Rebirthing Season

By Elizabeth Anne Myrick

Zach Allenbaum swore it was the perfect spring-break gig. Paid lodging in Manhattan and enough cash for tickets to a Yankees’ game. All we had to do was help clean up a few phoenix nests.

“Good things are coming, Brady.” Zach clapped me on the back as we signed the contract. “I swear it.”

Zach Allenbaum was an idiot. I should have known better. But those dang Yankees tickets…

On our start day, the uniform was my first clue that this job might not be so perfect. The yellowish jumpsuit was made of slick material stained with something I didn’t want to think about.

Then our supervisor took us to the worksite.

Zach and I gawked into the open Manhattan sewer.

I whirled on Zach. “Good things, you said?”

Our supervisor dropped a broom and fire extinguisher at our feet. “Shift ends at 4:30. Don’t take the subway. We get too many complaints.”

“Gee, I wonder why.” I yanked the mask over my head, but it only dampened the stench. It was worse than the community bathroom we shared with twenty other freshman guys—even after burrito night in the cafeteria.

The supervisor grinned as if this was the best part of his job. “Welcome to rebirthing season, boys.”

Switching on our headlamps, we slogged into the guts of the city. The first nest we found was still smoldering. Growing up in Maine, I expected nests of fresh pine boughs, budding wildflowers, and the pleasant scent of woodsmoke. Here, the phoenix had used whatever it could find: food wrappers, grocery bags, even an old pair of underwear. The thing was a charred, smoking heap. Flames still flickered around the remnants of a Happy Meal box.

I blasted it with the fire extinguisher.

“Not even Yankees tickets are worth this,” I groaned as Zach swept the broom through the pile, checking for live coals. “You owe me at least a week of stats homework.”

He shoveled the remnants of the nest into a garbage bag in silence.

As we trudged through the dark, extinguishing nest after nest, I thought of our supervisor’s warning: “Phoenixes are basically just pigeons crossed with flamethrowers. The city’d go up in smoke if we didn’t keep them in check.” He’d said it like a pep talk, but he was right. With the multitude of flaming nests, the underbelly of Manhattan could ignite at any minute. It’d just take one phoenix too many.

Near the end of shift, we’d demolished at least fifty nests, and I made Zach promise to do a month’s worth of stats, literature, and biology homework, and two months of laundry.

Then we saw the girl.

She was crouched in the middle of a drainpipe with her jeans rolled to her knees and a camera at her eye. A shaft of sunlight from a drain above sliced across her freckled cheek.

Zach and I froze. I squinted at her back. She couldn’t have come willingly. That would make her more idiotic than Zach.

“Hey!” Zach shouted.

She spun, brackish water splashing around her ankles. Her eyes were an earthy brown and curls framed her face.

Just my luck. The sewer girl was gorgeous.

“Are you trying to scare it off?” She curled her lip like we were the most disgusting thing she’d seen all day. A diaper drifted past her ankle. “Shut up, all right?”

Zach started to turn back down the passage, but I remained rooted.

“Uh… what are you doing?”

She didn’t answer, but the look she offered was softer. She motioned for me to come closer.

I sloshed through the muck to stand at her side.

A phoenix nest was tucked into the corner, but unlike the others, this one was occupied. The creature trembled, its head resting on a Pepsi bottle. It was the size of a chicken with dull red feathers and a scraggly tail draped over the edge of the nest. When my headlamp shone on it, it gave a pitiful squawk.

“He comes every year,” the girl whispered. Her camera clicked. “Have you seen one before?”

“No,” I whispered back. The phoenix looked at me with rheumy eyes. An ember glowed at the tip of its tail.

Zach splashed up behind us.

“Shh!” the girl and I both hissed.

A spark sputtered on the phoenix’s wing, and then a trace of smoke raced along its spine.

The creature closed its eyes.

It erupted in flame, and I stumbled back as heat seared my face. Zach cursed. The girl’s camera clicked.

When the flames died down, the newly birthed phoenix sat in the nest’s charred remnants. Its feathers gleamed like pennies. It stretched its wings, the tips brushing the grimy walls of the pipe. Opening its beak, it sang, the sound as sweet and uplifting as the National Anthem before a game. With a single flap of its wings, it darted up through the drain and disappeared.

The girl let out a breath. Tears trembled on her lashes, and she brushed them away. “Sorry,” she choked. “It’s my favorite part of spring. Even with…” She motioned at our surroundings.

“It’s okay.” I gave her shoulder an awkward pat, my gaze locked on the empty nest. “Me too.”

Zach lifted the fire extinguisher and doused the flames. “Let’s get outta here.”

The girl led us to the nearest open manhole. Sweet afternoon air filled my nostrils as I hefted myself out of the sewer. As Zach followed, a skateboarder swerved to avoid his head.

In the sunlight, the girl’s hair shone the same copper as a phoenix feather, and I stared. I’d never seen such beauty before. Zach Allenbaum might’ve been an idiot, but it occurred to me that he could be right, too. Something good was coming.

She brushed a curl behind her ear, and her next words were sweeter than the phoenix song.

“Wanna grab some pizza?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Anne Myrick was born in Missouri, grew her imagination along the rim of Kenya’s Rift Valley, and spent her early adulthood exploring the beauty of Germany’s Black Forest. An avid fan of fairy tales, iced coffee, and rain on a tin roof, she writes stories of hope sprinkled with magic. She lives in Kansas City with three roommates, two dogs, and one severely overworked vacuum cleaner.

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