Micah and the Phoenix Tree

By L.J. Fox

Micah and her twin sister Kiera can do things. They’ve known they were different since they were little, but they’d hidden that side of their lives for fourteen years, fearing rejection from their family and friends.

Soon after their fourteenth birthday, their lives were uprooted by a group of hooded men ushering them out of their old existence and into a whole new world where everyone was gifted and people could openly be who they were meant to be. The problem is, Micah has no clue who or what she is.

The twins run across all the normal things that regular kids find in high school, including some odd classes, the school bully and the high school crushes that simultaneously aggravate and fascinate the girls. They’ve made a few friends and even like a couple of their teachers but Micah feels lost and misses the normal life she had before she found out she was extraordinary.

The Phoenix Tree is the one thing that has drawn Micah’s attention. It is the epicenter of their school and the root of all the power the school protects. Their freshman year just happens to be the Year of Renewal, the one time every fifty years that the Phoenix Tree is weakened, and someone wants its power.

When Kiera uncovers a secret book in the freshman library, their lives begin to unravel. They discover that their destinies have already been decided for them as they dive deeper into the world of the Linemen, where everyone has their place and the SEAL decides their fates.

Suddenly, their friends aren’t exactly who they thought they were and even their own teachers who were sworn to protect them have secrets. Their own school principal, bearing a hideous scar and a mysterious past, is the most frightening of them all and his own grand secrets could mean the end of the new life they’d just barely begun to know.

Micah and Kiera are forced to dig deep into those secrets and even deeper into themselves, where the truth is only an illusion and deceit hides out in every corner of every hallway.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.J. Fox
• Release date: Jun 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781942899136

Book preview

One

Micah didn’t mean to blow a hole in the wall of her first period class, but nobody was very surprised about it. Accidents happen sometimes, right? All fourteen-year-olds were clumsy and careless and maybe even sometimes they caused explosions where they were only supposed to put paintings. Besides, Mrs. Ogle would fix it just like always. That’s what the teachers were there for anyway. They taught the kids and cleaned up after them when their lessons didn’t go exactly as planned.

All the laughter surrounding Micah didn’t help, though. These kids here were supposed to be different than regular kids but their laughter still sounded just the same, even if they were brushing concrete dust out of their hair or picking themselves up off the floor.

Sorry, Micah said as she glared at the floor, refusing to make eye contact with any of the little punks in her class.

Micah, Mrs. Ogle said as she moved closer to Micah and the dust that surrounded her from what remained of the wall, nobody gets it right the first time. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

I guess, said Micah, still gazing at the floor.

"And it’s nothing to laugh about." Obviously addressing the rest of the giggling class, Mrs. Ogle had silenced them all with only a few words.

The rest of the students had suddenly shifted their eyes toward the dusty floor and away from Micah. Mrs. Ogle certainly had a grip on things. And except for the tiny crease in Mrs. Ogle’s brow, Micah may have actually believed that everything was okay.

Micah, you can return to your seat, said Mrs. Ogle, interrupting Micah’s thoughts and drawing her back into the moment.

Slowly, Micah retraced her steps to the back row, glancing up only once at Kiera to show her a slight smirk. Kiera didn’t dare respond with the same due to the fact that Mrs. Ogle had a clear view of her face and Kiera had absolutely no intention of being called out on it.

Micah and Kiera were the new kids and, seeing as how they were bound by sisterhood, they had each other if they didn’t have anyone else. New kids got picked on and laughed at. New kids didn’t quite fit in yet. A lot of the kids at Pulitch had been in school together before but Micah and Kiera were brand new to the whole gifted thing. They had a lot of adjusting to do.

Pulitch High School was not quite a normal school so fitting in would be a little more difficult seeing as how nobody there really knew what ‘normal’ was. Micah was gifted, but so was everyone else in the school, so that meant nothing. Kiera was also exceptional, but not like Micah. Kiera couldn’t blow a hole in a piece of carpet, much less a concrete wall, but she had a sense of understanding that nobody else could quite wrap their heads around. Kiera could feel what other people felt, which sometimes left Micah feeling cold as a stone.

Everyone had a starting place before they were sent to Pulitch. Everyone had something special deep inside them, but in the end, everyone was supposed to learn to be more on an even keel. As far as a ‘normal’ school goes, that was as close as Pulitch would ever get.

Most schools have their math geniuses or spelling bee champs, but at Pulitch it wasn’t nearly that simple.

Pulitch sat in the middle of the mountains but it wasn’t a place that could be caught on film by tourists. The mountains shielded the school grounds from anything and everything so once a student was sent to Pulitch, there was no turning back.

As Mrs. Ogle rambled, a six-year-old memory of a home just outside of Lincoln, Nebraska flooded Micah’s mind. She and Kiera were playing in the sun, two eight-year-olds running through a cornfield, the plants nearly twice their height.

Micah yelled ‘Marco’ and awaited Kiera’s reply.

Polo! Kiera shouted a muffled response and Micah instantly knew that her twin was at least six rows over. As Micah headed in her direction, the game continued.

Marco!

Polo!

Over and over until the hunted one is found.

But suddenly Kiera screamed and Micah’s entire body froze at the piercing sound of her cries. Continued screams plunged Micah’s body into motion but the corn was too high and even though she ran with her arms in front of her to shove the stalks out of her way, they still created abrasions on her face and arms.

Every inch of her needed to get to Kiera immediately and as soon as she thought about that, the wind had picked up and the rows of corn parted, leaving a clear path to her sister visible. Micah didn’t much care how it had happened but later on, she would wonder. Kiera was sitting amid a group of flattened cornstalks, crying and shielding her face from the carcass lying not ten feet away from her.

Maybe it had once been a cat or a rabbit but now it was nothing but a pile of grossness that neither girl wanted anything to do with.

The vultures had scattered as Kiera had busted through the stalks and perhaps that should have been the girls’ first sign that there was probably a dead animal somewhere, but at eight years old they hadn’t thought about that.

Micah lifted her sister from the ground and turned her around the way they had come but the corn had returned to its former upright position. Still, the silo was visible so they knew their path home. On the way, Micah wiped the tears from Kiera’s face and they each took a vow of secrecy. Nobody was ever going to accuse them of being crazy if they never said that the corn had moved all by itself. They would tell their father about the dead animal so that he could dispose of it but that was all.

The sound of a horn drew Micah out of her daydream. As she blinked, the rest of the class was gathering up belongings and she heard a few of them saying how pretty Janna’s picture was on the wall. Micah looked up but nothing was there except her twin sister, smiling.

That was crazy! Kiera was obviously not worried about Mrs. Ogle scolding her anymore because she was giggling as Micah packed up her things.

It really was an accident, though, said Micah. She let a smirk cross her face as she stood up with her sister. The idea I had was more of a Nebraska farmhouse like ours and not so much like a pirate escaping from a dungeon.

Lucas thinks … Kiera began.

First of all, don’t ever start a sentence with ‘Lucas thinks’, interrupted Micah. It’s just not logical.

Either way, Kiera continued, he says that this school will show us to control and show us to expand. It sucks that it has to be in front of everyone like today but I guess it will all work itself out.

Yeah, well, Mrs. Ogle thinks it embarrasses me when I overdo things.

Maybe the hole in the wall was a little overdoing it. Did you mean for it to happen? Kiera pushed open the heavy classroom door for her sister, who was still shuffling things around in her binder.

No, I didn’t, Micah explained. I really was trying to make a picture of our house. Maybe I don’t have that gift.

And Miranda’s comments didn’t have any effect on what you did to the wall?

Micah thought that one over for a minute. Miranda was the equivalent of the school bully and was never short on dumb commentaries about the new kids or the ones she just didn’t like in general, which covered just about everyone in the school.

Miranda is a blonde, said Micah rather curtly.

Giggling, Kiera asked, "What does that have to do with anything?"

You’re a redhead and I’m a brunette, said Micah matter-of-factly. It’s simple. She’s jealous. Micah glanced sideways at her sister, making a face that forced a laugh out of both of them.

She’s pretty strong, though, said Kiera, and she doesn’t like us. Plus, she’s a junior and we’re two years behind her. Making an enemy out of her would make us the lowest of losers in the whole school.

So, we just take the insults and smile at them? Micah was obviously getting irritated at her sister’s views.

No, but we don’t make her insults any bigger of an issue than they already are. Like Dad says, people like her need a fire to be fed. If we don’t let her get to us then she’ll eventually find another freshman to focus on because picking on us won’t be any more fun.

Who says it’s fun? Micah asked melodramatically.

For her, not for us, dummy, Kiera rolled her eyes. She’s just a brat and there’s no other word for it.

Oh, I could come up with a few more, Micah said sarcastically.

Look, we’re already considered weird, even for Pulitch. But being twin sisters who look nothing alike with completely different gifts tends to not sit well with whatever these people here call normal. Kiera tried her best to find the voice of reason.

I get it, Micah sighed. But it doesn’t mean that I can’t whine about it to my only sister.

Kiera smirked at her twin. Well, I hope you’re done whining ‘cause this is our class, said Kiera as she pointed at the sign above the huge oak door.

I wanna scream, Micah grunted. You know how hard it is to blow a hole in a door that size?

Good thing we have Thoughts And Processes this period, teased Kiera. This one’s more up my alley, sis.

Well, then, what are we waiting for? Suddenly a huge and very genuine grin crossed Micah’s face.

Kiera once again held the door for her younger sister. Micah may only be two minutes younger, but someone had to assume the ‘big sister’ role. It was a title that had just recently been claimed, since they had considered themselves equals for most of their lives. Micah had allowed her sister to care for her but in no way did she feel inferior. Kiera knew it as well.

Micah was harboring a lot inside of her and perhaps it frightened even her twin sister, for when the time came for one sister to physically protect the other (even from a dead animal) it was always Micah who came to the rescue. The slower and more thought out times in the middle were the times when Kiera stepped up and so it evened out.

As the two girls walked into their class, they soaked up the details of their surroundings. The windows were double-paned with solid wood trim and they were tinted just enough so that the sunlight wasn’t blinding but it was still there. It seemed as though every wall was built with Micah in mind, almost like someone knew that two hundred years later, a dark-haired maiden would come and blow up everything in sight. The ceiling was higher than the ceilings in their old school and even the desks and chairs were constructed of a sturdy, heavy ironwood.

Everything at Pulitch was extremely old, which told them a lot. Their school had been teaching kids to ‘control and expand’ their gifts for a very, very long time.

Kiera silently wondered if Pulitch was ready for Micah. Deep down, she didn’t think it was possible for anyone to be ready for her sister.

Two

When it came right down to it, Pulitch High School was somewhat more similar to a college with dormitories and a cafeteria than it was to a high school, except the cafeteria at Pulitch had fantastic food. From what Micah had heard about colleges, the cafeteria food was something you wouldn’t feed to your cows.

She had just begun her four years at Pulitch and already she hoped that the cook wasn’t due to retire anytime soon.

All four of the dormitories ate breakfast and dinner together every day and each class had their own tables. As Micah and Kiera found two seats at the freshman dinner table, they glanced at the tables of upperclassmen. It seemed like a completely different world on the other side of the room.

Don’t look at her, guys, said Lucas, who had been saving the girls’ seats. She just wants the attention.

Oh, I’m not interested in her, said Micah. I was only taking mental notes on how not to be when I’m older.

Miranda seems to have her own group of followers, huh? Kiera took one last glance as she lowered into her seat.

Yeah, answered Lucas, but I don’t think they like her any more than we do. They’re just afraid that she’ll do something if they don’t worship her.

She can’t be that much stronger than them, said Kiera. I mean, I know she’s gotta be stronger than us, but they’re all the same year so they should all be pretty equal, right?

I think maybe you have the wrong idea about how things work here, Yendi chimed in. She was the smallest of all the freshmen but her mouth didn’t quite know that. It’s not that everyone will be exactly the same by graduation. It’s that everyone will have access to the same levels by then.

Not getting it, said Kiera as she chewed the most delicious pot roast she had ever had.

Everyone starts with a gift, Yendi explained. Everyone has their own individual thing that they were born with.

And we learn other things while we’re here, continued Lucas. Our first gift will always be our strongest but the others can grow to unlimited strength, depending on how strong we are on the inside.

So, it’s possible for someone to completely master everything if they were strong enough to control it all? Kiera was intrigued.

Yeah, I guess so, said Yendi. But it’s never been done.

Well, Lucas disagreed, "it has been done once."

What? Kiera asked, looking back and forth between Yendi and Lucas. Who did it?

I heard that Mr. Conrad did. Lucas had heard from his father that their principal held the highest honors and possessed the highest gifts of anyone who had ever come through Pulitch.

That makes sense, said Kiera. I mean, he is the principal.

It’s not that he got the title ‘cause he’s the principal, said Lucas. "It’s because he’s just that good. He’s the principal because he’s got the highest rank. He had earned that status at Pulitch when he was only a sophomore."

Not possible. Yendi was very blunt. You don’t even get to take the fourth-level courses until you’re at least a junior and you can only take them then if you’ve mastered all the third-level courses by the end of the summer after your sophomore year.

That was way over my head, teased Kiera. We just got here and we haven’t really been told anything other than we can’t go to regular school because we’re so different and because we can do things.

Your parents got a letter from The Seal, right? Lucas asked.

I have no idea what The Seal is, but some people came to our house and had a meeting with our parents, said Micah, speaking up for the first time. The next thing we knew, there was a change in plans and our parents told us we would be leaving to come here.

We’d never even heard of Pulitch until those people showed up, said Kiera. They came to your house? Yendi asked as if she was thunderstruck.

Yeah, answered Micah. They said we belonged at a school with kids who were just like us. They said we would be attending with other special kids and we would learn to be greater than we already were, whatever that means.

You mean you don’t know? Lucas asked. What don’t we know?

No, Lucas, Yendi warned him. If they weren’t told, then they need to hear it from somebody other than you or me. That’s Mr. Conrad’s department, not ours.

Look, Yendi, explained Kiera, we get that we have special gifts that need to be kept hidden from the kids back home. But why? And why is there some even larger secret that we can’t hear from the only two people we call friends here?

All I can tell you, said Yendi, is that everyone gets a special letter from The Seal. That’s the organization that controls people like us. That letter is the reason every one of us is here but they didn’t send you a letter. They came to your house, which is strange. I heard they don’t like to be personally involved and the one letter is all people ever get.

Yeah, so? Micah retorted. Maybe Mom and Dad didn’t want us to come and so they ignored the letter or maybe they answered the letter and said they weren’t sending their kids away. Maybe that’s why they came in person.

Maybe, said Lucas. But it’s still weird.

I’ll tell you what’s not weird, said Kiera, growing uneasy with the current topic. This food. Not weird at all. This is the best dinner I’ve ever had and that’s saying a lot from a Nebraska girl who’s used to home cooked meals every night.

With that, everyone grew a little quieter while they ate.

When the four of them left the cafeteria, they decided to take the route through the courtyard where the park benches were shaped like large concrete animals. Today, the animals were on all fours and the seat was on the animals’ backs. Yesterday they were sitting up and if you sat down, you would be sitting in their laps. Micah thought that was a pretty fantastic trick.

They chose the bear path, where all the benches were grizzlies and, honestly, the most comfortable. Maybe it was because they were so big. The benches seemed to always be directly under a shade tree, no matter where the sun was in the sky.

From their own pebbled path they could see the juniors on the other side of the huge courtyard and from the corner of her eye, Micah could barely make out Miranda among the group. Micah tried not to stare but it seemed like Miranda was watching her. It felt like Miranda was watching her and it brought to Micah a sense of unease.

What is it with her? Kiera sat on the huge grizzly bear’s back with her sister while the other two chose the one across the narrow path from them. Kiera saw Micah’s apprehensive look and immediately got defensive.

I thought it was just me, said Micah. She completely has it out for me, doesn’t she?

What was it she said earlier today that got to you?

I don’t even remember, Micah lied.

Okay, you might be able to fake it with anyone else here, but I’m your sister and maybe you forget that I can feel what’s going on with you.

Micah looked away from the junior group and directly at her sister. Between us?

Strictly, vowed Kiera.

She said that I’d never belong anywhere, said Micah. Not even here. She said that not even Pulitch could save something like me.

What? Kiera was appalled. "What does that mean? Some-thing like you?"

Now you see?

No, I don’t! Kiera demanded. She’s a bully and she says things like that to make you upset on purpose. We’ve only been here for a week, Micah. She has no life so she wants to make other people miserable.

I’ve tried to take that advice but it’s hard when I look over there and she’s doing nothing but watching us over here. That’s creepy.

Exactly, Kiera agreed. She’s just creepy and that’s all.

When Micah looked back across the courtyard, Miranda was gone so she shrugged it off for the time being.

Micah’s mind was still going strong, though. She had things in her head that she had never really thought about before.

She thought about the hole in the wall and about how quickly the dust and concrete had reconstructed itself with only a few mutters from Mrs. Ogle. She thought about why she had so instinctively made that hole to begin with and was able to come up with nothing. She thought about Miranda and The Seal and the people who had come to their home and so easily had convinced her parents to send their children away to a bunch of strangers.

Kiera was the bookworm of the family. When they returned to their dorm room for the night, she would discuss all of her thoughts with her sister and see if there was some research they could do together that might help explain how they had so easily been manipulated into Pulitch High.

For now, however, they had managed to make a couple of friends and it was actually kind of magnificent to walk through an ever-changing courtyard and ride a concrete grizzly bear.

Maybe Pulitch wasn’t going to be completely bad.

Three

Somewhere, there was a library. And if Micah could decipher the school map she’d been given and maneuver the hallways as easily as her sister, then she’d have been there by now.

The dorms were huge, with circular hallways surrounding the main towers in the center of each one. The tower was where the bedrooms were. Each dormitory had its own library, which was specific to each level. Freshmen could only read from the first-level books. Sophomores had the second-level books and so on.

Books weren’t allowed to leave the libraries so that everyone would have access and there would never be a problem with someone needing a book that someone else had checked out.

After they’d left the courtyard, Micah had gone back to their room to drop off her backpack while Kiera had lugged hers into the library with her. Micah had assured her sister that she could find her way with no problem, but right about now she was rethinking her own confidence.

She should have known, though. She was always getting lost. One hallway looked just like the next and sometimes even the same hallway would look different from one day to the next. Memorizing landmarks at Pulitch was useless, as Micah had come to realize, since they all had their ways of shifting or moving. Even the paintings in the hallways would replace themselves, though Micah had never seen them move.

Maybe the caretakers got easily bored and moved them randomly or maybe they just changed. Either way, turning left at the painting of the old lady (where she’d turned left just the other day) seemed to place her at a dead end. Micah silently wished for her cell phone. She’d had one back in Nebraska but there was no service in this place and no rule at Pulitch that allowed them anyway.

She turned left (again) and let a sigh of relief escape her when she finally saw the open book symbol burned into the wood casing surrounding a set of heavy double doors. She thought to herself that it would probably work a little better if there were signs with directions or arrows or something other than just a small symbol of an open book. She shrugged and pulled open the library door.

The library was enormous. Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling. The hexagon-shaped room had a balcony halfway up that ran the entire perimeter of the room and had small round tables, which were accompanied by two chairs each.

Looming over the tiny tables were even more shelves of books.

The shelves in the center of the large open room were also lined up like a hexagon but only as high as Micah’s chin, so she could glance over the entire first floor as she scanned the room for her sister. She finally found her at one of the tables just at the top of the spiral staircase on the balcony.

You got lost again, said Kiera, not even looking up from her book as Micah walked up quietly behind her.

Hey, I’m here, aren’t I? Micah huffed back. Twenty minutes later than usual …

Twenty wrong turns more than usual, Micah said as she sat down across from her sister.

Kiera handed Micah the first-level version of Minding Your Mind and Micah glanced at the cover, which showed only a drawing of a large eyeball, and Micah cringed just a little. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to some of the stuff here, she said.

Do you mean the eyeball? Kiera giggled.

"Just look at this thing!" Micah held the book up in front of her sister and shook it at her, as if Kiera had never seen it before.

SHHHH! The librarian was glaring at them from the first floor.

Kiera waved her hand at her in an apologetic gesture then turned back to Micah. It’s just a picture, Kiera whispered.

I feel like it’s looking at me, said Micah. Like this eye can see all the way to my brain. Micah put the book on the small table facedown.

Maybe it can, Kiera said, then gave Micah a sideways glance and a smirk. But there’s nothing in that brain that’s too scary.

You should know what’s in there, Micah shot back sarcastically. Yours is almost identical.

"Almost is the key word here. At least I got here on the first try and didn’t take the long way."

So you can find your way to the library but you can’t tell if something’s looking at you funny?

It’s not looking at you, Kiera rolled her eyes.

Not now, anyway, replied Micah almost matter-of-factly as she glanced at the book facedown on the table.

The