A Tale of Phoenix

By Sandra Hayes

Phoenix, though entirely blameless, carries the guilt of his twin sister's death at birth and feels as though he is cursed. Events seem to confirm this when a family death occurs on each of his leap-year birthdays.

On his twelfth birthday, Phoenix’s bad luck accumulates in a near death experience, when he is caught in a fire. Whilst lying in a coma in this life, in another world - on an island called Lila - his story unfolds. Here, he meets Maya, his twin sister, who becomes his guide across the island. The whole island however seems to be under a curse and Phoenix finds himself in difficult situations; he escapes a heart-hunting beast, rescues a little boy called Karun from his death and tries to bring him to safety.

During his journey Phoenix finds a storybook about Lila, where a mermaid called Marina seems to want to help him. Soon, the two worlds intersect and Marina guides Phoenix deeper into the heart of the island, where he must save Karun and awaken himself from his coma and try to return to the real world alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Mar 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781805148371

Sandra Hayes

Sandra Hayes was originally born in the south of Germany, emigrated to Ireland in the nineties and is now back in Bavaria, where she lives in the beautiful town of Murnau as a Yoga- and Movement teacher. She enjoys all creative endeavours, particularly dance and writing and has a passion for Vedic literature.

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgements

1

Phoenix

Once, there was a boy who was cursed by a terrible demon. At least, that was what he believed.

His name was Phoenix – an unusual name, and one that carried a great deal of significance, but he would only come to realise this after his death.

Phoenix’s story began in a small town called Evervale, on the 29th February; the day of his birth. It was a special day – one that happens only once every four years – and Phoenix considered it the unluckiest day of all.

On that day, when he had arrived in this world, he’d taken his first breath and his lungs had filled up with cool, sharp air until it hurt and he’d started to cry. He cried so desperately and loudly that his mother clasped him to her chest too quickly and pulled at the umbilical cord, which was, unbeknownst to anyone, wrapped several times around his twin sister’s neck. The midwife tried her best to loosen it but by the time the little girl was born, it was already too late. Phoenix’s sister, whose name should have been Maya, emerged the colour of a ripe aubergine and never took her first breath.

This fateful death began a series of strange events and marked the first appearance of the demon’s curse.

From that day on, Phoenix’s mother refused to clasp him to her chest ever again. I wanted a daughter, not a son, and now she’s dead and gone because of you, she wailed and sobbed into the boy’s tiny new ears. It’s all your fault. You murdered her. And on the rare occasions when she did hold him stiffly in her arms, her tears and words dropped onto his little head and seeped into his skin. They left a sadness there; a feeling of rejection and guilt that never truly went away.

As if Phoenix agreed with her laments, he too cried and wailed so much that hardly any other sound was heard inside their home. His father, who had always disliked children and dreaded having any of his own, soon had enough of all the crying. One morning, without even a word of goodbye, he walked out of the door and never returned.

And after that, Phoenix’s mother cried even more. See what you have done now? You are cursed! she screeched at him. One day, I’m sure you will burn in hell!

Her words crept into Phoenix’s heart and made themselves at home.

When he was two years old, his mother’s tears finally dried up. She hung a crucifix over the mantelpiece – a wooden carving of Jesus, with real, sharp thorns wrapped around his head and neon crimson blood flowing down his face. She taught Phoenix how to kneel before the tortured, glowing man and pray.

Dear Lord, he whispered quietly, each morning and each night, I am guilty. It is all my fault and I am sorry. Amen.

By the time Phoenix was three, his mother grew tired of praying and going to church and all the other demands of religion. Soon the wooden Jesus was surrounded by an array of bottles that stood, like Apostles, half full on the mantelpiece and made the whole house smell of spirits – but not the holy kind. The spirits haunted his mother’s mind and made her forgetful. First, she forgot to make Phoenix pray, for which he was relieved. Then she forgot to prepare food for him, which forced him to fend for himself. Each day, he searched for stale pieces of bread or leftover bits of raw, wilted cabbage, and often, he went to bed hungry.

But luckily, Phoenix had a grandmother. She lived nearby, in a small house with a garden and a large attic, and a couch in the kitchen on which he often slept when the spirits in his mother’s mind became too loud. His grandmother’s name was Sofia, and because she had grown up in Germany, he called her Oma Sofia.

Oma Sofia wore many layers of colourful skirts and hand-knitted cardigans. Her hair fell in long grey braids all the way down to her hips. She was blind; her eyes scarred and glazed over with a white sheen that looked like cobwebs, so that Phoenix never really knew their true colour. But she could cook and clean, and go for walks outside, and even knit and weave as well as, or better than, anyone else.

Phoenix liked to sit at the table in Oma Sofia’s warm kitchen, while she stood at her old wood-burning stove and with a long wooden spoon stirred pots filled with his favourite dishes. Over steaming bowls of yellow corn porridge, roasted chicken, or sweet stuffed dumplings, which filled his empty belly once again with warmth and love, he sat and listened to her stories.

Once upon a time… she would begin, and take him on a journey full of trials and adventure and magic. And, no matter how difficult the hero’s tribulations were, she would always, without fail, end with …and they lived happily ever after.

Once upon a time, there was a boy, whose name was Karun. He lived in a country far, far away, and his parents were so poor that they had nothing to feed him. So they took him deep into the woods and left him there, under a hazel tree, to die.

All by himself? Phoenix asked, and bit his lip.

Yes, all by himself.

And did he die?

No. It was not his fate to die. It just so happened that a mother wolf, who had lost her young, found Karun lying in the moss. She took him home to her den and fed him on her milk.

What does wolf milk taste like? Phoenix wanted to know.

"It tastes of strength and protection and love. Karun drank so much of it that he became strong like a wolf, and fast and courageous too. But he also grew to be loving and kind, just like his wolf mother.

When he was big and all grown up, he left the forest to search for other humans. He wandered the earth until finally he reached a big city. Many people lived within the city walls, yet there was no one in the streets. They were all hiding in their homes.

But why?

Because they were scared.

Of what?

An evil king ruled over the city. He owned three giant dogs with sharp teeth and an appetite for human blood. He used the demon dogs to make people give him everything they owned – even their children. The people were so frightened by the dogs that they obliged.

Phoenix shifted closer to Oma Sofia and squeezed her hand. Was Karun scared too?

He was. But he had the courage of a wolf. And so he didn’t listen to his fear; he listened only to his heart. He went into the king’s castle and fought the dogs with his bare hands and teeth. He acted and sounded just like a wolf, and when the dogs recognised that he was not an ordinary man, they surrendered to him. From then on, they obeyed Karun and followed him around. They soon realised that he understood them and treated them much better than the king had ever done, and so they turned against their old master and chased him far, far away. And so Karun became the new king, and the dogs became the protectors of the people and their children. Karun proclaimed new laws decreeing that from now on every citizen should live in freedom, and that dogs, wolves and all the other animals should be treated with respect, so that all creatures of the earth could live in peace.

Phoenix’s hand relaxed. And did they live in peace? he asked.

They all lived happily ever after.

Phoenix loved Oma Sofia’s stories more than anything in the world; even sweet dumplings. Just like the food she cooked for him, they always left a warm, tingling feeling in his belly.

Sometimes, his mother told him stories too. But they were of a different kind.

Deep down in the pits of the earth lives a demon. He looks like a dragon, with eyes of glowing coal and a body made from smoke and fire. His favourite food is people’s time. Sometimes, he comes and steals minutes, days, or even years from children’s lives. He likes the happy times most of all; especially the birthdays. He has already taken most of your birthdays; that’s why you only get one every four years. If you don’t watch out, soon you won’t have any left at all. You’d best hide and stay quiet so that he doesn’t notice you.

These stories did not leave a warm, tingling feeling in Phoenix’s belly. Instead they fashioned a tight knot of fear there that caused him to have horrible dreams. Each night, visions of the time-eating demon came to him in many different shapes. The roaring, distorted face of a lion; a slick, shadowy underwater monster; a dragon with hot, fiery breath that smelled like rotten eggs and threatened to burn him to ashes. In his dreams, he tried to run away but could not move his body. He tried to shout for help but could not find his voice. Bathed in sweat and out of breath, each morning he woke feeling as if the previous night’s horrors had been real and not just a dream. Sometimes he even thought that he could still smell the sulphur lingering in the air.

During the day, he did his best to be as quiet as he could and hardly spoke a word. Mostly, he stayed in his room, alone and hidden under the covers. There, with a torch and a book of letters Oma Sofia had given him, he tried to teach himself to read.

And then, when he turned four, on the first true leap-day birthday of his life, the demon’s curse struck him with all of its might.

I got a cake for you! his mother screeched, when she arrived home in the afternoon. She plonked it down on the kitchen table so hard that cream splattered onto the wall.

On the cake, in big pink icing, was written the name ‘MAYA’. Phoenix, who by now knew almost all of the letters of the alphabet, stared at it, pale-faced and wide-eyed.

His mother, who had spent the morning finishing what was left inside the bottles on the mantelpiece, hiccuped and said, "Oops. I’m s-s… sorry… Hic… Wrong name. That’s not you… Chhhr. Then she snorted. Why are you looking so sad? Stop that! You want to make me feel bad? Hic… Oh, all right then. Because I’m a good mother – hic… I’m a great mother; the best mother you could ever wish for – I’ll go and get another cake. With your name on it. P-H-O-E-N-I-X. She pronounced each letter with great concentration. Is that what you want? Hic… I hope you’ll be happy then."

Without putting on her coat, she staggered back outside. Phoenix watched her from the window. It had been raining heavily all week and the driveway was full of muddy puddles that splashed under her feet. She got into her car and slammed the door, so that a crow that had been sheltering under the hedge flew up and landed close to Phoenix on the windowsill. Together they watched her drive out of the gate and onto the slippery, wet road.

A moment later, Phoenix heard a loud crash. A long silence followed. He watched the raindrops fall heavily from the sky until an ambulance siren broke through their drumming. To him, it sounded like the demon’s terrible screams.

In the evening of the same day, accompanied by an awkward policeman, Phoenix packed up a few of his clothes, some books, and his spotted stuffed giraffe, and moved in with Oma Sofia.

There, there, said the policeman, and handed him a lollipop. Happy birthday.

2

Oma Sofia

From that day on, Phoenix’s fear of the time-eating demon etched an image into his mind like a deep scar. It clouded his view of the world, and lingered in the air like a subtle smell of rot that tainted everything around him with gloom.

The only place where he felt safe was Oma Sofia’s kitchen, where the aromas of freshly baked bread, boiling cherry jam, and hot poppy seed cake disguised the smell of rot and enveloped him like a blanket. The kitchen was the only place where his nightmares didn’t dare to haunt him, and so, although Oma Sofia offered him a bed beside her own, he kept on sleeping on the couch beneath the kitchen window. She knitted him a patchwork blanket which, despite her blindness, was colourful and bright. Each evening she wrapped it around him and then sat down behind her weaving loom and, to the rhythmic swishing of the shuttle, sang a lullaby for him until he fell asleep.

Dreams are made for living;

Stars are made of gold.

You are a star;

You are a dream;

You are a story told.

The weaver weaves our stories

From silk and stars and dreams.

But you, my love, create the world

Until it shines and gleams.

How can you weave and knit such beautiful things when you can’t even see them? Phoenix asked her one day. Is it hard, being blind?

She flapped her hand at him dismissively. Aeee! she called out, as she often did when something was too trivial to worry about. I’ve been blind since I was a very young girl and I’m well used to it. And besides, there are more ways to see than with your eyes.

What other ways are there? Phoenix asked.

Close your eyes, she said, and think of a flower. What do you see?

Phoenix closed his eyes. I don’t know… something red?

Look closely. What kind of red?

Really bright. With black in the middle. It’s a poppy! he shouted out. I can see it! He laughed.

See? Gently, Oma Sofia tapped Phoenix’s forehead with her finger. You have another eye right here. And with this inner eye you can see anything you like. You can see into your dreams and even other worlds. And the more you keep your two eyes closed, the more your inner eye can see. Mine have been closed for so long that my inner vision is sharper than that of an eagle. She laughed out loud.

How did you lose your eyesight? Phoenix asked her often, even though he already knew.

It’s a long story, she would always say. You might as well sit down and have some cocoa.

And as they huddled on the couch beneath the window, with big mugs of steaming cocoa and thick slices of poppy seed cake in their hands, she told him about a time long ago in a place far away.

Did you know that I have a sister?

Phoenix nodded, his cheeks bulging with cake. She’s your twin, he mumbled with stuffed cheeks.

She is. But I haven’t seen her in almost sixty years.

What’s her name?

Her name is Karla.

Is she still alive?

She is.

How do you know?

I just know. Twins have a very special bond, you see. They’ve travelled across the stars together, even before they arrived on this earth. Their souls are inseparably connected.

Even when they die?

Even when they die.

Phoenix stared at his cake filling. It was black, just like the inside of the poppy he had imagined. How did you lose each other? he asked, without looking up.

Oma Sofia bit into her cake and chewed, and Phoenix had to wait for her to swallow. When we were young children, we lived in a place far away from here. A country called Romania. It is a beautiful place, with tall trees and mountains and many rivers and lakes. We were very happy there. We lived in wagons and rode around on horses all day long, and we didn’t have to go to school. Our mother taught us everything we needed to know.

Like what?

She taught us songs and stories, and what kinds of herbs to use for sickness. She knew a lot, my mother. She knew how to read a person’s future from their palm, and how to tell a story in a way that could heal the heart of anyone who listened. She took a sip of cocoa. At night our father played music for us on his guitar, by the light of the moon, until we fell asleep under the stars. And sometimes, we would gather with other families and dance around a fire under the moon, until the sun rose again. We had a wonderful life.

Her face turned toward the ceiling, as if she could see the moon and the stars there, and hear her father playing guitar. Phoenix looked up too, but saw only the old, dusty lampshade.

Oma Sofia continued. People called us „Gypsies, which some of them said with affection and others with disgust. Unfortunately, most of the villagers nearby were of the second kind. They didn’t like our fires and our music. They were afraid of us, and of our mother’s gifts. They thought that we brought them bad luck."

What happened then? Phoenix asked, wide-eyed.

One day, a man in the village was murdered. The villagers blamed us. A few days later, in the night, when the moon was black and the sky too dark to see, they came for us. Karla and I were asleep in bed, huddled against our mother. The horses were standing in the field at the side of the road. Like guard dogs, they began to neigh, and we woke up.

She took another bite. Phoenix waited for her to chew and swallow.

Tell me, Oma Sofia, what happened then? he begged impatiently.

They came with torches and pitchforks, and with rage in their eyes. They burned down the wagons and caught our horses with ropes. We screamed and fought, and I ran away as fast as I could. Through the darkness I saw a man with a big stick running toward me, and so I dodged him like a rabbit, climbed up a high stone wall, and jumped down into a thicket on the other side. I had kept my eyes wide open to try to see in the dark, and when I landed, the thorns cut into them.

She slurped her cocoa to wash down the last of her cake. Phoenix took her wrinkled hand in his.

Did it hurt? he asked.

It hurt a lot, and my hands and face were wet with blood. I could smell it. But I was brave and bit my tongue and made no sound. Even when everything was quiet again I didn’t move for a long time. Only when I became so thirsty that I couldn’t bear it any longer did I start to move. I couldn’t see anything properly so I was just wandering around, crying salty tears that stung my bleeding eyes like a thousand needles, until someone finally picked me up and took me to a hospital. The doctors there looked after me but they could not restore my sight.

What happened to your sister?

I don’t know. That was the last time I ever saw her. When I was better, one of the nurses took me to an orphanage. I lived there for a few years, and then I was adopted by a kind family who took me to Germany. When I grew up, I got married and had two children: your mother and your Uncle Leo. Leo turned out just like my father and my uncles back in Romania: restless and full of ideas. He left home to join a circus when he was still young. He couldn’t help it – it’s in his blood. Oma Sofia’s lips turned up in a smile, and some cake crumbs fell onto her lap. She didn’t seem to notice. And then your mother met a handsome Irish man: your father. They fell in love and she followed him to Ireland. And when my own husband died, God rest his soul, and I was alone again, I followed them. And here we both still are, you and me.

Where is Uncle Leo now? Phoenix asked.

He is travelling across the world with a famous circus. Right now, he is in India. Oma Sofia stood and carried the empty plates to the sink.

Tell me about India! Phoenix said, but Oma Sofia didn’t answer. She washed the dishes and began to hum – and when she hummed, she did not want to be disturbed.

Life was good for Phoenix until he was five years old. Then he went to school. From the moment he introduced himself in class, the children laughed at him and screamed his name in mocking voices that got even louder when his face turned crimson and he tried to hide behind his desk.

Why can’t I have a normal name? he asked Oma Sofia when he arrived back home after his first day.

Aeee! she said. A normal name? What good is a normal name when it isn’t your true name?

What do you mean?

You’re lucky that you have the name you do, she said, and held up her wooden spoon in the air to illustrate the importance of her words. I chose it for you, you know.

Why? Why did my mother not choose a name for me?

Because she was so sad about your sister that she would have chosen a really sad name. Or one that isn’t yours, like Marc or Fred or David.

What’s wrong with David? Phoenix asked. There is a boy called David in my class. He is tall and knows a lot of jokes, and everybody wants to be his friend. I wish my name was David too.

Nothing is wrong with the name David, Oma Sofia replied. "Nothing at all, except it isn’t your name. Your name is Phoenix."

Why?

I might be blind but I can see you better than anyone else can. I knew your name the first time I heard your pitiful cries and saw your face turn red as if you were about to burst into flames. You were only this small. She held her hands apart to show the size of a small melon. I knew you needed a name that would protect you. A name that is more powerful than death. Do you know about the magic of the phoenix?

Phoenix shook his head.

"The phoenix is a most magnificent bird. His tears can heal sickness and broken hearts and his song can bring the dead back to life. There is only one of his kind in the whole world,