There's always something about firelight. It casts shadows, softens the lines, sets everything aglow, and swallows you up. Once you're in the fire, there's no escaping it and there's no going back unscathed. But even still, I'm mesmerized by it, drawn to it, and willing to get a little burned if it means I can feel the heat of it pulse through me.

"UP! UP! UP!" Maya's mother, Rish, pulled back the curtains of her bedroom, letting precious morning sunlight filter in uninterrupted across Maya's room.

Maya groaned and pulled the covers up over her eyes. "Mom, please! It's the last day of winter break, pleeeease."

"I need help finalizing some stuff for Friday's bonfire gathering and I need your help, so UP PLEASE!" she said pulling the covers down off of Maya. "Did you girls have fun last night?" Her mother always did this—she always started casual conversation to help distract you from the thing you really didn't feel like doing. It was pretty effective on Maya over the years but as a pulsing headache already built up behind her left temple, Maya didn't find it so endearing this time.

"It was eventful," she grumbled, leaning up and rubbing her eyes.

"Well, good. I'm glad you got to blow off some steam before the stress of the semester. Get dressed please, we're leaving in 15!" and with that, Rish swept out the room, her lithe and shapely figure disappearing down the wide steps to the kitchen. Maya's room was closest to the staircase and if she poked her head out of the door, she would have full view of the front door. It came in handy when people swung by unannounced that she'd rather avoid (boys, community leaders, overzealous cousins, you get the idea).

Maya got ready quickly and spent most of the morning cruising around town with her mom, stopping at some council member homes to drop off care packages and food, as well as picking up supplies for the Friday gathering. They always liked to hold a bonfire at the beginning of the year to get everyone together and reacquaint with themselves with the new year. Typically, they would discuss tribe matters, fundraising for the school or local resident's home repairs. People would commit to dedicating time and resources to restoring areas of the reservation for the next year and new projects were assigned to community members like Maya's mother.

Maya was very involved in her tribe, mostly due to her mother's influence, but she was well versed in the stories and traditions of her community. It gave her immense pride but also filled her with a desire to see the world outside of her tribe. Maya was the council's hopeful for ivy league admittance from the tribal school's batch of graduates. She had a great shot at a full ride to just about all of the public universities she had applied for both in and outside the state of Washington, but Maya was holding out for bigger things.

Currently, she was holding her breath for her Princeton and Columbia application decisions. A girl could dream and this girl was pulling out all the stops to get out of La Push and into the great wide world for awhile. But while she was still here, her mother would keep her wrapped up tight in the traditions and community that kept her safe since birth.

Maya spent the rest of the evening organizing herself for the week ahead at school. She texted Becks and Keye (who had nothing of note to report except digging for more details on Jeremy Treever of all people). She obsessively checked her email for an applications status update on her college acceptances and just as it had the night before, she closed the window with no news.

The rush of the new and final semester felt good. Maya couldn't help but feel something in her shift, as if every step forward was a new moment waiting to be defined, if only she knew how to define it. She would chase that feeling as mucha s she could

She barely made it past second period when Jeremy tracked her down. Maya was pushing her locker door closed, commiserating with Keye about their first period homework—a paper due next week on the cultural impact of colonizers in "A Passage to India" no less— when he leaned on the row of lockers over her right shoulder.

"Maya the master escape artist," he said pleasantly, she had to admit, his tone exuded a warmth she couldn't deny and she could practically feel the heat coming off of his body like a overworking radiator. Maya widened her eyes at Keye before gaining her composure and turning to meet Jeremy's eyes. She clasped her AP Physics book in her arms, eager to get to her third period class.

"Jeremy the expert at finding girls who don't want to be found," she gave a reassuring laugh to show it was a joke and he smiled in return. He was absolutely massive, towering above her even in her 4-inch heeled black boots.

"So we got cut off the other night."

"That we did," Maya said.

"And I wanted to see if you would maybe want to hang out this weekend? Maybe we could get together and study?" A productive date. Hmm, she liked that. Maya arched an eyebrow suggestively.

"A study hangout?" she refused to use the word date.

"Yeah, I mean, I know you're swamped with AP stuff even though classes started today, and I'm already behind so, I thought it might be doubly useful? We get to hangout, talk…" he trailed off. Maya pondered this for a minute and then with a sidelong glance at Keye who was patiently twirling her neat pony between her fingers while checking her phone, she said:

"Sure, why not. Want to meet up at Clearwater Coffee on Saturday around 11?"

"Sounds good!" he said, bopping her forearm with his textbook gently before heading off quickly in the direction of his next class. Maya snapped her locker shut and turned to look at Keye who was doing very uncouth hip thrusting in the middle of the hallway.

"AW YEAH!" she said before bursting into laughter.

"Keye, calm down," Maya said as if it was no big deal. She started to walk quickly toward her Physics class not wanting to be late. For all the responsibility and buttoned up demeanor that Becks had, she couldn't hold a candle to Maya's determination to succeed in school, not to mention punctuality.

"I can't believe it. Maya Sun actually said YES to a date!" Keye skipped to catch up with her.

"Not so loud! And it's not a date, it's a study sesh. Very different." Maya said as she rushed around a corner.

"Okay, but this is groundbreaking! In all our time here, you've not ONCE said yes to any kind of date other than Carmichael what's his face from Seattle that one time and he was a total do–" The bell rang and Maya waved goodbye before ducking through the door of her class, grateful for the interruption from the onslaught.

The rest of the week passed by in an all too quick haze for Maya. She was hoping to be caught up on some things by the end of the week before her study session with Jeremy on Saturday, but by Friday afternoon and a pile of work ahead of her and her duties at the bonfire tonight, Maya was already overwhelmed and feeling very behind.

"The answer is no, Maya. It's the first gathering of the year and the tribe's elders will be there. Plus, you only have the spring and summer before you're off to college and then who even knows how many bonfires you'll be back for!" Rish choked up a little as she prepared her Five Divine casseroles for the gathering that night. Maya had been pleading with her to let her stay home just this once so that she could tackle some homework before the weekend.

Leave it to Maya's mother to put tribal business before her daughter's academic success.

"Ugh, fine, but I'm bringing my English homework to work on during some downtime." she conceded trudging back upstairs to change. The weather was holding up well for January which was surprising. It was unseasonably warmer, but the air still had a bite to it when the wind blew off of the incoming waves.

Maya decided to layer up and wore a long sleeve black shirt under her baggy black sweater with the wide cuffed collar. She cuffed the sleeves a little just enough to leave her wrists exposed and dawned her late grandmother's black leather watch. She paired her sweater with a pair of dark jeans, sans rips, and bundled some wool socks under her dark brown boots with a 2-inch heel. Her mom had made a good point, it was the first bonfire of the year so she might as well look presentable.

Her family liked to maintain a certain level of respectability in her community seeing as her mother ran a lot of the gatherings and sat in on council meetings for timekeeping purposes. She had a line in without being a sacred member and Maya knew that that was all she truly wanted in life—to be a bigger part of her community and her tribe's history.

Maya carefully brushed out her thick black hair and curled some intermittent waves throughout. She dabbed on some pigmented lip stain that accentuated her full mouth and reddened her lips a little. She finished off with a quick swipe of mascara and called it good.

As she clattered down the stairs in her boots, Maya grabbed her brown book bag off the hook by the door and stuffed her notebook, A Passage to India and some pens into her bag.

"Mom! Time to go!" she shouted by the railing. Her father swung around the corner of the kitchen and planted a soft kiss to the top of Maya's head. He loved bonfire nights almost as much as Maya's mom. They reminded him of his childhood, sitting next to his father and hearing the legends of their tribe. He tucked into his jacket and held the door open for her as Rish scuttled down the hallway balancing two casserole dishes and pulling her hat off the hook by the door.

When they arrived in the clearing just down the hill from the council's meeting house, there were already some local boys setting up the bonfire and some tables to host the food. Maya was given a task and set to work, keeping her head down except to say hello to each person who came up to her and exclaimed:

"Oh Maya! The end of your senior year, how are you feeling?"

"Got big plans for college I heard. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and my heart light for you!"

"Oh I just have to introduce you to my grandson. He just got into the University of Montana, I'm sure you two would have lots to talk about."

Maya was always courteous, a trait her parents hammered into her from a young age. She loved her community but just once, she'd love to be somewhere where no one knew her. Where something about her was a little bit of a mystery and her life wasn't an open book because people had watched her grow up from birth.

When Rish came over to help her tidy up the spread of food before the elders began telling the legends, a group of towering men caught her eye and she watched them with fascination.

"Oh my god, I didn't know Sam Uley's group would be here!" she exclaimed in delight.

"Sam Uley?" Maya said, scoffing a little, "The leader of that protector group the council's always going on about?"

"Mmmhhmm, they rarely show up to these events anymore. I haven't seen them in years honestly, not since you were much younger." Her eyes were still transfixed on the group and she wasn't the only one.

In the past eight or so years, the tides of opinion had been gradually shifting on Sam Uley's group. They used to be thought of as thugs, a gang of no good trouble makers that had weird ties and permissions from the council. But slowly, the opinion held by most tribe members had shifted, mostly in part to Sam's group and the council's work, at showing that they were integral members of the tribe. Honorable even. People talked about them in hushed reverence now and their presence was always overtly respected. Long gone was the talk of them being a cause for the drug problem in La Push. They were now thought to be the reason why so many drug dealers had been pushed out. Crime was near non-existent in La Push proper and the council publicly attributed that to Sam Uley and his group.

Her mom was mesmerized by them. They were a sight so Maya couldn't really blame them. They all varied in levels of tallness. And their wide shoulders, hard bodies, and strong features exhibited the most carried traits of their tribe. They were echoes of past warriors, carrying the hearts and minds of their ancestors and for that, they were revered now. And, best of all, according to her mother, they were incredibly beautiful.

"Why don't you go say hello," Maya prompted, trying to organize the plastic cutlery into neat cups for distribution.

"Oh, I couldn't!" Rish actually seemed pretty flustered and Maya let out a snort of delight as she saw the color rush to her mother's cheeks.

"They're not celebrities mom, you can just go talk to them," Maya looked up at the group now. Most of them had their backs turned to her but her eyes widened when her gaze landed on one person in particular. "Oh my god, that's Jeremy," she said without thinking.

"Who? Jeremy Treever?" Rish knew everyone. "Where?" She wasn't even looking in the direction of Sam's group anymore, clearly unable to recognize the now towering figure of Jeremy amongst the throng of men.

"Right there, in Sam's group," Maya said under her breath.

"Oh my god! He was accepted into Sam's group? That's amazing! They haven't taken any new members in years." Her mouth was slightly ajar and she pointed, "Oh and there's Mica!"

"Aren't you the one who told me it's rude to point?" Maya was acutely embarrassed now. She was not trying to draw attention to herself.

It made sense now—Jeremy's transformation—that she saw him with Sam's group. They all seemed to have that similar build and Jeremy fit right in. Maya wondered why Sam had decided to add new members to his group now.

"Let's go find a spot, they're about to start." Rish said as she wiped her hands on her waist-high apron. Clearly she had given up on trying to approach Sam's group.

Maya ran a hand through her hair, took one last look at the table and felt satisfied. As she sat on a low log next to her mother and father, she caught Becks and Keye's eyes across the circle. They were standing back and off to the side and shot her a smile and a wave. "Talk after?" Becks mouthed and Maya nodded enthusiastically.

The sun was setting quickly in the late winter light and the bonfire was already raging. The elders were escorted to their seats at the head of the fire and began their part in telling the stories of warriors past. Maya's favorite was that of the spirit wolf warriors. As a child she always had this recurring dream that she was gliding through the forest at full speed. Under her were paws pounding into the wet earth, but she felt nothing except the cool refreshing breeze on her face. The dream persisted through her teenage years and after every retelling of the spirit wolf warrior story, Maya's dreams would come back with vigor. Sometimes she was the wolf, other times a golden, tan wolf stood next to her. She would point over the cliff toward the sea and before she could wake up, she would hear her voice say "Wait."

Maya never knew if she was saying the words "wait" to the wolf or to herself. Sometimes the voice didn't even sound like hers. Sometimes it sounded like a deep, wanting male voice that made her shiver and always startled her awake in a cold sweat. But she knew that she felt deeply connected to these stories and always relished in their retelling, especially when it was from a tribal elder.

Following the stories, the elders announced some council business and divided up projects and labor among the able-bodied members of the tribe. Maya never really paid much attention to this part, often lost in thought about the stories and where she fit into them in her own personal histories.

"And finally," Elder Leo said, "We want to offer our thoughts and light hearts to those young members of our tribes waiting to hear back about colleges. Maya Sunriviere is hopeful for some very competitive schools and if accepted, we know she will make her community proud."

Maya blushed profusely, completely caught off guard by this call out. Her father looped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a sideways hug as she dipped her head and nodded her appreciation at the acknowledgment.

As the announcements came to a close, Maya stood up and looked for her friends over the bonfire. Her face was still red from being singled out but in the firelight it warmed and spread across her whole face in a swath of joy. Maya felt...good. Very good. As she flicked her eyes up, she had the distinct feeling that was she was being watched. And in one defining moment, her life changed.

Across the fire was a member of Sam Uley's group. When his line of sight collided with hers, Maya felt her entire body freeze. The world around her grew quiet and slow and she felt like she was back in her dream with the tan wolf. Her heart hammered in her chest as she watched this complete stranger hold her gaze like he'd recognized her before, maybe even in lifetimes before this one. Her lips parted slightly as if she was going to say something, but words escaped her and as the recognition flooded his eyes, Maya felt the same wash over her.

She knew him.

She didn't know how, and didn't even know his name, but Maya recognized him. A soul acknowledging another soul. The burning in her belly crawled up through her throat and she could only describe the warmth as something akin to pure joy. Her eyes pulled across his face, naturally trying to memorize this moment as everything seemed to have stopped. She took her time letting her eyes roam around the firm, cut jaw with overgrown stumble, the dark eyes reflecting the flames licking up toward the sky. When she tried to place the look on his face, she recognized several emotions flicker across it at once: shock, recognition, understanding, upset, and then finally, was it relief? And then, his smile. Her eyes darted to the warm grin he flashed at her for just a moment and felt addicted by it. But then, he quickly closed his lips over the smile and took a step back, snapping Maya from her reverie all too soon. Immediately, she craved that contact in his eyes again—she'd never felt something more familiar that filled her with want in her entire life. The feeling was totally new but also curiously familiar as if looking at him that way was the most natural thing she'd ever done. It made sense to want to look at him like that, get closer, reach out with one hand extended toward that hard jaw and—

The cold air pressed in around her and she felt her arm being touched. The sounds were slowly coming back to life and she heard her name a couple of times as if she was coming up from under deep water. She swivelled her head to look to her right: Keye was standing there, her eyes flashing wide in confusion.

"You okay?" she said. Was she okay? Maya couldn't be sure. When she whipped her head back to look for the man again, he had disappeared. "Maya?" Keye pressed again.

"Dude, your mom's casserole never disappoints." Becks said over a plateful. Maya shook her head out a little bit, trying to clear the swimming feeling in her brain.

What just happened? She tried to scan the crowd again for any sign of him or Sam Uley's group but they were gone. When she looked to her right, she saw Elder Mila sitting serenely on the stump still at the head of the bonfire. She was staring back at Maya with a smile so wide she thought her face might crack in two. As Mila nodded at her, Maya couldn't help but feel that warmth quickly turn to ice at some unconscious understanding at what had happened. She didn't know what it was, but it no longer boded well.

"Earth to My!" Keye said snapping fingers in front of her face now, "Jeez, are you alright? I thought I lost you."

"Sorry," Maya was finally able to murmur. She felt dizzy. "So weird. I thought I just saw—" But how could she explain what she just experienced to her best friends? They would think she was insane: 'Hey guys, I think my soul just recognized it's counterpart and I got to find some weird guy I've never met before and tell him… I don't know...I think we're soulmates?' Yeah...totally crazy when she sounded it out in her head.

"Who?" Keye prompted, looking around curiously.

"No one," Maya said. But that statement had never felt as wrong as it did just now. Not no one, the one.