The Crimson Brand (19 page)

“No problem,” Katie said, retrieving the black wand but not handing it back to Zoe.  Penny thought that was probably a good idea.  “There’s a lot of that going around tonight.”

“Excellent,” Ronan said.  “I believe Penny has something she would like to share, now that everyone is present.”

Penny wondered if the local pet store stocked muzzles to go with the bell Katie kept threatening him with.

All eyes were on her now: Ronan’s expectant, his usual foxy grin a little more on the mischievous side than was typical; Katie’s surprised, curious; Zoe’s bleary, barely focused.

Where to start?  The part where I can fly, or the part where I was caught flying?

Or maybe the part where I realized that my mother and aunt pulled the old twin-swicharoo on everyone, that Aunt Nancy pretended to be my mother, Diana, right up until the day she died in that plane crash
.

So then where is your mom, Little Red
?

Maybe gone off to look for Big Red
.

Who knew?  Maybe Ronan did, but if he hadn’t told her yet he wasn’t likely to. 

Probably thinks it's too much for my little brain to handle
.

She felt a sudden flair of anger toward him.

“Earth to Penny,” Katie said, snapping her fingers in front of Penny’s face, making her flinch.  “We need you down here, little red one.”

Penny felt her anger turn toward her friend and had to struggle to keep her hands at her side.  They wanted to leap out at Katie—hit her, push her, replace the irritation on her face with one of fear.  She felt warmth flood her body, felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rise, and knew she could conjure fire with nothing more than a thought.  She would get her wish then, to see fear in Katie’s eyes.

Her anger ebbed at once.

“Penny,” Zoe reached for her and Penny stepped back.

Even Ronan seemed uneasy now, tensed as if to spring among them.

Penny sighed and sat down.

“I learned how to fly,” she said, and whoops of excitement broke the tense silence that had grown between them.

“Are you serious?”  Katie shouted, no doubt startling every wild thing from here to town into hiding.

“Very cool,” Zoe said, jumping to her feet and gawking at her.  She was wide awake now, no coffee needed.

“Excellent!”  Katie rushed Penny, almost knocking her down in her enthusiasm, and picked her up in a rib-straining hug.

As soon as her feet hit the ground again Zoe picked her up and twirled her, making her feel like a red-headed rag doll.  Also making her feel even worse about what she still hadn't told them.

“Now you can teach us!”

“Whoa,” Penny retreated as Katie and Zoe showed every sign of wanting to lift her onto their shoulders and march her around in celebration.  “Sit down ... please!”

Zoe and Katie sat but were unable to sit still.  They fidgeted and bounced, and Penny knew she’d have to speak quickly before they lost their thin thread of control. 

“Someone saw me,” Penny blurted, getting it out as quickly as she could and bracing for the worst possible reaction.

When the worst didn’t happen, Penny dared to look up again.

Their manic joy had departed, but the anticipated anger at her stupidity was not in their faces.  Both watched Ronan and seemed comforted by his calm acceptance.

“Well,” Katie said cautiously to Ronan, “you’re taking it better than I expected.”

“You already knew,” Zoe said to Ronan, and when she turned back to Penny her face registered excitement again.  “If he’s not furious then I guess we’re not in trouble.”

“So ... who was it?”  Katie looked like she was reserving judgment until she knew the whole story.

“If I may offer a suggestion,” Ronan said, and found himself at the center of attention again.  “Why tell them when you can show them?  She’s waiting, and she did keep her word.”

Penny agreed.  She moved to the door on wobbly legs, pulled her wand, touched the door.  Then she knocked and stepped back.

A few seconds passed, and tension grew thick inside the hollow.

Zoe and Katie watched the door without blinking, without even breathing, it seemed to Penny.

Then the door opened, and Ellen stepped through, looking more nervous than Penny felt.

“Hi, guys,” Ellen said, then noticed Ronan as he leapt to his favorite low limb on the old ash.  “Hi, Ronan.”  She regarded them individually, but briefly, before turning her gaze to the tips of her shoes.  Penny didn’t think she’d ever seen Ellen this reserved.  “So, you’re … uh … like her?”

She nodded in Penny’s direction before facing her feet again.

Then, almost fearfully, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

Penny turned to Zoe and Katie, her eyebrows raised with the unasked question, the one they would all have to say yes to.

Katie’s response was immediate, a smile and a nod.

Zoe’s took longer.  She watched Ellen for a long moment, frowning in concentration.  Penny thought she was trying to imagine Little Miss Congeniality fighting off monsters like the Birdman.  Whether or not she could, Zoe finally shrugged, then nodded.

“It’s agreed then?”  Ronan stood above them all, looking more pleased than Penny had seen him for months.  Penny knew for Ronan there had never been any doubt.  He’d accepted her as easily as he had Katie.

Ellen looked up at his words, her anxiety returning.  “What’s agreed?”

She took a step backward toward the door, giving the wand in Penny’s hand a mistrusting look.

By way of explanation, Penny held the wand out to her handle first.

Ellen put her hands safely behind her back and shook her head.  “No … I can’t ….”

“Can’t what?”  Zoe asked, raising a sardonic eyebrow.  “Can’t do this?”

Zoe took the wand from Penny and shot a fireball into the guttering fire.  The flames swelled and leapt upward, painting Ellen’s startled face with bright light.

“Or this,” Zoe said, plucking a stone from the dirt and throwing it into the air.  She aimed her wand at it, and it stopped in midair.  With a flourish, she pointed the wand at the granite cliff face on the other side of the creek, and the stone flew like a bullet toward it, smashing itself to dust with a loud crack.

“Or maybe this,” she said, now grinning mischievously as she pressed the palm of her left hand against one of the willow trees ringing the hollow.  The tree seemed to shiver itself to life, and several slender and leafy whips snaked down from the canopy of green above them.  They reached playfully for Ellen as she darted and dodged them.

“I can’t do
that
,” Katie said, sounding impressed.

Zoe withdrew her hand from the tree’s truck, and the whips returned to their places in the braided green canopy.  Then she advanced on Ellen.

“Zoe, stop.”  If she was trying to prove a point, Penny thought she was going too far.

Ellen backed away another step, then stopped and stood her ground, her normally open, friendly face contracting into something like anger.  “No, I can’t, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let you push me around!”

“That’s all I wanted to know,” Zoe said, and reversed her grip on the wand, offering it to Ellen.  “The only reason you can’t do any of those things is because you haven’t tried yet.”

Zoe’s initial indecision seemed to be gone now.  She looked eager for Ellen to take the wand from her, and Penny thought she knew why.  Ellen had stood up for herself, held her ground and faced Zoe, with no friends behind her and without a wand of her own.

“Just take it,” Katie urged.  “You won’t believe it until you see for yourself.”

“You’re like us,” Penny said.  “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be on a first-name basis with Ronan.”

Ellen turned doubtful eyes on Penny, but took the offered wand from Zoe’s hand.

Ellen’s eyes widened as her fingers closed around the handle.  A low crackle of energy seemed to jump from her hand and into the weathered wood, and the tip flashed once, brightly, before conjuring a wind that filled the hollow, stirring dust and fallen leaves into a vortex then spun with her at its center.

The wand dropped from her hand, landed between her feet, and the wind died at once.

For nearly a minute no one spoke. 

Katie watched Ellen closely, almost rude in her interest.

Zoe had a smug smile, its full force aimed at Ellen.

Ronan was curled up and resting on his limb, looking almost smugger than Zoe.

Ellen’s hands had returned behind her back.  She didn’t bend to pick up the dropped wand, but her eyes never left it, either.

Penny guessed it was up to her.

“We belong to a …,” Penny couldn’t seem to find the right word for what they belong to.

“A coven,” Katie offered helpfully.

“An ancient and sacred order,” Zoe stated grandly, but spoiled the effect by bursting into a fit of the giggles. 

“Whatever it is we belong to,” Penny said, firing Zoe a look designed to convey the seriousness of what she was trying to say, though she couldn’t help the smile that surfaced on her own face, “we would like you to join us.”

Zoe folded her arms and regarded Ellen with a look that said,
Of course you want to join us
.

Katie smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

“But you need to understand the risks before you decide.”

Penny took a seat by the fire pit and motioned for Ellen to do the same.

When Zoe and Katie were seated as well, Penny began to speak.

They took turns, picking up the narrative from one another.

They told Ellen their story.

*   *   *

The night ended on a hopeful, almost jovial note.  Penny forgot for the night that she was angry with their benefactor, and telling and rehearing all they had been through reminded her of how much she treasured Zoe and Katie.  Indeed, all three girls seemed to have gotten past their sleep-deprived grumpiness.  The mood in the hollow was friendlier than it had been in weeks.  And as their story came to a close with Penny telling about the making of the circle, even Ellen’s initial anxiety seemed to have gone. 

She relaxed and smiled encouragement as they passed off the story from one to the next, and when the story was finished, Penny thought Ellen had to restrain herself from clapping.  She didn’t seem to have any doubts left.  She’d seen too much that day, felt the possibilities when she’d held the wand for herself.

“Can I have some time to think about it?”

“Time to think about it?”  Zoe repeated this as if it were the most ridiculous request she’d ever heard.

“This isn’t like joining the cheerleading squad,” Ellen said.  “And that was more of a commitment than I wanted to make when they asked me.”

Katie nodded and said, “We won’t push you into it.  You know we want you to join … you’ve already passed the tryouts.”

“What is the cheerleading squad,” Ronan asked, as if hearing about a potential rival for the first time.

“Popular girls in uniform skirts,” Zoe said dismissively.  “Waving their pom-poms at boys with padded shoulders.”

Ellen nodded her agreement with Zoe’s assessment, and Ronan seemed satisfied.

“You
should
take some time,” Penny said.  “You already know we tend to attract trouble.”

“That’s not entirely accurate, Little Red,” Ronan said.  He stood on his high perch above the girls and stretched before leaping down to join them.  “Trouble was already coming.  This town was lucky you girls were here to meet it.”

“I don’t know where I’d be right now if you two hadn’t saved me that night.”  Katie sounded uncharacteristically grave.  She faced Ellen.  “You were at Tovar’s show, too.  For all we know you might have been the next to vanish.”

“When trouble comes again,” Ronan said, walking right up to Ellen, who for a wonder didn’t try to shrink away from him.  All four girls were listening eagerly.  “Four ready wands would certainly be better than three.  And it
is
coming.”

He sprinted for the creek, leapfrogging from the ash’s arching roots to the stone ledge on the other side.  He disappeared into his cave.

“He’s an odd thing, isn’t he?” Ellen said, smiling.

“You have no idea,” Katie said.

A moment later he emerged with something in his mouth.  He leapt the rushing waters of Little Canyon Creek again and stopped at Ellen’s feet, dropping a small mirror.

Ellen recognized it immediately and bent to pick it up.  “I had one of these, but it disappeared last winter.”

Turning safely away from Ellen, Ronan winked at the others.  Penny wondered how many homes he’d had to burgle to find them all.

“Keep it with you,” Ronan said.  “If you need us, whisper one of our names into it.  If we need you, we’ll do the same.”

Penny, Zoe and Katie each held up their own.

Ellen nodded in apparent appreciation.  “Like a cell phone without time limits?”

A minute later Ellen stepped through the door and back into her own dark room.  She paused just beyond the threshold, turned back to study the others, then shook her head in wonder.  She closed the door.

“So,” Zoe said, turning back to Penny with an air of getting back to some important and almost forgotten business.  “When do our flying lessons start?”