The sky brightened when the sun rose and became dark when it fell. This was the natural order of things.

Order was great. It kept everyone’s lives on the right track—only altered by their own actions. When morning came, the adults went to work by the rhythmic chime from the center of town, and when night began to fall, a softer song called them in from afar to gather and prepare for the night.

The night. It was always dark.

Until that one night.

I was told it was something I would only experience once until long after my own children were grown. My family and I, and everyone else—we all sang and danced around the village as the stars began to shimmer. Once the sun fell fully beneath the distant canopies, a flickering flame grew.

They told me what would happen. I thought I understood.

But I didn’t really get it.

It was enough of a joy to simply bring water to those who were thirsty.

They said we would be in charge in a matter of years, but it never made much sense to me. I was born a mere ten years ago, and I didn’t feel ready to be in charge of anything. My friends were smarter, more talented… All I could do was follow directions.

How beautiful our village was—how quiet, and peaceful. Somehow it seemed more important than whatever the adults wanted to do with it. Was it so wrong to feel that way?

On that night we were visited by a legendary creature. The mighty heron whose life may never extinguish flew overhead. At the time I thought our village called it by paying tribute—everything we had ever worked for in exchange for a mere glance.

Then I found out the mighty phoenix didn’t even deign to grace us with its presence. It was her.

While those who cherished their own ways tried to destroy our visitor’s home with their flames, she saw fit to make our festival the most memorable since its founding. The true heron passed over our island long ago—but everyone who saw it had become fertilizer for one half of our island or the other by now.

Perhaps there was no meaning to its visit. Perhaps it was only passing through. Perhaps the heron’s vitality was not something that could be replicated by mortals.

And finally, perhaps there was no reason to burn our village down.

That woman felt akin to the Heron in my eyes. I doubt there was any meaning to her visit. Her vitality was something to question as she exhausted herself helping the adults move lumber for some reason, but even her foreign eyes twinkled under the village’s flame, though I thought they looked somewhat sullen as she rose into the sky.

If there was a Heron to be witnessed by my generation, wasn’t it her?

After the festival, everyone was still happy. It was difficult to say whether it was the spirit of the Heron or she who brought it to life, but everyone young enough to dream wanted to do more with it than their lot in life. It was almost infectious among us children.

My friends and I all practiced sorcery. Myrtle showed enough talent to conjure her own heron in a few years, where all I managed was to fill a glass or two with water. My skills were improving by the day, though, I thought.

That sorceress took an interest in Pita, but it seemed that’s just because they stumbled upon each other by chance. Even his ramblings about the things she said offhandedly helped me grow stronger. At the end of the day, one could do whatever they wanted to do so long as they had the courage to try it.

I know now this is highly nuanced, but it would be difficult to say she was wrong at this point.

After the festival we all had roofs over our heads before long. Until then, the stars were strangely comforting to sleep under. Nights were almost always clear and warm with just a single blanket.

The sky brightened when the sun rose and became dark when it fell. This was the natural order of things.

Except for once in a while.

Until that second night.

I awoke to the sounds of my parents’ frightened voices. Dad ran out the door to see what was going on and I heard half a second of blistering torment in his wails until something bubbled. Then there was nothing.

Mom’s defeated cries echoed through the house as I heard her knees crash into the floor. The pain in her voice was palpable, and my blood curdled from the withering vibrato. As if her being had crumbled with the evacuation of her lungs, harrowing sobs were only drowned out in the likened screams of my neighbors.

I wanted to ask Mom what to do. I still didn’t really know what was going on, but she couldn’t help me any longer. She couldn’t even tell me where Dad went.

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I ran out the front door as tears evaporated from my face. There was a small crater not far outside that smelled of far-overcooked meat, and I ran past it with both hands clenching my face to block the odor.

Mark, Jennifer, Susie and her parents—they came running out of their homes. Susie’s face looked strange, like it was falling off and her screams resembled a few of the others I heard around me.

Everyone was in a panic. The fear and confusion had spread to me, and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even tell what was happening—I just knew it was bad.

The sky was alight as it had been on the festival, but the flames were far more sinister.

Why is this happening again?

I couldn’t help but ask myself.

When I turned around, I realized my own house was on fire.

Mom… She’s still inside.

I mustered everything I could—every once of strength I had… and a couple glasses of water splashed against our porch which the flames hadn’t even reached yet.

Why can’t I make more water? I’m doing something wrong. I have to be.

I didn’t know why I couldn’t do it right, but quenching such a fierce fire was beyond my ability no matter how I looked at it.

What did I think I was going to do with a pitcher of water?

So stupid. Naïve.

A gust of wind blasted hot air out of the front door and threw me into the road. As I swatted hot embers from my face, I opened my eyes to see a different village. One where my house didn’t exist. In its place, a pile of charcoal and blackened logs.

No…

“Mom—” My words died in my throat as I tried to process what I saw. As a mere child, I had no concept of what had happened to my mom at the time, only that something bad had happened.

She was inside the house crying over whatever tragedy that had befallen us, and then our house was gone. It was silent save for the sound of cinder and ash.

There was pain. Intense, gut-wrenching pain that threatened to burn a hole through my frail body. I couldn’t go back inside my house. I couldn’t find Mom, and Dad left somewhere. I didn’t even know where to look.

I fell backwards and my vision was obscured by something that wasn’t quite water. It trailed down my face and felt cold under the furling heat around me.

After an indeterminate amount of time, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Lily, is that you?” It was Sam’s comforting voice, and it was the first thing to make me feel at ease since I awoke, “I’m so glad I found y—”

Like our mayor was gargling saltwater before bed, his words fell apart.

“M-Mr. Mayor…?” I turned my head and he slumped to the ground. A large metal arrow as tall as I was stuck out of his chest.

“R-run… please—” Even the flames that glimmered in the whites of his eyes seemed to dull rapidly. “You have to—”

His outstretched hand fell limp to the ground, and I watched the color drain from his face.

No… Sam…

Mom… Where are you?

Dad? Why did you leave?

Watching the life fade from Sam’s eyes, I could begin to imagine the fate of the others. It felt as if anyone on the island I couldn’t see had met that same fate.

No.

Stop burning.

Please…

The moon was nearly full, and I caught a glimpse of a large ship with a single mast. It disappeared between bursts of flame.

Was it you…?

The heat gradually dissipated around me.

Why… would you do this? Why would anyone do this?

My immature mind did not need to grasp details. It had enough of them.

Can’t I do anything… that I want? So long as I have the courage… All I ever wanted was to see the smile on someone’s face when they drink a cold glass of water after a long day working under the hot sun. I just don’t think that’s enough.

Such small dreams.

How could I…?

This island doesn’t need refreshments.

It needs rain.

I fell to my knees. My mother’s sobs resounded, or those like hers, and they echoed in the night sky from countless razed homes.

Only rain can douse this fire. If it doesn’t, there will be nothing left. Nothing but ash.

As my tears fell to the warm soot, the world’s weight lessened. I almost seemed lighter. Wind broke in sudden, sharp gusts, and I felt a sudden chill.

My knees had dug into the dirt, but the pain of my bruises disappeared in an instant. I felt a cool breeze blow through but somehow, I couldn’t feel it against my cheek. My tears had dried up now, while throes of torment rang over the treetops from every direction. It was as if all the pain on this island reached me.

Drip.

A slender leaf let loose a single drop of water. A moment later, another. As it picked up over the next couple minutes, rain began to fall unbidden like tears from a single dark cloud in the sky. This rain was heavier than usual. The orange and red flickers of light from the festival were diminished for a deep blue that carried the tragedy and weight of the multitude of lives that were extinguished in a matter of minutes for no reason at all.

Where… where am I?

The place where my house should be was nothing but ash, along with most nearby. The place where I curled up on the ground in useless agony was just a wet spot in the soil now, while flames across the island dwindled under heavy rain.

Perhaps it’s better this way.

___

It rained for two whole days after the pirates came, and that storm cloud never left. Almost like it was waiting for the next fire. At least half of us died, many of which were the adults who tried to keep us safe. It didn’t seem they were able to do anything in the end. Now that my father, Sam, was gone. Nobody really knew what to do.

But there was only one thing we knew we could do—and that was to rebuild. This time around, everyone was sullen as we scoured the island for wood that wasn’t burned. Not much of the forest remained, and we had to cut some of it down anyway just to put roofs over our heads.

They didn’t turn out very well this time either… And nobody said a word about the festival. Not once. I didn’t even hear the word ‘heron’.

Maybe the Heron guided us in the past, but this time our people burned together with the village. Unlike the Heron, they would never rise from the ashes. After that night, it seemed our island had a new guardian deity. Another existence to revere, for better or for worse.

Instead of disappearing for centuries, never to be seen again, this one didn’t seem to want to leave, for better or for worse.

Who am I to guess at its intentions? But it saved us from the flames of destruction. Nobody knows where it came from, or why it took an interest in our pitiful island, but everyone here has welcomed the Rain Mother with gratitude and awe. Some of the younger kids—it’s all they talk about now. Something for them to be cheerful about seemed to make all the difference these days.

Myrtle, Susie, and the other kids often took shade under the cloud on particularly hot days when the sun would reach its peak, and the Rain Mother seemed happy to release a light shower to cool them off. They danced around and played in the rain anytime it was too hot, sometimes for hours.

I can’t help but think that if that girl Lily had survived the second festival, she would have loved it.