Chapter 3
The Truth
Tweet! Tweet! Somewhere near me a bird sang. I opened my eyes only to see the sky trying to peek through the greenish screen of trees. "Oh. What happened?" "You finally woke up," I heard a voice say. I looked next to me and saw a silver-white wolf. It got up, walked over to me, and gently licked me on my cheek. "Hey!" "That was from Diana," it said to me. "She likes you, you know. Just don't tell her I told you. I'm Avalanche." "Uh...hi. I didn't know wolves could talk." "They can't," Diana said as she came from behind a large boulder. "She's a mistwolf. A wolf that can turn to mist." "Really," I said sarcastically. "I could never guess." "Sometimes I wish she couldn't talk," she said, sending an angry glare towards Avalanche. Avalanche crowed low in a shameful way, but she didn't seem ashamed. Her eyes seem to say, "What! It's true." "Anyway," Diana said, turning to me, "how do you feel?" "Ok. I think. What happened?" Avalanche and Diana exchanged puzzled and worried glances. "The class went up in flames," Avalanche said glumly. "How?" I asked puzzled. "There was no stove or anything in the room." Diana looked down sadly. "You caused it." This hit me in the chest as hard as having a bowling ball chucked at you. "What do you mean? I…I…I passed out. How could I do anything? It's not like I could just snap my fingers and start a flame!" I looked at Diana, who still hung her head, then at Avalanche, who sadly looked away. "Zeke," Diana began to say softly, "you're not like other people." "What do you mean I'm not like other people? Of course I am. I'm a human being." "Not exactly. The only way you could have seen the janitor or started the fire was if you were a…a-" "A what?" "A shaman." "A shaman! What's a shaman?" "We thought you already knew. Your parents should have told you. They would have known." "What! You mean my parents knew but never bothered to tell me! I can't believe this!" "Zeke, just listen. If you want to know what a shaman is, a shaman is someone who can see, talk to, and merge with ghosts. But..." "But what?" Diana looked at Avalanche who looked at me and spoke. "As we said before, you caused the fire." "But I don't get it. How did I cause it?" "Couldn't you feel it?" Diana questioned me. "Well, I remember feeling this burning feeling inside me. It got hotter and hotter the more I got upset. When, I couldn't take it anymore, I felt it felt it leave me all in an instant." "That burning feeling was the fire within you." Avalanche explained. "Okay. But there's one thing. How and why did I pass out." "Avalanche will explain," Diana said. "The amount if fire that you were building up was astonishing! It was more than I have ever seen in an experienced shaman. Since you were inexperienced, you didn't know how to handle all of it. You let all the fire out in one burst. That one burst was so powerful that it knocked you out." "You just said that an experienced shaman had the same power. Why do you still say that I'm different than other shamans?" Avalanche looked at me with patience. "You are the ONLY shaman to have ever been BORN with the power of an element. This makes you unusually strong." I couldn't take anymore, so I tried to change the subject. "So, how did you stop the fire?" "I had taken you outside while Diana stayed in the building." I was extremely puzzled. "What can Diana do to stop the fire?" "It's simple. Diana is a shaman as well. She has mastered the ice. She simply needed to freeze the fire." "But wouldn't the fire just melt it away?" "Yes, but that is what stopped the fire. Ice melts into water which can extinguish fire." "So, I guess I owe you thanks, Diana," I said generously. "Thank you." "Oh, it was nothing. And, besides, I couldn't do it without my guardian." "Your guardian?" "Oh. You don't know about that either. Every shaman gets to find his or her own guardian or guardian ghost." "How will I find mine?" "Oh, it'll come to you someday. You'll know when you find it." "I still can't believe my parents never told me. I was always wondering why they didn't want me to go outside or meet other people." "They did what! Are you serious!" Diana exclaimed. "That is just not right. Just because you're different they don't want you to meet anyone. I would have exploded!" "Yeah, I know. I guess you can say I really did explode," I said comically. We all laughed and laughed, and our laughter floated on the wind and into the far away mountains. Little did I know that the road ahead wouldn't be easy. In fact it was just beginning. The first step: talk to my parents.
