would work? she said. Do you think that would do something?

The ice girl shrugged. I don’t know, she said, but it might be worth a try.

I wanted to give a protest here but I was no speechwriter; the speechwriter had left town forever and taken all the good speeches with him. I kept beginning sentences and dropping them off. Finally, they sent me out to find a knife. I don’t know what they talked about while I was gone. I wasn’t sure where to go so I just ran home, grabbed a huge sharp knife from the kitchen, and ran back. In ten minutes I was in the cell again, out of breath, the wooden knife handle tucked into my belt like a sword.

The fire girl was amazed. You’re fast, she said. I felt flattered. I thought maybe I could be the fast girl. I was busy for a second renaming myself Atalanta when I looked over and saw how nervous and scared she was.

Don’t do this, I said, you’ll miss it.

But she’d already reached over and grabbed the knife and was pacing her cell again, flicking sparks onto the wall. She spoke mainly to herself. It would all be so much easier, she said.

The ice girl had no expression. I’ll stay, she said, tightening her ponytail, in case you need healing. I wanted to kick her. There was a horrible ache growing in my stomach.

The fire girl took a deep breath. Then, kneeling down, she laid her hand, leaping with flames, on the stone jail floor and slammed the knife down right where the flesh of her wrist began. After sawing for a minute, she let out a shout and the hand separated and she ran over to the ice girl who put her healing bulb directly on the wound.

Tears streaked down the fire girl’s face and she shifted her weight from foot to foot. The cut-off hand was hidden in a cloud of smoke on the floor. The ice girl leaned in, her soother face intent, but something strange was happening. The ice bulb wasn’t working. There was no ice at all. The ice girl found herself with just a regular flesh hand, clasping the sawed-off tuber of a wrist. Equalized and normal. The fire girl looked down in horror.

Oh, pleaded the fire girl, never let go, please , don’t, please , but it was too late. Her wrist had already been released to the air.

The fire girl’s arm blazed up to the elbow. It was a bigger blaze now, a looser one, a less dexterous flame with no fingers to guide it. Oh no, she cried, trying to shake it off, oh no . The ice girl was silent, holding her hand as it reiced in her flesh palm, turning it slowly, numbing up. I was twisting in the corner, the ache in my stomach fading, trying to think of the right thing to say. But her body was now twice as burning and twice as loud and twice as powerful and twice everything. I still thought it was beautiful, but I was just an observer. The ice girl slipped silently down the hallway and I only stayed for a few more minutes. It was too hard to see. The fire girl started slamming her arm against the brick wall. When I left, she was sitting down with her chopped-off hand, burning it to pieces, one finger at a time.