The Crimson Brand (12 page)

Penny could sense another dodge coming and determined to prevent it.

“I already know my house used to be an orphanage for girls, and that my great-grandmother grew up there.”  She paused to enjoy the effect of her words on Ronan.  “I don’t know when she bought the place, but I do know my grandmother grew up there, too.  Were they all …?”

“Yes,” Ronan said.  “They were.  That’s as far back as my knowledge goes, but you’re right.  I suspect what you’re interested in is a little more recent, though.”

Penny nodded, waited.

“Your mother and aunt, Susan, Kat’s aunt, and their friend Janet … they were the last, and your grandmother was their teacher.”  He rose, stretched, jumped to the ground, and began to pace.  “Your grandparents were both dead when I entered the picture, but I’ve gleaned that much from … other sources.”

“And on the night I was born?”

“On the night you were born,” he paused, as if considering his next words carefully.  “That was the night everything went horribly wrong for them.”

“What happened?”

Ronan stopped pacing and fixed her with a stare.  “You must know by now you girls aren’t the only ones who can do what you do.”

“Like Tovar?”

“Yes,” Ronan nodded.  “Like him.  The others are from another place, far away, but they come here from time to time; and when they discovered your mother’s circle of friends, these others determined to stop them.”

Penny felt herself grow cold and wasn’t sure if she wanted him to answer her next question.

“What did the others do?”

“They sent representatives here to watch and to learn and, when the time was right, to sabotage.”

“How?”

Ronan took a deep breath, exhaled slowly.  “They befriended your mother and the rest of them and destroyed them from within.”

Penny waited, arms crossed.

“Only hours after your birth, one of your mother’s friends betrayed the rest, and when the circle broke, she stole something from them.”

Penny was beginning to feel the chill from her dunk in the creek.  That was what she told herself, at least.  She had begun to shake slightly.  “What did she take from them?”

“Their memories,” Ronan said.  “Of everything to do with Aurora Hollow.”

Penny’s arms dropped into her lap and she sagged against the ash.

“Mom would never talk about her past with me,” she said.  “And the one time Susan did … it was like there was nothing in the world she wouldn’t rather do.”

“It can be painful,” Ronan said, “when you have to think past holes in your memory.  It can also be dangerous.  They will never know what they’re missing, but for them the past is a book they never want to open again.”

“Which one was it?”  Penny leaned closer to him, one hand on her knee, the other gripping her wand.  “Which one of them was it?”

“No,” Ronan said, and shook his head, twice, firmly.  “I won’t tell you that.  No good could come from you knowing.”

Penny shot to her feet.  “Why not?  You can tell me the rest of it, but not that?”

“Penny, you needed to know the rest of it.”  He paced back and forth in front of her.  “Those others know about you now.  They know the Phoenix Girls are back, and they’ll try to stop you, which is why you three need to learn as much as you can as quickly as you can.  You have to be ready!”

Penny’s agitation grew. 

“How?  How are we supposed to fight off people who have been doing this their whole lives?”

“You did okay against Tovar.” 

“That was luck,” Penny said.  She hated to admit it, probably because she knew how true it was. 

“Some of it was,” Ronan conceded, but he remained unperturbed.  “Most of it was courage and intuition.”

“He underestimated us.  He thought we were a couple of silly little girls, and he underestimated us.”

“Well,” Ronan said, his hackles rising, “the others won’t.  They will come, and they will
not
underestimate you.  They take you seriously.  If you don’t start taking
yourselves
seriously, then they
will
beat you, easily.  You three need to learn.”

“Then we might as well snap our wands and just give up!”  Penny told Ronan what had happened at the party and that Katie was banned from her house.

“Well, that certainly complicates things,” Ronan said, sounding only mildly concerned.

“
Complicates
?”  Penny nearly shouted.  “She’ll never be able to come here again.”

“Never say
never
,” Ronan advised.  “The situation with her father may work itself out sooner than you think.”

“But ….”

“And in the meantime ….”  He rose and sprinted to the door wedged between two scrawny willows.  “Bring that wand of yours over here.”

Her irritation turned to excitement as she realized what he was about to do.  It was one of the things he had always steadfastly refused to help them with in the past.  Today, however, things seemed to have changed.

“This is risky,” he warned her.  “You can never know who might be standing on the other side of a distant door, so you must promise me never to take unnecessary chances.”

“Okay,” Penny said, nearly breathless with anticipation.  “I promise.”

“I’m not sure if this is a good idea.  The temptation to use tools like this might prove too much some day.”

“We’ll be good,” Penny assured him. 

Ronan nodded in the direction of the door.

“Come here then.”

It was so simple that Penny felt stupid for not having figured it out herself. 

*   *   *

By Sunday night things at home were pretty much back to routine, Susan curled up in her favorite living room chair with a book before making dinner, Penny helping in the kitchen when Susan would allow, homework, and finally some time playing on the internet.  Penny had had internet in her apartment in the city and had spent much of her days back then either playing online or watching television.  After almost a year of small-town life, with the freedom to go just about anywhere she wanted without constant adult supervision, she didn’t particularly enjoy idle time spent in front of a screen.

Sunday night routine was all about mental preparation, Penny thought.  For the coming school week, or work week in Susan’s case.  It was an early-to-bed night.

But not that night.

She already had it planned out.  First Zoe, then together, they would surprise Katie and maybe give her one thing to be happy about.

“Bedtime, kiddo,” Susan said on her way past the kitchen to the stairs.

“Okay.”  She closed the laptop and slid it into the recently emptied top drawer of the kitchen buffet.

Better not to have the temptation of the internet in her bedroom on school nights, Susan had explained.  Penny was fine with that, since the internet wasn’t high on her list of temptations anyway. 

“G’nite,” Penny called as she climbed the ladder to her attic room. She heard Susan’s reply, something about bedbugs. 

She waited for a quarter hour, making sure Susan was done roaming the house for the night, then used her mirror to call on Zoe.

“Hey Penny.”  Zoe looked surprised but pleased.  “What’s going on?  Something wrong?”

“Nope,” Penny said, almost giddy with excitement.  “Is your grandma sleeping?”

“When isn’t she sleeping?”  Zoe sat up and Penny saw her perspective shift, giving her a good view of her small closet’s door. 

“Good.  We’ll talk again in a few seconds.”  Penny slid from her own bed and approached her new wardrobe.  “Just try not to scream, okay?”

“Uh, sure … okay.”  Zoe looked beyond puzzled now.

Penny said “goodbye,” and Zoe’s face faded from her mirror.

Penny stopped in front of her wardrobe and considered. 

Zoe’s closet door opens outward, so
….

She opened the door and stepped inside, pushing a few coats and hanging shirts aside.  The good thing about being a pip-squeak, she decided, was being able to fit easily into a small wardrobe.

She closed her eyes, although the complete darkness inside the wardrobe made it unnecessary, and touched the tip of her wand to the door.  She visualized the room on the other side of this door, not as her own, but Zoe’s.  She imagined Zoe sitting on the edge of her bed on the other side at that very moment, waiting for something strange to happen.  She could almost hear Zoe grumbling about it now.

Penny shoved on the door with her free hand, but it stayed shut, resisting Penny’s attempt to push it open.

What
?

Then she understood what was wrong, there was a doorknob on Zoe’s side of the door, but not hers, and knocked instead.

There was indeed a short squeal of surprise from the other side of the door.

“Come on, Zoe.  It’s me.  Let me in.”

A moment later the door swung open, and Zoe stood on the other side, mouth gaping and eyes wide.

It had worked
!

Penny grinned hugely at her and stepped from the inside of her wardrobe into Zoe’s bedroom.

“You figured it out?”  Zoe bounced up and down in place, and Penny thought she was resisting the urge to scream with excitement.

“No, Ronan showed me,” Penny admitted.  “And don’t scream … you’ll wake your grandma.”

“A little warning would have been nice, you know,” Zoe said, but her smile remained, belying any real anger.  “The last time something came out of my closet it was ten feet tall, had wings, and tried to kidnap me.”

Penny hadn’t thought about that.

“Maybe we should give Kat a heads-up before we step through?”  Penny made the suggestion, but it took a bit of the joy out of her.

Zoe considered this for a moment before shaking her head.  “Naw.  That’s no fun.”

A minute later Zoe was talking to Katie.

“You alone right now?”

“I was sleeping,” Katie grumbled.  Penny heard her yawn.  “Everyone’s in bed.  Well, technically my dad is on the couch.”

“Good,” Zoe said.  “We’ll talk to you again in a minute.”

Katie said goodbye and Zoe tossed her mirror onto her bed.

“You ready?”

“Wait, does Kat’s closet door open in or out?”  Penny didn’t know how much this mattered, strictly speaking, but didn’t want any screw-ups.

“In, I think,” Zoe said.  She’d been to Katie’s house a few times, but Penny had never gone.  Katie didn’t think it would be good for her father to arrive home early from work some day to find
that girl
sitting in his living room.  “It’s a walk-in.”

Penny passed her wand to Zoe and told her what to do.

They stood outside her closet door for a minute, Zoe’s eyes pinched shut, visualizing for all she was worth, then Zoe said, “Okay, lets go.”

Penny turned the knob and pulled the door open.

Katie greeted them with a barely stifled shriek.

Morgan Duke strolled down Dogwood’s Main Street, enjoying the inquisitive looks from the townies, enjoying the clear sky and mild spring weather even more.  Although his almost daily visits with the lovely Susan Taylor were strictly business, he found he enjoyed playing the part of the smitten older man with her much more than he usually did.  Her answer was the same that day as always, but he found that after every new application of his charm her eyes softened a bit and her smile came more naturally. 

He couldn’t fathom why that piece of ground was so important to her.  At the price he was now offering, double fair market value, she should have been leaping in the aisles of her little shop while visions of dollar signs danced in her head, but she persisted in her polite refusal to sell, at any price.

This was outside his experience.  Everyone had their price.